Badminton body moves to attract more sponsors and TV coverage

JAKARTA (JP): The Asian Badminton Confederation (ABC) has taken steps to attract more sponsors and television coverage for the sport by applying the new scoring system of three out of five games with seven points in each game.

ABC President, Korn Dabbaransi, told reporters on Wednesday that since TV plays a big role in attracting sponsorship, the badminton itself must be attractive and watchable for TV viewers.

"TV has an important role in sports development around the world because it attracts sponsorship. Changing the scoring system is only one of the possibilities that could improve the performance of badminton in the world," he said during the lunch break of the ABC's Annual General Meeting.

"It is really important to find ways how to make TV viewers watch badminton and not want to change the channel... how to make them stick with the sport."

The International Badminton Federation (IBF) is applying the new scoring system during the World Junior Badminton Championships for the Bimantara Cup in Guangzhou, China, from Nov. 3 to Nov. 12.

IBF chief director, Neil Cameron, said that the new system would reduce the amount of time required by about 40 percent compared to the regular system.

"With the new system, each match will end in an average of 45 minutes. When using the old system, players have to deal with a lot of pressure as they have to play for more than one hour. We're going to kill the players that way."

"Some of the players may not feel comfortable with that but we're not thinking here about the importance of the players but rather the importance of the game."

"We made a number of innovations during the Sydney Olympics by playing music between rallies and involving the spectators in cheering on the players."

Speaking about spectators, Dabbaransi gave credit to Indonesian and Malaysian badminton fans who always cheer on their players, especially if they are facing each other.

"I think Indonesian supporters are the loudest in the world and it makes the sport much more attractive. The cheers also motivate the players in tournaments. That's why Indonesia is able to retain its badminton supremacy."

However, Cameron saw a difficulty in involving the spectators as badminton tournaments usually have multiple courts during the early rounds.

He also pointed to the problem of players' attire in connection with TV coverage.

"It's really difficult to make the players wear the same color of shirts during games. A TV channel in Germany declined to continue its coverage of badminton during the Olympics because the players wore different colors which looked really bad on TV."

The IBF will also introduce a rule requiring players to have their names on the back of their shirts starting January.

Speaking on the Grand Prix Finals -- which are tentatively scheduled to take place in Brunei Darussalam from Feb. 14 to Feb. 18 -- Cameron said Brunei has yet to agree but that the IBF has named India as a candidate to replace it. Cameron also spoke about increasing the prize money for the event to US$300,000. (yan)