Yeap, 5 1/2 hours for Thomas Cup and if the Uber Cup go the distance too, they have to start early in the morning. Don't think the fans can stay that long.
I just put this idea up in another thread http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/142463-BWF-Reviews-Scoring-System?p=2241235&viewfull=1#post2241235 If (with emphasis on the 'if'), the scoring system is altered for team matches making for shorter matches, the maximum length would be about 4 hours. That can fit a morning and afternoon session. It's a waste having the semifinals of TC and UC on Friday. Even with Internet, most people are working. If the event had enough world appeal and the sport had enough sponsors to support the event over two weeks, then I would say semifinals on Friday is OK.
this year's Thomas Cup finals (with five matches) were too long. BWF really should shorten the finals to three or four matches. If they can shorten them to two or three matches, then i think it is possible to squeeze both Thomas and Uber Cup on to a Sunday.
when BWF got too stingy and didn't pay for live streaming of the 5th match. so everyone come to BC and check out what's going on.
Hehe. I rather think that 3-2 matches happen quite infrequently in the semifinal and final stages. I can't count back the last 20 years (because using a smartphone right now). But the number of 3-2 finishes for semis and finals might well be around 10-15%. So probably BWF reckoned the odds of a 3-2 finish in the final was too low to justify paying for continued transmission. This they got caught out. A lot of those people jumped on to BC - lucky Kwun had stayed up to watch the matches. He was able to get BC back online pretty quickly. There were 4000 plus views on YouTube for the previous matches. Add that to countries with Live TV and the viewing figures would be pretty good.
