Of course not! It is driven by nationalism, as your thread tells very well! The BWF is made up of national associations. The players represent their countries and train in national centers. The contrary is professional sports like Ice hockey or base-ball, which are purely, on every level, made up of private clubs and organizations.
There are then semi-private or national sports, like football in Europe, where the leagues are national, the overall organization national, and the club privates. Tennis work the same, with national training center and davis cup, but players playing for themselves and representing only themselves on tournaments (they enter according to seeding, no nationality requirements or restrictions).
What's wrong with the NATIONALISM? What's so great about INDIVIDUALISM? -sport-wise - What's wrong with the NATIONALISM in Badminton? Why should it be demonized and abolished? China has the largest population, but it doesn't mean that it then excels in every sport. Meaning the size of population alone is not the only determinant, or even the dominant aspect of the excellence in any sport, including badminton, otherwise both China and India should dominate the many sports! There are many aspects that cause a country to be excelled in particular sport, wrt badminton the BCers already discussed in lengthy threads why China is so good at it, and i won't take the enormous efforts to try to summarize them here And what's so great about INDIVIDUALISM in sport? Do we realize that the so-called individualism is eventually taken over by CORPORATISM as what we're witnessing in today's world? The giant global (transnational) corporations that know no borders, operate globally, accumulate immense wealth and power in the grips of the few super elite controllers, are eventually the dominant forces upon the individualism (and many countries all over the world). The few sports mentioned here that are abundant with cash are NOT just famous, popular and achieving great successes because of their individualism promotion or solely on their own goodness and efforts, but more because they are cherry-picked by the giant corporations as the good showcases to serve their purposes (among others is the boasted "individualism"). And few of them just serve as the excellent entertainments (or "circus") as in the "bread and circus" to capture the attention of the masses, in what we learn about the gladiator shows in the past Roman Imperium! Since the giant corporations are controlling the mainstream media (TV networks, publications, online news, social networks, and so on) and being extraordinary rich in resources, there's no wonder at all that they are able to easily prop those few selected sports with unimaginable amount of cash through sponsorships and put them into the constant limelight of having endless and broad media coverages...all at free and even pouring in huge amount of money from the broadcast rights! However, please pay attention that within the last 100 years there isn't any significant change to those few elite sports that being put into such limelight, they are more or less remain the same branches, therefore please do not be disillusioned with the fallacies! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "(Doublethink) to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed" - George Orwell, English Novelist and Essayist, 1903-1950 "We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nation will accept the New World Order." - David Rockefeller "Money is not like a commodity; there is no end to it. You don’t have to grow it, find it in the ground, drill for it or plant it in the spring. It is not even that the supply of lumber will curtail the paper for most of it is not printed at all. Made from nothing, recorded on a spreadsheet, sent out across the wires, a digital divinity of man’s own creation. It is a world that none have seen before. It is not Huxley’s “Brave New World” but something far stranger; a financial system cobbled together in counting houses and made from nothing but air. The global bankers promised that the feeding would continue, promised a food laden table without end and the Band of Merry Men rejoiced and the gauge of their elevated mood, the markets, responded accordingly and the party continued." "You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
I don't get the point here. Please help out? Maklike Tier: I'd like to suggest, if I may, debating teams on foreign affairs, especially the "convergence and governance of globalisation" theme will strongly attract you. Guys like Dani Rodrik will certainly appeal to your taste. If badminton and world sports are strong cases for or against the convergence of governance towards a liberal and open market regime, as you seem to point out, then this is the way to go. However, I think, you missed to say what nationalism, in your view, is.
I hesitate to light a match near this potentially flammable topic. But it seems that one of the underlying themes to this thread is that it is 'boring' (to some fans) to watch Chinese players win such a large proportion of tournaments. Especially if they face their countryman/woman in the final and there is a suspicion of match fixing. If it really is that big of a problem, then perhaps it is time to let China enter several distinct teams in international competition (by region or whatever). That would allow more of the huge, amazing Chinese talent pool a chance to enter competitions. And, whereas there may be provincial/regional pride on the line, the fear of match fixing would be less. Big cities get more than one team in national sports leagues (eg Manchester in football, New York in ice hockey). Therefore it's not unreasonable to see China as having a right to more than one 'share' in international baddy.
What a steaming pile of nonsense. History itself refutes you with both Moscow 1980 and L.A. 1984 as examples. Nationalism has at times held the Olympic spirit hostage and degraded the spirit of competition. [QUOTE="RedShuttle]Without the impetus of national pride, sports will be reduced to recreational and commercial activities. Still nice, but it won't the same.[/QUOTE] Impetus of national pride? National pride is last resort of the dregs of a nation to scrounge up a little self esteem. But let's put your theory to the test. Consider the most financially successfull sports events or bodies. They are the professional leagues and they are almost exclusively non-nationalistic in nature. [QUOTE="RedShuttle] At the practical level, many non-commercial sports will get no government funding and die slowly. Badmintion may likely fall as one of the victims in many parts of the world. How's that good for badminton?[/QUOTE] The idea on non-commercial versus commercial is a false construct. Professional sports are at their core entertainment. If a sport entertains it will prosper and if it is not found to be entertaining it will either have to work to become entertaining or exist as an ametuer sport. There is no justification for governments to attempt to prop up a sport and the record of their ability to do so is dubious. Unless you want to argue that having the world's number one player withdraw from the final of a world class level event seeding an uncontested victory to a compatriot is good for the sport, as took place a couple of years ago, it's hard to see any logical basis for the idea of nationalism being a constructive agent for badminton or, for that matter, any other human endeavor.
The fact that a player wins an event is from China or Senegal is irrelevent. The issue isn't even that China is a dominate country in the sport of badminton. Lot's of sports have dominate countries. The problem is that in the case of badminton the dominate country is unable to resist the need to act like a 400 lb muscle bound giant with 1 inch genitalia. Sure, let's also let Brazil enter numerous teams into to world cup of soccer, let Canada enter mulitiple teams into Olympic hockey and the US enter about 10 or so teams into Olympic basketball. For the record. New York City only has one hockey team (the Rangers). That aside those examples are all of professional sports teams in a professional sports league where there is an economic justification for the existence of those teams. This is a poor analogy for international badminton competition.
Since Peter Gade and Taufik Hidayat have retired and the new boss is also a Danes, perhaps someone can ask them to do it? You can persuade them using facebook. Indonesia is also changing for the better with multiple sponsors.
Stay aways from hate epithets for a moment for some facts: - Moscow '90, LA '94 At least in theory, what happened was to prevent real bloodshed. Badminton would be so proud if it can play that role. Try boycotting tennis grand slams or golf majors to save millions of lives. - The most successful sporting events are the Olympics and the World Cup. Both are the highest form of integration of nationalism and commercialism. - The last example was not even a case of nationalism but of team event vs individual event. Check out F1 for more thorough auguments on the subject.
The arguments of thunder are ideological and do not hold when we consider reality. One has to know a little how sports federations work in different countries, and the role of money in "successful" professional sports. Beside, to reduce nationalism to a last resort for countries' self-esteem is very superficial.
When you call for facts and then spout bull$hit you get 'hate epithets' (hate is a little extreme isn't it?) How did the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics prevent bloodshed? You have take a pretty big detour from reality to try and make that point. Of course in my reality the boycotts took place in the 80's not the 90's. A brief history lesson for you, the 1980 Moscow Olympics were boycotted by the US in protest of the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. If it was done to save lives then, it was a spectacular failure. The boycott of the LA games in 1984 had was purely political with the Soviet aligned countries holding their own version of the games called the 'Friendship Games'. As one shot events sure but, the professional leagues generate revenue year after year on a sustained basis that dwarfs those events. So much so that it can pay players staggering amounts for their skills. This just shows that nationalism is only good for short term boosts and that it is prone to pesky little side effects such as boycotts and ethnic cleansing. In short an element of Nationalism is expected as it appeases the dregs and gives them something to cheer for but as the primary driving force behind a sport it is destructive.
Well then how about some examples of how sports federations work? Or are you just renting an opinion? The self esteem I spoke of is of the people in those countries not the collective, specifically the dregs who with no personal sense of achievement can take a vicarious pride in the achievements of others simply because they share a flag. As for the role of money, what's your point?
