Well LN came from zero and is growing it's badminton business insanely fast.. Yonex is obviously struggling and on a slippery slope... Yonex cannot really afford many ARC-Zs if they dont want to end up like another Carlton... /Twobeer
Korea I don't know if a similar thing is happening in China, but in Korea there has been a dramatic shift in the last couple of years. About 5 years ago, most club players would have been using Yonex (at least 70-80% I'd say). This year, that's gone way down to maybe 20% or so, and then only the latest top of range rackets, like the Z-slash. Most club players are using Victor or other similar brands. Yonex have definitely lost their dominance here and you can see it when you go to the large badminton specialist stores. Their displays only have a small proportion dedicated to Yonex. The largest posters are Victor (I'm sure because of the national team), but also other brands seem to be popular too. I'm sure competition is good overall. I just don't see prices dropping any time soon though, especially with LN rackets being SOOO expensive. They seem to have gone the opposite way and actually raised people's expectations of prices.
For Korea, the national team sponsorship deal is definitely a big part of it This may sound really strange/almost unbelievable, but in China, many of the wealthier will buy the more expensive one just because its its more expensive. Plus LN sponsorship of Chinese national team will have similar effect to Victor in Korea. And most people won't buy top end LN, most will go for lower ones. Look around, the reviews for lower ones seem pretty good.
Its also part of marketing effort by LN that by pricing more expensively than YY it show LN is confidence with their quality. The worse thing is to price lower than YY and getting the image of lower quality product. Once LN got enough market share and good branding image, all LN needs to do is to price more aggressively towards YY and i dont think YY can respond (as far as pricing is concern) to that if production stays in JPN. One way YY can stay on top is to proof that its technologically more advance and can produce better/more innovative products. Just like how YY wiped out Carlton with the carbon racket in the 80s.
I also been told that in INA (country sponsored by YY), YY also is in decline. Being not so rich country, many INA consumers have switched to Flypower, Astec (both local brand), Victor, Apacs and few other unknown brands.
The rise of racquet manufacturers other than Yonex only bodes well for the consumers of their products. Before, Yonex could get by on their name and marketing alone. Now, they will need to develop truly better products to compete in a now very competitive market. At one time I too only considered Yonex when purchasing a new racquet, but have now tried other brands and have found other racquets that in my opinion are better, and in many cases, much less expensive. Competition is always good for the consumer in any market, more often than not the end result is better products, more research, innovations and hopefully lower prices.
Is there any corelation between Li-Ning's market share and China team's performance? Currently Li-Ning is using China players, especially Lin Dan for advertising their products. If one day these batch of China players are going down and there is no reliable replacement, I believe it will have a great impact to Li-Ning's business. Maybe Li-Ning has to diversify a bit and hire players from other countries in their advertisements.
In national level of playing, LD uses SOTX, CJ and many younger generations use Kason, etc. So, I believe they do have certain "freedom" to promote other brands, under other grounp or individual contracts. Just the international stage, they will follow the "team" decision. Actually, your example of "full freedom" have certain limitation as well. I remember read an article as one of the football (american) star has a contract with coke, while his team has a contract to promote pepsi only. He has no choice but to work out a settlement. So, you tell me the "full freedom" does not have any limitation when the bigger name (or group, team, corp) give enough pressure?
In theory, maybe. However, LN himself is long being considered as a national hero for 30 years, even though he obviously did not win any medals after 1988. Sure, LD will retire, and so as many others. However, from the group talent prespective, CHN team is still the safe bet, at least for the very near future. To get in the western market, it maybe a long shot. Kids surely care about what LBJ or Kobe wears, but give no interests about what TG or Howard uses, even after they win the WC.
I think we should not compare Badminton with Soccer unless there are big and well-structured Badminton leagues around the world. Maybe Badminton should have something like the English Premier League or Champions League to promote popularity. The gap between the countries are too big. Why don't we break them down into clubs level and compete each other in leagues?
Thats good if thats the case. But the question will be do LD and others get some kind of reward from SOTX and Kason? Dont forget Kason is also part of LN if im not mistaken.
Bayi (LD's club) is sponsored by LN now in addition, even though Jiangsu provincial team is sponsored by Yonex, when i watched the CBL matches CJ was clearly using N55 and WSX clearly using UC2200B
Yeah, sort of. Just imagine we setup the badminton leagues like English Premier League in many countries. There are many divisions and some of the clubs will be relegated and some will be promoted every year. The games will be played on weekly basis. The top 4 will be competing in the "champions league" with clubs from other countries in the region. The players can transfer between these clubs. Instead of spending most of the time in training and only play international competition matches once a month like the current structure, this idea should be able to make badminton more popular and commercialized.
There are plenty of the national leagues and local leagues, school leagues etc. At least in the UK. What we always look at are the current World series and the Thomas/Uber Cup, on top of that, we have the Olympic, European Championship and Asia Games. I have no idea how they operate in N.America though. In the end, the problem is the lack of TV coverage and money. More competitions between the sponsors actually lead to more money pouring into our sport. If you have individual sponsorship for a certain player, once he has won, let's say, the Olympic gold, the other company pays huge amount of money to lure him (which was exactly what Victor and LN did when they got the Korean and Chinese teams respectively). Now we are seeing the effect when people moving away from one single brand towards the other brands, which the champions are using.
Thats a wild idea , i wonder how much LD will cost? Personally im jealous with the media coverage and popularity of tennis world wide. Here in AU, Tennis Australia Open TV live coverage is bought the local TV which then sell the ads for the corporate sponsors. Tennis Australia also receive fund directly from corporate sponsors. No wonder the price money is a 7 digits figure. In fact i hardly see people queing up in a tennis court. I suspect badminton participation is higher than tennis, but the thing is its just not in the mainstream media spot light and hence receive very little attention from the public. Most of people watch tennis on TV actually do not play tennis, they only watch it as an entertainment.
