I know this topic has been posted before, but what with the BBC's coverage of olympic badminron events here in the UK one has to re-ask whether dedicated badminton streaming from events is feasible. The theory is simple, enough people who want it = enough buying power to get it. So who wants it? And how do we get it? I have a suggestion that perhaps if enough people respond we should mention to the BBC that there may be a global fan base large enough to buy coverage from them.
are you talking about non-olympics events? from what i can tell, the coverage for the olympics badminton events has been most excellent in the UK so far. probably the best in the world right now just 2nd to being there in Goudi.
Yes non Olympic events. BBC have the technology to do it, why not open it up Worldwide if there is enough interest?
UKP if I can quote my post from earlier this year: (great minds....) For the first time the All England had live scoring. It still didn't have a dedicated website, with just sporadic reports on the baofe site. Despite this on Saturday at the semis they were reporting 7 million hits on the site, with probably as many again over the semis and finals. Even given that the unique visitors were only a fraction of this does this not present significant advertising potential and if streaming online coverage could be sold, interviews, highlights etc, a massive potential income. If just 10,000 fans paid $10 for such a package this could be plowed into the prize money, doubling it!
Is there enough interest to make it viable? We investigated streaming badminton about 6 months ago. This was web based streaming rather than streaming to an interactive digital TV channel. After doing a little research we found that it would cost on average £7 Pounds Sterling per person to cover hardware, software, bandwidth and licensing rights for an event. This was for an average of 500 to watch an event and averaged out over 10 events as there was capital expense to be covered up front. This in itself is not a show stopper, however, we were a little surprised with the actual interest from badminton fans in streaming live badminton. For ever 100 badminton players we surveyed only 2 would pay for a streaming service on a regular basis (this was not the minority who read badminton forums on the internet, but badminton players of different ages and abilities). We initially thought that it was the limitations of watching badminton on the web (small screen/slow bandwidth/buffering etc) that was the issue; but after some more analysis those who wanted to watch badminton didn't see it as a major stumbling block. The bottom line was that most badminton players want to play badminton and not watch it...simple as that! Away from the court they have little interest in watching the game or even knowing who the top players are. There is a lack of passion, belonging and tribalism that you get with sports like football - certainly in the western part of the world. Media coverage is usually increased and interest inflated when people support teams rather than individuals. Football fans support teams rather than players - individuals come and go but they maintain support of their team. The only way we could increase the viewing figures in badminton would be to create team matches and persona's around the clubs/teams rather than the individuals. Obviously, there are massive followings in football for players (Beckham/Owen/Zidane et al) but team loyalty is not questioned when they leave to play for another club. Certainly in the UK the county structure does nothing to encourage passionate and fanatical following of badminton events. The only solution would be to form a league structure around towns and drag in a different type of support. Rather than the badminton fans solely focusing on the technical aspect of the game - there would be a rivalry that went beyond the game and continued off court. For the UK/GB, the Athens Olympics was the first time we had seen the 'barmy army' effect and a passionate crowd that roared and shouted rather than clapped politely. If we could follow this up with a town vs. town competition we could see badminton viewing take off. Until then, streaming badminton on the web and TV will be a very niche market, which is disappointing considering the number of people actively involved in the sport. As we await a new CEO for the Badminton Association of England we look towards a renewed effort to make badminton more mainstream. Stephen Baddeley left a positive legacy and the foundations to move forward. We now need to see some risk taking that will make badminton a recognised sport in the eyes of Joe Public. A town vs. town structure would be perfect...but is there anyone with enough balls to do it. Jonathan Phillips Badders.com
I find it hard to disagree with any of your points johnathan, only to point out that I am assuming most interest (and most hits on the AE live scoring I used as an example) would come from abroad. The baofe and county associations will spend millions of pounds on development officers etc over the next couple of years , all of which will be paying people to "preach to the converted" , as the olympics showed one mainstream tv shot can have more impact than a 1000 bonanzas, demo days, courses etc in terms of turning people on to the reality of badminton as a dynamic sport. I agree totally than a team based format offers an easier in for fans, i have written at length about it on this board, while the organisation of badminton in uk remains as is, with poorly performing paid staff and unskilled volunteers there is no hope of improvement.
Firstly, yes dlp great minds do think alike and I was also thinking that streaming uptake would be taken internationally. Thanks for the post Jonathan. I notice that you have talked about events on a regular basis. Perhaps a different angle would be to start off with a large tournament such as the AE and poll to see who would be prepared to pay just for this tournament.
I notice there were 172 people on this board during the olympics, now this isn't an official board and many of those people were online without being able to follow the matches in any way other than by reading updates to the threads, I'd love to know the figures the bbc obtained for the alternate interactive and web streamed badminton at athens
I would be interested to know, but given that it was midafternoon they cannot be very high. The match was also on 5 live Going into world 2005 NR & GE will have a better prospect of a world gold than olympic (no Kim/Ra) yet do you think it will even get mentioned on mainstream tv/radio...
i was chatting to a friend yesterday and got some interesting insight into sports broadcasting. this friend of mine works for a big tv network in southeast asia who used to broadcast a lot of badminton matches. i noted that tv stations normally broadcast soccer matches day and night but very little badminton matches, i asked him if there really is so much more demand. he says soccer by a very big margin have better viewership than any other sports. it was to my surprise that is so as i personally don't find soccer that much more interesting. he says there is a very simple reason for it: gambling. gambling is a multi-billion dollar industry and most ppl watch soccer like they watch horse-racing. it is all about gambling. as an example of how widespread soccer gambling, he gave an example of the HK jockey club who runs the horse-racing business in HK. recently HK jockey club added gambling for soccer matches, mainly due to the fact that there is a lot of revenue from soccer gambling. it is a sad truth for pure sports lover, i guess.
Your friend may be right. In the recent years there were more organizations involved in betting on football matches. I wonder how much, percentage wise the gambling contributes to the revenues of a football club.
Gambling will not make the club any money, it will make the book makers and punters that win money but none will filter into the clubs. It's like me betting you £5 on the result of a game, will the people playing get that £5 or will it go to whoever wins the bet?
You are correct, however if gambling gets people in to watch the game, the club makes money from selling tickets, or if it's broadcast there, they make money selling food and beer. Also if you have a bet on it, you are far more likely to watch the game live, hence more tv sponsorship more money to the main organising group, hence more money to the clubs. Footy tipping has to have been the greatest idea for grassroots gambling, becuase I have my tips in, I quite often watch games I have absolutely no other interest in just to see if my tips got up.
it is true that money won't go directly into the club. but as Pecheur says, it will indirectly. a high tv viewership means 1) more money from sponsor. 2) more money from advertiser to the broadcaster 3) more money for the producer. and eventually the money gets to the clubs for tickets and for the right to film the matches.
Exactly. Some clubs negotiate the broadcasting fees, but may not be true for all clubs. Remember that some stronger clubs like Real Madrid or Manchester United negotiate the broadcasting fees. I read somewhere that MU had about 30%-40% revenues from the gates - that is from paying fans watching the games in the stadium and another 20% from the shirts and other advertisements. Not sure about the revenues from transmission rights.
in response to Jonathan's post. i too find that many badminton players are not interested in the international matches. after casually chatting with badminton players in the gym, a lot of them aren't aware of who are the current players, some don't even know that olympics badminton is shown on TV. from their tone, they enjoys playing the game and care quite little about whoever plays the game professional. i actually think there are 3 types of badminton fans, and it is also the same for other sports like tennis. the first type (type 1) are the ones who plays and enjoys playing badminton. they can be of all levels of ability, be it recreational beginners who just enjoy exercising, all the advance players who plays in local or national tournaments. this type enjoys playing the game. the other type (type 2) are the pure viewers. they do not play badminton or not play regularly, they love following the matches even though they know little about how to play the game themselves. there is also a wide spectrum of reasons why they enjoy watching the game. it can be due to the fact they find badminton to be a very exciting game with the all the good qualities that we all know, or there can be a patriotic reason to support their own country/players, or they find a certain player attractive. the last type happens a lot, esp for tennis, i was at a friends place when there were these two guys drooling over Sharapova. after Sharapova lost to Pierce, they hit the power button and says they are done watching the US Open this year. and then the third type (type 3) are the intersection of the above two types, badminton fans who loves to play as well as watch badminton. we basically love anything that are related to badminton. we talk about how to play, as well as talk about the players and matches. now that i have identified the 3 types of badminton fans, here is a thought on what Jonathan has said. Jonathan was mainly talking about converting type 1 to type 3. going to the players and wonder if they'd enjoy watching a professional match. imho, that is a possibility, but to be honest, the number of type 1 is rather small. even if we convert all type 1 fans into type 3, we are still talking about small numbers here. honestly, i think if type 1 can become a type 3, they would already have done so already. the better way to do it is to convert non-badminton fans to type 2 fans. there is a much higher mass of ppl in the non-badminton fan category. there is a much wider number to work with although converting from type 1-> type 3 may be slightly easier with their existing knowledge.
Unfortunately unless you really know what you're looking at, badminton does not look good on tv. I've seen just about all the Olympic baddy that was shown on Oz tv and to be honest from the camera angles they use, it actually looks quite slow compared to tennis. Now we know that's not true, but that's how it appears. I just don't think that badminton will ever have the non-educated spectator appeal that tennis has.
