Why isn't badminton in the tv (in Europe, at least)?

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grhm2356

Regular Member
Maybe this question was discussed in the forum but I couldn't find it.

In Europe we have some reference tv channels for sport, mine is Eurosport. I think I never saw one badminton match in the channel. On the other hand some sports take a big chunk of time, like tennis or cycling.

You can argue that it's a matter of sponsorships, but I hardly believe that. If that is the reason, how can sports like Curling, Artistic Billiards, Horse Riding, and some other niche ones be broadcasted live? It's very strange to me...

They should look at the top sports in the world and include the missing ones, like badminton and field hockey!

Just my two cents...

What do you guys think?
 
problem is, whilst a lot of people play badminton, not a lot of them actually watch it.
for instance, in my club, i would say at least half don't even know who the top players are these days.
and of the other half, probably only half of those would bother watching live matches.
so the demand for live matches on tv isn't all that great, well, not in the uk at least.
 
But is that different from, let's say, table tennis? They broadcasted until today the table tennis world championship and I can imagine the same half/half interest applies to this sport.

And how many people watch Curling? hmmm... 10 in all Europe? :)
 
grhm2356 said:
But is that different from, let's say, table tennis? They broadcasted until today the table tennis world championship and I can imagine the same half/half interest applies to this sport.

And how many people watch Curling? hmmm... 10 in all Europe? :)
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Hey, let's not mock curling, curling is freaking awesome.
 
I also want to watch baddy on the tv but can't find any

Baddy is much better to watch than darts

I mean what's wrong with the world
 
grhm2356 said:
It's as much of a sport as chess... I don't really consider them sports but that's another war ;)
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To be perfectly honest, i'd much rather watch curling, i never claimed it was a sport. The problem with badminton is it's really hard to put on television in a way for a person who doesn't play badminton to understand. Since only badminton players would be interested in watching it, it wouldn't get that much outside interest.
 
chewablemorphin said:
To be perfectly honest, i'd much rather watch curling, i never claimed it was a sport. The problem with badminton is it's really hard to put on television in a way for a person who doesn't play badminton to understand. Since only badminton players would be interested in watching it, it wouldn't get that much outside interest.
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Badminton just doesn't gain enough interest any where outside of the "badminton countries". No TV network is going to be dumb enough to show any event that the MAJORITY of the T.V audience is interested in.

Do you think anybody who doesn't play curling is going to know what is happening in a curling match?:rolleyes: To me, it is more of a house maid training event... sweep, sweep some more... what's the point of it?
 
bananakid said:
Badminton just doesn't gain enough interest any where outside of the "badminton countries". No TV network is going to be dumb enough to show any event that the MAJORITY of the T.V audience is interested in.
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I don't know if this is true. Maybe people are not interested because they don't know the game, aside from being a backyard thingy.
I got to know sports I never heard about by watching them on the tv and I actually enjoy to watch them. IF badminton gets some air time maybe it shows people what the game is about and get their interest.

What do you prefer watching:
- Some guys riding bycicles for 4/5 hours, most of the time with no real action, or badminton?
- People riding horses who jump things, where the horse is the real athlete there, or badminton?
- Sweep, sweep, or badminton?
- 10 hours straight of tennis or 9 hours tennis and 1 hour badminton?
- 10 hours straight of snooker or 9 hours snooker and 1 hour badminton?
- Repetitions of repetitions of football games and highlights, or replacing those repetitions by some badminton?

When I say badminton I say also other sports. Like volleyball...
 
bananakid said:
Badminton just doesn't gain enough interest any where outside of the "badminton countries". No TV network is going to be dumb enough to show any event that the MAJORITY of the T.V audience is interested in.

Do you think anybody who doesn't play curling is going to know what is happening in a curling match?:rolleyes: To me, it is more of a house maid training event... sweep, sweep some more... what's the point of it?
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I think you mean the majority of the audiance IS NOT interested in. For the love of god, why do you guys always insult curling, it's a stategic game, like chess.... Why aren't you watching the nhl playoffs?
 
Well to be honest I think that their are a lot of sports which don't get their fair share on television , including badminton.

I was thinking that they should have made a sports channel aimed towards lesser known sports - but this wouldn't get many views.

I agree that badminton is a hard sport in fact a very hard sport but the players are SO GOOD that they make it look "easy".

This is a good thing but bad for the showing of it , because people won't be interested in an "easy" sport. And with the still re-ocurring image of it being a backyard sport or an easier tennis option - I doubt badminton will be on mainstream television anytime soon :o. But I do hope that maybe sometime big channels will offer the chances to watch the tourneys etc... , Maybe in the future - who knows? :D
 
krisss said:
Well to be honest I think that their are a lot of sports which don't get their fair share on television , including badminton.

I was thinking that they should have made a sports channel aimed towards lesser known sports - but this wouldn't get many views.

I agree that badminton is a hard sport in fact a very hard sport but the players are SO GOOD that they make it look "easy".

This is a good thing but bad for the showing of it , because people won't be interested in an "easy" sport. And with the still re-ocurring image of it being a backyard sport or an easier tennis option - I doubt badminton will be on mainstream television anytime soon :o. But I do hope that maybe sometime big channels will offer the chances to watch the tourneys etc... , Maybe in the future - who knows? :D
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Maybe if the olympics became a yearly event, other than that i can't see it happening.
 
Dreamzz said:
problem is, whilst a lot of people play badminton, not a lot of them actually watch it.
for instance, in my club, i would say at least half don't even know who the top players are these days.
and of the other half, probably only half of those would bother watching live matches.
so the demand for live matches on tv isn't all that great, well, not in the uk at least.
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Spot on :)
Which is a shame really..
 
Curling is a good example. When I first came to Canada, I find this sweeping game funny to look at, so I spent a good one hour tried to understand it, but it is just plain boring to watch and I couldn't figure what's going on till the end.

Badminton, in the other hand, at least people know who score a point when the bird lands within the court, and it is fast pace game packed with lot of actions. But still, we don't get a single broadcast.... I am still frustrating as ever........
 
Wong8Egg said:
Curling is a good example. When I first came to Canada, I find this sweeping game funny to look at, so I spent a good one hour tried to understand it, but it is just plain boring to watch and I couldn't figure what's going on till the end.

Badminton, in the other hand, at least people know who score a point when the bird lands within the court, and it is fast pace game packed with lot of actions. But still, we don't get a single broadcast.... I am still frustrating as ever........
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Curling is much easier to understand then badminton...Whoever has more rocks closer to middle scores points.... Plus it's a very respectfull game, much more so then badminton, very calm, very relaxing, not everything on tv has to be fast and intense. The same can be said that badminton is borring to watch compared to hockey. Plus Curling is part of canadian culture, if you don't like it, go home.
 
I sent an email to Eurosport asking what their criterias are for sport selection and they said they are going to look into it. I'll let you know, maybe it makes sense!
 
Eurosport showed 20 hours of Surdirman Cup 2005 and the same amount of time of World Championchips 2005. All with the Old Scoring System...

But they never showed any match since the New Scoring System...

Who can tell my whe the BWF changed the Scoring System? lol
 
xt6666 said:
Eurosport showed 20 hours of Surdirman Cup 2005 and the same amount of time of World Championchips 2005. All with the Old Scoring System...

But they never showed any match since the New Scoring System...

Who can tell my whe the BWF changed the Scoring System? lol
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Really? I missed that one...
I agree that the new scoring system is quite lame. I think most games take an average of 30 something minutes. If you squeeze play time out of it, maybe you have 10 minutes of *real* play. And that's to few!
Why not increasing to 5 sets? Volleyball has that, with the same direct point scoring system... It would give more real play time because players have to play more sets and also it forces them to lower the pace a bit increasing the rally time.


Yes? No? Maybe? Ah, you just don't care :)
 
Badminton is dominated by top oriantal players,whose names are hard to pronouce by European commentors, so they are not interested to broadcast, in my opinion. Look at Tennis, It's dominated by White players, who are celebraties and you're forced to watch it, because the TV coverage made the top stars of Tennis Millionares.

However, if you turn it around and have some Asian players reaching big Tennis tournaments, say in Wimbledon or US Open, all reaching Semi-final, the viewing figures would take nose dive, the sponsers would prey they don't repeat the same success again! They reason many club players don't know the top internalion players, simply, is due to media coverage. The average Joe, knows who is Nadal but an average Badminton guy wouldn't know who is Lin Dan.

With the new scoring system, the game is more exciting, expecially doubles. What we need in Europe is a white superstar, who by sheer charisma and some controversy, can put the sport in the media. By the way, never heard Curling.
 
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