Badminton's Struggle For Popularity and Power

In many parts of the world, especially Europe and America, tennis is a more popular sport than badminton. But in some parts of Asia, badminton could be considered as the more dominant sport of the two. However, tennis is widely recognised as more popular than badminton. If you were to ask a person on the high street to name a tennis player, anyone at all, they probably could. Nearly everyone knows Roger Federer don't they? They could probably name a few; Roddick, Murray, Sharapova, the Williams Sisters....ect - many are household names. But if you were to ask a person on the high street to name a badminton player, they would probably be unable to answer. Out of your friends, who knows Lin Dan or Lee Chong Wei? Not even the world no.1 is a household name -at least not in most parts of the world. National tennis players are celebrities or even heroes in their own countries. I doubt badminton players will get the same level of reception

It's not just popularity where badminton falls behind the mighty sport of tennis. The amount of professional players in tennis far exceed those of who make a living out of badminton. The considerably smaller audience in badminton means that less money is funded into the sport and only a select few from a single country are likely to turn professional. Recently a Scotland No.1 ranked player complained that he had to fund his trips to several international badminton tournaments out of his own pocket, because the Badminton Scotland has withdrawn his funding - and he is the best badminton player in his country. You wouldn't see Andy Murray being told that he had to put his hand into his own pocket to travel to various grandslam tournaments.

An era where badminton becomes a major, mainstream sport seems far out of sight for the time being. Sponsorship in tennis is widespread, with companies like Wilson, Prince, Head, Babolat, Slazenger and Dunlop all wanting their slice of market share. In contrast, Yonex dominates the badminton market and its firm grip on tournament sponsorships and market share look to continue. Badminton tournaments aren't headline news either. News coverage of badminton events are minimal, if at all and live coverage of badminton events on television are scarce. Meanwhile tennis events such as Wimbledon is big news on the back pages of many national newspapers and practically every round is shown on national television - at least in the UK anyway. It remains for now, that tennis is is probably a more popular sport in terms of the amount of people playing it and also the amount of money pumped into the sport comapared to badminton. The total prize money for Wimbledon is £12.5 million, whereas the the total prize money for most badminton grand slam tournaments is £100,000 - thats 1% of the amount of prize money compared to tennis.

However, there have been improvements in the awareness of badminton in recent years. The stereotypical image of badminton being a garden sport is changing. If several companies were to successfully attempt to dethrone Yonex as the king of badminton manufacturers or at least attempt to give them a run for their money, more money could circulate into the sport. If a company were to mass market badminton and advertise it to a national audience, it may attract popularity and gain increased exposure. But again, at this moment in time, this remains a big "if".