Actually, I am not referring to the delayed and still-not-paid-yet SSF $$$ IOUs to LCW, TBH-KKK, WPT-CEH. Those are promised $$$ and should be paid ASAP to these players, it is like a contract, the players delivered the wins so should be paid and not delayed. I was more referring to the million RM paid out to the 1992 TC team, maybe even the $$$ pay to HH for AE03, or the rumoured $$$ payout to KKK/TBH for AE MD win, that many posters here have alluded to getting these players spoiled and lost their hunger. LCW may be different, in spite of being rich and famous, with Datukship, he still trains hard and delivers the wins.
I am sorry to point out, but you're wrong once again. Li Ning is very well establish in China and you can find their outlet in every cities there, big or small. They are comparable to Nike and Adidas in China. Li Ning is bigger than Yonex in terms of cooperate size too and that's why they have the power to take over the sponsorship and enter the badminton market in such a short period. Although I can't deny the existence of political influence. Also Yonex is not as dominant as you imagined in China. Yonex are quite expensive in China standard and most local people buy the local brands(or clone). The fact is, Li Ning can offer so much more to the Chinese team that Yonex can't match, and that's why they made the switch (along with the political reasons). Likewise, Korea has also abandoned Yonex. PS: Li-ning also make custom racket for LD.
I never said anything about Li Ning being bigger than Yonex. What Yonex can offer to their players is in direct relation to how many racquets they can sell because revenue from the racquet sales is where the royalties comes from. Therefore, a more accurate comparison would be to compare the Yonex's share of the badminton market in comparison to Li Ning. Upwards of 80% of all professional badminton players use Yonex racquets, thats 4 out of every 5 players, conceivably the general consumer market would reflect that as well. This means that Li Ning is left to compete with everyone else in the remaining 20% of the market as Yonex already holds 80% of it. Assuming optimal earning from Li Ning where they hold the remaining 20%, this would mean that the royalty rate per racquet Li Ning would have to pay their athletes would have to be at least 4 TIMES the rate that Yonex pays just to match what Yonex can offer to their players because Yonex has the sheer volumes of sales on their side. Note, this is assuming optimum conditions, in reality, its probably 6 to 8+ times when factoring in all of the other badminton manufacturers that also occupy the remaining 20% of the market. Already, you can see that Yonex hold an overwhelming marketing advantage. There is nothing that Li Ning can offer that Yonex can't match. Li Ning might very well be the dominating sports provider in China, but professional players won't be leaving the Yonex All England to compete in the Li Ning All England anytime soon because Yonex is still the dominating provider of badminton racquets. Ayabrea
That's easy, they don't control every single aspect of his life because they are now under the international spotlight. China's rapidly expanding economy is establishing them as a dominant power international politics, thus they have an image and reputation to build and maintain as their influence grows. Therefore, they allow certain freedoms to their athletes to promote a humanitarian image, but in reality, the government makes all the important decisions. Everything can and probably is already arranged in such a way that all of an athlete's assets can be simply taken away when they no longer obey as they are not a capitalistic country. Ayabrea
Your example is irrational. Take iphone for example, they have dominated the smart phone market and left their competitor behind for at least 3 years when the iphone was introduced. Was Apple ever a phone maker before? NO. But they have a strong foundation of their brand image and that's how they success when entering the phone market. Similarly, Li Ning have the brand name and capital to out do Yonex in China. There is no more Yonex China Open and now it is replaced with Li Ning China Open. Li Ning is not into the England market yet, but don't be surprise if the sponsorship get take over one day, thus Li Ning All England. It is not cheap to sponsor the STRONGEST team in badminton and Li-Ning does it in 1 shot. Their maybe 80% of players using Yonex (as of today), but 100% of the Gold medal of YONEX all england 2009 was captured by Li-Ning team. So does it prove that Li-Ning equipment are superior? Nope, but I believe they have success in marketing themselves on the first year. LD defeat was becuz BCL was at his best form and LD didn't played his best and not because of the brand that sponsor him.
so according to your statement if lin dan is sick of training he can just go cuckoo for a few tournaments, then forced to quit and retire happily with all his earnings returned to him, am i right to say this?
lcw skipping this swiss open is sending a strong message to lin dan - you must win, boy, as i am not there and if you still messed up i don't think you can catch up!
lol this is really entertaining. who cares about what kind of message lcw wants to send. after he wins several world champions and olympics then i guess it's time that you can talk about catching up. right now he is just struggling for not falling way too behind.
Please forgive them. It has been a long time with countless of disappointments until they finally see the glim of victory. There is no way we can catch up with that.
I think all this how to beat LD thing has to stop. It shows that not only LD is so beatable nowadays, infact the whole chinese national team is vulnerable especially in ms. LD achived so called greatness by his fans were actually after 08OG where he displayed a quite remarkable feat againts LCW in the final. He owned LCW his fans would called it. But that kind of display were not seen before and were not repeated since. So what happened after 08OG? He won the 2009 AE and WC ofcourse but he had some bad matches as well. Eg. the EAG and lately the just concluded AE. What i want to point out here is 1.) without the assistance of LYB to force him to follow instructions properly and to keep his cool head during matches and also with the absence of the great strategist TXH it does affect the outcome of LD performances. 2.) Also without any assistance from his team mate (match fixing) how far could LD really goes in a tourney. 3.) How many majors had LD won or at least benefitted with both in point 1 and 2? I personally think it affected LD to a great extent! At least his trophy cabinet would be lesser of majors. The best example to back-up my opinions is of course the AE2010. My conclusion is, if all plans weren't form around LD to win a tourney by the chinese ba, fair matches all the way, LD is beatable. Very beatable indeed! My two cents.
of course all the players are beatable. nobody is completely invincible in badminton. lin dan is a great player, but talking about "beatableness" is totally nonsense. one way to evaluate how great a player is in the history is his achievement. and personally i think that's the only metric. after several years nobody care about how fast you can move on the court, how great your defense is, how wonderful your backhand is, etc. they just remember TFK as OG2004, World Champion 2005, LD as OG2008, 3 times world champion. LCW? maybe because of this AE100 he is gonna be mentioned a little. i am not an enemy to Dato LCW. i like watching his game and his style. but he really needs to work harder to collect some important trophies in his cabinet.
personally i am very satisfied with what lin dan did. even he just retires i am totally fine. actually i am very curious how he would fade into the background. someone should show up to challenge his dominance. but that must be some young gun.
A detailed evaluations can be done the day both players officially retired. Right now the race is still on going. P.S- I think Taufik's initial should be TH not TFK. TFK means (just ask any chinese guys here).
LOL, popularity plays a huge part in the product's success. The IPhone does not dominate the smart phone market because Blackberry supplies virtually all major corporations(which is where the big money is) with their smart phones due to almost all corporations using BES, which has 10+ years of operational history to support its current popularity and future sales. The Iphone is only a dominate player in the private consumer market, its a nobody in the corporate consumer market. It takes a lot of time and money to make a product line popular enough to convince the general populace to switch brands. Think about it, a Li Ning user won the olympic gold medal in 2008 and all of the 2009 All England Champions and 2 of the 5 2010 All England championships went to Li Ning users, but yet ONLY the Chinese team uses Li Ning despite all of its success within the last 2 years. Everyone else still uses Yonex, which clearly illustrates their popularity and thus sustains their dominance. Li Ning may be the number one supplier in China and is no doubt beginning to give Yonex a run for their money, but Yonex still clearly dominates the world market. In the future, Li Ning may overtake Yonex, but its going to take a long, long time before that will happen. Until then, there is no feasible way for them today to make an offer to their players that Yonex can't match. Ayabrea
