I was just watching a woodywood Pecker cartoon (don't ask me why). He was wathcing TV and the commentator said "and now it's time for badminton" and woody replied "you got the BAD part right" then turned the channel. It's a silly point but it seems a shame that many references made about badminton in the media are negative. I said this before but even a game of soccer is totally boring without knowing who the two teams are. If I had enough money I'd make a documentary "Pumping Iron" style about the personalities and the tour throughout the season. Imagine if the IBF did this and gave it to TV companies free of charge. Remember how Pumping Iron changed the whole sport of body building. On the face of it badmiton doesn't contain personilities but a documentary would certainly discover them. Think about all the exotic locations the players visit around the world. In the UK at the moment docu-soap programs are very popular. They make the real lives of shop workers, police, hospital staff e.t.c seem interesting. The life of a touring badmiton player must be more worthy of documantary than a supermarket worker. Oh oh I mentioned the IBF. Lindsey will get hot under the collar again...where has she gone ?
Same in my community. People don't like badminton here in CA in the Bay Area. And when I find people in my school trash talking about badminton, I calmly invite them to our courts and have our varsity players happy smash on them. =) That proves our point.
I emailed to lindsey about me making some positive suggestion to popularize badminton but she/he didnt replied.
Do you need to smash. Just keep a rally going with clears and drops is enough to tire out the uninformed.
for the badminton illiterates, smash is the only aspect of badminton they are impress with. They wouldn't appreciates good foot work, deceptive shot making, spinning net shot, etc. As in Paul's case, one non-badminton guy challenged me too and i use some long rallies with him. He quit before we finish to 10 points (10-0). His word to me was " You pretty good but if i exercise and more fit, i can beat you".
maybe people from the West can commercialise the sport, something like Manchester United or Spice Girls.Some Entrpreneur/ venture Capitalist can get companies to finance tournaments,clinics etc, maybe enjoy the sport and also make money from it, everything is so commercialised anyway, nothing to lose. There's so much money in the West floating.
Trust me Cheung, we here in San Lorenzo, CA of USA take badminton seriously. If you hear of ANY type of trash talking, we smash on them. We take no mercy and if they get hit in the eye we can care less. Most of the time though, they are football players or "Americanized" sports people that make comments like "badminton is for weaklings." That's when I step in and make my happy invite and kill the hell of out of them with my friends and I. I wish we had some famous players so they can really smash on them...i.e. 200 mph..hehehe!
Groan! - somethings are never meant to change ) Why didn;t u say "you lose, give me ten dollars. you get 2 dollars for every point you score. Worried now? But u just said it was an easy sport!!" Hey, why don't I get those sort of challenges?
I use the baseball comparison to shut up fans of so-called, "more macho" sports. I ask them to imagine trying to hit a major league fastball going 100mph. Then I tell them that pro-level badminton players smash it at TWICE that speed and that rallies can last up to a minute, involving nearly 90 shots in those 60 seconds. When I ask them why a sport that has fat athletes making millions of dollars and mainly involves standing around, scratching at their crotches and chewing tobacco, is more manly than a fast-paced, agressive sport like badminton, I don't usually get any intelligent responses back. Last summer I talked with a high school football coach at a badminton tournament ( a big, burley, athletic guy) and he said that he is also a big fan of running, tennis and racquetball, but thinks that badminton is the most strenuous out of all those sports.
