BWF WORLD Superseries Finals : Day 5 (21st December 2014) - FINALS

Loh said:
Don't be mistaken.

I did not say it is wrong for blue collared workers to watch badminton. The more fans go to watch the merrier and good for badminton. It is good that your IT friends went to watch and I hope more white-collared workers and school children will do so.

Since you claim to have a good idea about the attendance, can you tell me how many people attended on each of the 5 days?

And what is the capacity of the stadium?
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Sir, I did not expect you to talk about something like this .. I cant get you what you wanna say.. Despite being a non badminton nation, they conducted a neat tournament with huge amount of investment.. All these investments are investment for the future....

By the by, am not the organiser or ticket seller... So, I regret that I could not give the correct details. I have watched some of the recent tournaments through videos, such as World championships at Denmark, china open, Hong kong open or macau open or bitburger open, or whichever tournament you take, we can find many seats empty even in the finals. That's not the point. This is the first time they are conducting the tournament and we should give credit to the crowd who came to watch.. I heard that ticket prices were low . May be to attract people to this sport. Even when chen long was playing srikanth , he got appreciation from lots of indian crowd. You can see that in the video of that match..
 
I agree with you that because they are a non-badminton nation, we don't expect good attendance.

And it is attendance, especially from the locals, that I find wanting.

But I concede that they still have much to do to boost local interest and this is just the beginning.

In that sense, I guess we can't expect too much.

Empty seats will always be there. We often feel disappointed that seats reserved for VIPs and sponsors are not always filled up.

But think of the response when such an important occasion like the SSF is to be held in badminton-loving countries like Indonesia, Malaysia or even tiny Singapore.

In this sense I find that Dubai seems to be anti-climax. However the performance put up by ROW especially is heart-warming.
 
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Loh said:
I agree with you that because they are a non-badminton nation, we don't expect good attendance.

And it is attendance, especially from the locals, that I find wanting.

But I concede that they still have much to do to boost local interest and this is just the beginning.

In that sense, I guess we can't expect too much.

Empty seats will always be there. We often feel disappointed that seats reserved for VIPs and sponsors are not always filled up.

But think of the response when such an important occasion like the SSF is to be held in badminton-loving countries like Indonesia, Malaysia or even tiny Singapore.

In this sense I find that Dubai seems to be anti-climax. However the performance put up by ROW especially is heart-warming.
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I remember a number of years ago, badzine reported that in the early rounds of the Hong Kong open(that year), there were only 12 spectators for the daytime session. It's difficult to take time off work during Daytimes and evenings people work late or have family to attend to. I think the world has changed from 5pm finish work times. Many work late and the Internet and emails have made things worse.

Now, even the early rounds of the HK open a fair attendance. That example is to show even for s population where badminton is pretty common, attendance can be poor. For a new tournament in a new locality, I don't think one can criticise too far nor assume there is a differential in the social strata. Were there any surveys done on the demographics? In any case, BWF has done the right thing in better globalising badminton.
 
I agree that work commitments will affect attendance especially on working days. What about the non-working Saturday and Sunday, presumably Dubai is like many other countries that don't work on normal week-ends.

Normal tournaments with qualification rounds will definitely not encourage attendance. But this is the cream of the SS lot with no qualification but with a round-robin in stage one that should be more interesting.

I think it will be a good idea for the organisers to do a survey of the attendance each day and who attends for future reference and comparison in order to gauge the popularity of the game. How else can we easily measure interest, aside from taking surveys of school children and public participation and TV viewership?

If I'm not mistaken BWF's idea of globalizing badminton is to attract at least as many locals to participate in the game, especially in playing it apart from watching tournaments.

That's why in Dubai's case I was wondering whether the locals outnumber the foreigners in the stadium and how many are in attendance compared to the stadium capacity.
 
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Say, what's happening with the YouTube videos of the finals day on badmintonworld.tv? Not available yet... :(
 
Loh said:
I agree that work commitments will affect attendance especially on working days. What about the non-working Saturday and Sunday, presumably Dubai is like many other countries that don't work on normal week-ends.

Normal tournaments with qualification rounds will definitely not encourage attendance. But this is the cream of the SS lot with no qualification but with a round-robin in stage one that should be more interesting.

I think it will be a good idea for the organisers to do a survey of the attendance each day and who attends for future reference and comparison in order to gauge the popularity of the game. How else can we easily measure interest, aside from taking surveys of school children and public participation and TV viewership?

If I'm not mistaken BWF's idea of globalizing badminton is to attract at least as many locals to participate in the game, especially in playing it apart from watching tournaments.

That's why in Dubai's case I was wondering whether the locals outnumber the foreigners in the stadium and how many are in attendance compared to the stadium capacity.
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The practicalities of money make Dubai the best choice at present, cheers or no cheers.
 
opruh said:
What will be Chen Long's world ranking after this tournament, will he be the new #1?
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Exactly, he will be new world #1 on Thursday's updated ;)

Oldhand said:
In the original order of play, the WD was the first match and the XD was last.
(It was supposed to be: WD - WS - MD - MS - XD)
This is also because Zhao Yunlei was in both the WD and XD.
It's customary to allow a two-match rest interval for anyone who is in two events.
In a very late development, Dubai royalty decided to turn up on the final day.
However, the BWF was told that the royal family members would stay only for a short while.
And that's why the MD was moved up - to showcase the game's speed and power.
Good move, I'd say.
Imagine if it had been the WD :o
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Thanks for the information :) The original order of play was also good arrangement by the organizer, IMO.
 
Cheung said:
The practicalities of money make Dubai the best choice at present, cheers or no cheers.
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So it is more money power than the holistic notion of globalizing badminton. :D

That makes Dubai the ideal place for showcasing first-class badminton. :rolleyes:

And I recall that the Royalty has no time to watch many matches, so change the schedule to suit him with only the best MD match, but may not be the best arrangement for world badminton fans.
 
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Loh said:
So it is more money power than the holistic notion of globalizing badminton. :D

That makes Dubai the ideal place for showcasing first-class badminton. :rolleyes:
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Dubai cannot be written off. Badminton is an ideal indoor sport for the middle east. Why not try if the money is available? Tennis plays its end of year finals in Shanghai and tennis is way less popular a sport in China compared to badminton.

And if you look at how many bids come along for major BWF events, a 3 year contract for staging the event provides a lot of event planning and financial stability. It means that next year, BWF can free up some admin manpower for helping other projects.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai

Some interesting info on Dubai from Wikipedia.

Suffice it to say, Dubai is largely a Muslim country governed by strict Sharia laws.

It's population as at 1 Jan 2013 is about 2.1 million, even less than Singapore, made up as follows:

53.0% Indian (No wonder the huge vocal Indian support in the SSF)
17.0% Emirati (360,000; I suppose considered as locals from UAE)
13.3% Pakistani
7.5% Bangladeshi
2.5% Filipino
1.5% Sri Lankan
0.3% American
5.7% other countries

So Dubai has not more than 17% locals (must be less than 360,000, but overwhelmingly foreigners, the majority of which is from the Indian sub-continent including Sri Lanka (75% or 1.6 million).

There were questions on Human Rights, I suppose of improper treatment of foreign workers and maids.

Of course Dubai cannot be written off since it is a very rich and modern state in the Middle East, but with such a small local population and strict laws, even on dressing particularly for girls and women, l wonder how long will badminton be able to take off?

In the London Olympics, I read that some Muslim countries still insist on their girls to cover themselves up properly. Imagine if girls have to play badminton wearing T-shirts with sleeves and pants and maybe headdress as well, how are they going to train properly and beat the best in the world?

Good try BWF, to popularize badminton in Dubai!
 
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Live Audience at Badminton Tournaments Venues.

I was going through the views expressed by members on the live audience at Dubai SS Final and their numbers and composition.

No body can deny the fact that, Dubai and all oil rich countries around Dubai (Gulf Region) do not carry much sporting history and tradition. But Dubai and other countries have heavily invested in development of sports and sports infrastructure. Qatar from same region is going to host next Football World Cup. Cricket is very popular in the region and many international matches are hosted there. International Cricket Council (ICC) is headquartered in Dubai. Dubai has recently hosted International Swimming, Tennis, Basketball and now it is turn of Badminton. Please take a note of the fact that, none of these sports are widely played there, they are just gaining roots. There are no local players worth mentioning.

This entire region is booming with oil exploration, infrastructure development and international trade. Local governments and monarchs have invested heavily in developing this region to international standards. Lot of expats and migrant population is staying in this region. Majority of workforce from top to bottom of this region is imported from Indian subcontinent. But this workforce is very big in number and more or less permanent resident of the region. It is but natural that, expat workforce of the region will be in attendance for any sport event. Moreover they should be treated as locals, simply because they are employed there and they are permanently residing there.

As it is, I do not know how many badminton fans travel overseas to watch important badminton tournament, unlike football. Someone may please throw light on this.

I do not agree to the view that, by organizing SS Final in Dubai, badminton fans and players in other countries are deprived of anything. They can anyway watch SS Final live on TV or Internet. I do not feel participating players either have any complaint about Dubai.

And if not Dubai then where ? Is there any venue competing with Dubai ? Can anyone match Dubai in terms of money and other support they are offering ?
 
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