England's badminton training center is worth 6 million pounds according to Anthony Clark during an interview after worlds http://badmintonsite.com/news/ShowSingleNews.aspx?id=139
Thats huge. How much is Malayasian training center worth? The Canadian training center is worth one full time/ one part time coach, and 3-4 hours of court time a day... 6 million pounds is a lot more than I thought badminton was worth anywhere except maybe China. It also helps to show how England did so well at this years World Championship.
That value (or more likely guess) is just for the building which has 9 or 10 courts, a gym, cafe, museum of badminton, offices for administration. Does the Canadian centre not have a base for administration of the sport in the country? If not, how does it administer the sport?
You have to factor in the cost of living, construction, maintenance etc. The South East of England is an expensive place to live. A tube/train driver in London would probably make about £30,000 pa which would equate to $63,000 CAD or 208,000 MYR (according to the currency converter on www.xe.com). I hope these figures are right otherwise what I say below will be worthless! The Malaysian sports council has raised concerns with BAM because they invested 1 million Ringitts. If you converted this into GBP it would be about £150,000 or to put it another way, the equivalent of the annual salary of five train drivers. I would doubt that 1 million ringitts in Malaysia equates to the salary of 5 train drivers. I'm not saying that train drivers salaries are a universal indicator but it gives an idea!
What is the point you are trying to make? 6 million british pounds is a lot anyway you look at it. its 200 train drivers lol.
He tries to say, you need to consider the fund vs. cost of living ratio, in order to fairly compare how much attention badminton really draw the attention from this particular nation. In US, the real estate is purely expensive. I am sure US badminton "fund" (when including all the labor rate and real estate value) is way more than a lot of smaller / 3rd world nations. However, a lot of such nations have much better and serious badminton programs.
well 6 million is quite a lot of money, but that's how much they needed to have all the nice facilities
Its probably 6 mil/a year. Its definately not for the actual physical center, because thats nothing for a sports complex building. 6 million is a lot, there are probably no more than 20 athletes training there, thats 1/10th as many train drivers which would mean an athlete gets 300k of development. Its actually more than that because each athlete gets better adding to the monetary amount as well.
The player's statement was that the centre is worth £6 million. I have been there and it sounds about right, though he may well be guessing rather than stating a known fact and the real value could easily be higher or lower. It is a badminton-only sports hall with offices as previously described. It is used by clubs and for all sorts of tournaments as well as for training by elite athletes and others. I believe that some parts get hired out for seminars to generate income, though I might be wrong. If you think that each of England's players get training worth £300,000 you are barking up the wrong tree. About half of the structure (by value) is given over to offices and the small museum.
That's exactly what I was trying to say, albeit in a less than elegant manner! Also, I would seriously doubt that the running costs of the site are £6 million per year. I would imagine that Clarke was trying to say that the centre, including all the land, the structure and staff, is worth £6 million or that £6 million has been spent on the centre to date. I can't open the original article to I can't read exactly what was written! I read recently that the annual coaching buget was around £1million. I'll see if I can dig out the article and post it here. I think Badminton has become more popular than 5 years ago. The success of Robertson/Emms has been a powerful factor I think. Gail Emms is partly sponsored by B&Q which is a DIY company and so they must think she has broad appeal. I think badminton is growing in this country and we don't face the kind of problems that some people in othar countries have reported about finding courts to play on. Hopefully we'll reach a day when BE's turnover is £6 million per year!!
I dont think too big of a deal should be made of this. Its just what Anthony Clark said in an interview. Could be total misinformation. Does the part of the center complex house offices that are rented out?
