as the old saying goes "money don't buy you class". you can buy the name SSP by puting up bigger prize money but that doesn't make it prestigious automatically.
http://www.bwfbadminton.org/news_item.aspx?id=70155 Another press release on the $500,000. Maybe, the BWF calendar of the All England is a typo and the prize money stated is wrongly stated as $400,000?
They abdicated the Premier position themselves and like others already mentioned prize money is only one criteria. Nobody wants to see a Premier SS with empty stands and played in a North Korean sized arena where you need binoculars from even the nearest seats ... http://www.badzine.net/news/bwf-announces-2014-2017-superseries-hosts-and-other-changes/22459/
Note that All England 2013 had a prize money of $400 000 (according to BWF calendar). Wonder if the person designing the BWF website just used the previous tournament's prize money.
That's exactly what I think. The AE website indeed states that the prize money of 2014 would be $500,000, rise from $400,000 in 2013
It isn't based completely on prize money. The All England is one of the oldest and most prestigious tournaments for badminton period.
Before OLY and WC, AE was the unofficial world badminton championship, winning AE you are the king of badminton for that year. To the old farts like me, AE holds a special place. Just ask Zhang Ning and Taufik, how much they would love to add AE to their collection. These days they are so many Opens to play in, so winning which one has more prestige over the others? A players winning how many KOR, CHN, INA Opens etc, we don't give too much thoughts into that. But just mention how many AE's a player won in his career, that is a different beast, maybe because they are so many geezers and old farts like us still out there that AE means something to us. Give it another 20-30 years, AE may lose some of its glitter like one of the many Opens out there. But for now, AE is special. KOR once offered US1M prize money and my old MAS basically bought SSP with tax-payers money this year, and still not all the top players show up. But come AE, the world's best players will play, CHN send her entire entourage (minus LD maybe but then LD may not play at all in 2014), there must be a reason. A players winning all but no AE, is like enjoying shark fin soup, minus the fins...arrr, something like that
Actually from inside story, Korea offers $800000 but BWF puts $600000 .The reason why Korea did not bid for SSP, because at that time when Korea Offered over $1 million,AE and Denmark offered like$300000 but the point was the same...we were thinking that if one country can offer $ 1 million or more, may be BWF should award the ranking points a bit higher ,let's say 13000 instead of 11000, China supported the idea...
LD could very well be in almost everyone's mind the best player that ever plays this game. LD has won 4 AE, plus 1 he gifted to CJ, so even if he takes that one back, LD would have 5 AE (that is a lot and great achievement in this competitive era), but he still needs 3 to tie Rudy and 4 to get past, and that is impossible to do considering his age and the opponents out there. But I would think LD would love to achieve that feat as that means he best every baddy record in existence; the past (Rudy's era) and the present (LD's era). Then there would be no arguments once and for all, who is the greatest MS player ever. If there is one Open that LD would play and wants to win every year till he retires, I bet it would be AE and CHN Opens, and not other Opens or even SSF which offers more dollars. It is the AE title, and not just any Open titles that would enhance his legacy
Actually Australia did not offer $750000 at the beginning, during the meeting, Australia wanted to pair with Indonesia as INA is SSP so Australia wanted the players playing for INA SSP can fly to AUS...Thats why Singapore SS is out and Singapore also prefers to pair with India S S so it works out well...
We all know that it is not easy for Europe to put higher prize money and many council members are Europeans now...as you can see few countries can offer higher prize money..few GPG but more International Challenge where it's points much closer to GP...I was the one demanding the point for IC to be reduced during the recent meeting and IC's prize money did not support the players..it is time to ups IC's prize money...I suggested to scrap GP at all...why? To have GP and up, you need to pay 10% sanction fees, international referees and umpires and 6 days...but having IC, no sanction fee, shorter days, not much regulations , the point is 4000 but GP only 5000...that's why Europe has more ICs than GPsor GPGs
China purposely up IC to $50000 ,INA in the past, offered $20000or $25000 for IC...it is time for Europe ups the prize money for ICs..
In my humble opinion, criteria is just criteria. anything is against the criteria of BWF should not be encouraged. It's more like, if you committed a crime, you couldn't go freely without getting punished just because you used to be a good person. We all know that AE is one of the oldest and most prestigious tournaments, so what does it mean? It means that even if AE was downgraded to GPG, it would be still attractive? Then let's do it I do think If it can't offer enough money, it should be thrown out SSP because it's the criteria. There's no excuses. If AE can use no more than $500,000 to hold its SSP status, then China Open can also do it because China is the biggest powerhouse in badminton, can't imagine there's no SSP in China. And IND SSP can also provide less money to sustain because IND is the former powerhouse and still one of the best of countries in badminton. The following is DEN SSP... and so on What if AE offer more less, eg. $300,000 in 2015 but still in SSP and then IND, China and DEN follow it? In a word, if you break the rule you should be punished no matter how important and prestigious it used to be.
Europe cannot up the prize money, is it because Opens in Asia (MAS, CHN, INA, KOR, JAP) are sponsored and paid by tax payers money, and stadiums are near full house to ensure a healthy gate returns.
AE offers $500000, not $400000..it is mistyped in BWF..AE does follow the minimum requirement in term of prize money..
Not correct...all prize money in Indonesia is all comes from private money, even our PBSI did not use any tax payers..sorry! Djarum Indonesia open is 100% from company. Not tax payers, also our GPG, IC also
Thanks for correcting INA funding Opens not via tax payers $$$. With BWF rules, basically SSP can be bought by the highest bidder. IMO, as long as England can meet the qualifying USD500K prize money, AE should be in SSP. I cannot imagine seeing Australian Open be SSP and not AE, it is not the same.
