Punch: We need to look at the commercial aspect of World Championships




PETALING JAYA: The Badminton World Federation (BWF) executive deputy president Datuk Punch Gunalan defended their decision to make the World Championships an annual affair, saying that they need to look at the bigger picture like the commercial aspect of it.
Punch was commenting on Olympics and Asian Games champion Taufik Hidayat's statement yesterday that the world meet had become boring since it became an annual affair last year.
The world championships, which offer no prize money, were introduced in 1977 and the first two editions were held three years apart before becoming a biennial affair. It became an annual event last year but no championship will be held in the Olympic year, which is next year.
Said Punch: "We appreciate the views made by Taufik on the sequence of the World Championships. It's a valid point. In fact, we have had such suggestions made to us in the past on whether we should host the championships yearly or biennially.
"But at the same time, we need to look at the bigger picture as far as the World Championships is concerned, like from the marketing and sponsorship aspect and other angles.
"The BWF council is meeting this Saturday and I believe we can discuss the issue or if not at any other future council meetings."



Source: The Star , Malaysia




:(:( What are your thoughts? ..I feel that there are positives and neagative sides to it. i Hope that its positive all the way..:D:D;);)

I think it's a great idea to have the WC every year just like many other sports. Fans and players need to have a big tournament to look forward to in addition to the Yonex All-England. :)

Of course in order to qualify for the WC, the players would have had to give a better performance in those qualifying tournaments. Therefore there should be top players even in some smaller tournaments.

The only negative side is the loss of prestigiousness to some. There's always changes being made and people will grow accustomed to it. Just look at the new scoring system

Making it every year would make it "less" special; with the increase number of other tournaments, i.e. SuperSeries and alike this might be overwhelming their players schedule.

However, this would give smaller badminton countries to participate in the big tournament - albeit after the 1st round, most of them would dissapear - but would get the support from their country - thus promoting badminton more widely in the world.

In terms of the commercial aspects, how do we know that the proceeds (money, equipments, etc) would go to good use instead of going to certain individuals in the BWF organization? I would like to know what benefits would be gain "commercially?" After all, there is no prize money for the winners!?

No prize money? That's certainly very odd...

Why not throw badminton players the proverbial carrot or bone for winning such a high-level tournament? I don't quite see the rationale for this when it's the pros like Taufik that play and win here.

i think there should be as many tournaments as the pros can handle...

i just wonder how much badminton a player can take. :( i dont like it when players don't perform because of fatigue ie. EPL with their hectic schedule.

World Championship every year for me...hrmm.. not so attractive...every two years seems to be the best solution for me. this will inject some drama and excitement in watching one because it does not come around often. my 2 cents but well apparently Mr. Punch knows best...i think it is all down to MMM Make More Money !! haih...Capitalism at its best.

If we look at the ranking tournaments for the last three years it has increased very significantly like from 100 to 250+ tournaments this year including all grades. also the prize money has certainly increased this year compared to the previous decades. If we look at All england - although it is the most prestigious tournament, if one can see the prize money was no match for phillipines open or indonesian open which were 6 star tournaments and all - england was only 4 star tournaments. Looking at this scenario it would not be appropriate to say that there is no money. From the calendar of www.internationalbadminton.org (http://www.internationalbadminton.org) the prize money and all particulars are relevant and compare the yesteryears and the present year 2007 one will be amazed to notify that the prize money is increased exponentially. The players fatigue can be a cause but it has to be that way so the new talents, skills, fresh blood comes to display their talents to badminton community. We also cannot keep seeing the same players and we need to see there is a healthy competition and many new players are coming into playing.

As per one of the media sources information, there are around 115 million players in china. Truth or falsified truth or perceived truth or a myth - i do not know but surely the players in china are more than huge and asia there are substantial numbers from indon, korea, malaysia, singapore, etc and also from japan, scotland, denmark, england, ireland, canada, USA etc in the second tier from the ranking lists available on the official website.

so tournaments or titles are most important more than money which has gone way ahead to prove in case of all england championship