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National Badminton League
April 14, 2014
7:25 pm
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Roger
West Midlands UK
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Hi All

Any thoughts out there on the formation later this year of the NBL. If you need info http://www.badmintonengland.co.uk

If you're a forum member outside the UK do you have anything similar in your country. 

 

Roger

April 17, 2014
7:38 pm
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Paul Stewart
Cheshire, UK
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Roger

 

This is an interesting development for the badminton world in UK.

 

In some respects there's good news and bad news. The good news, hopefully, is that this brings good badminton to certain areas and may create an opportunity for players and young players to watch top class badminton.

 

The bad news is that this is going to cost money. So who's paying? Most likely sponsors but does this mean BE will be asking us for more money too? Also, is this bringing in another level of elitism? I'm not so sure.

 

There's already a bad attitude in some counties about representation e.g. “I'm not travelling that far to play 4th mixed.” So, with a fairly full calendar, how is this going to fit?

 

My guess is that with so few teams there is little impact on many of us unless we have a team in our locality.

 

Finally, there is going to be a need to pull huge crowds to these events. We can't even fill an arena for European Championships or early rounds of All Englands. How on earth are we to attract big crowds for these matches?

 

Paul

April 18, 2014
7:48 pm
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Dee
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I hate to be negative but I can't see it being a runaway success even with changes in the scoring system. On that note I personally don't think the existing best of three games of 21 points is great (weren't there once trials of five game to 11 points?).

 

On the BE website it states that the NBL will see teams playing against each other once in a season. Surely with both home and away matches each team will play every other twice? It's a start getting it onto Sky but will it make much difference? In my view it will only be playing fans of the game that actually watch it. In the 1990s Sky covered many tournaments (which I still have on video) and I believe it had virtually zero impact as a whole.

 

I hope the NBL is a success and it certainly add interest that teams can draft in international players. Quite how this will work remains to be seen.

 

I don't think badminton is a great spectator sport for most non-players. Perhaps the dynamics are lost a bit in the view from the rear court – it might be better if televised from the side and slightly elevated. Compared with tennis the game is very fast and also each game is too long-winded at 21 points. I seem to recall the purpose of moving away from the original scoring was to create more crucial points but that didn't happen.

April 20, 2014
12:20 pm
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Paul Stewart
Cheshire, UK
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Dee

 

Time will tell whether this will be successful. I honestly wonder whether we have the quality of player and the personalities in the game to hold our attention.

 

I agree that more experimentation needs to be done with camera angles and especially using slow motion to show the public what happened. I'd love more analysis like the football pundits whereby they draw lines on screen to help us understand the game. This never happens in badminton and therefore we cannot learn the same.

 

Paul

April 25, 2014
3:47 pm
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Roger
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I think that the lack of response to this post speaks volumes.

Paul and Dee's comments probably speak for most of us by hoping it's a success but having quite a few misgivings.

Without the TV coverage to attract sponsors it's going to have a hard time. I wonder how long the deal with Sky is for and what happens if it doesn't reach the required viewing figures.

I agree with Paul regarding the match attendance. It's not going to look too good playing to half empty halls.

Dee also has a valid point regarding the presentation of the game. Badminton is now billed as” The Fastest Racket Game One Earth” and that's the problem. Singles matches and, to an extent, MX and WD can be followed relatively easily, but MD presents far more of a challenge if it's to be appreciated by a wider audience.

Anything that gives our sport a higher profile has to be good news. Whether this initiative succeeds remains to be seen.          

April 28, 2014
8:44 pm
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Paul Stewart
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Roger

 

Yes, we all want it to be a success. One of the other questions here is whether it will actually do anything for grass routes badminton? I may be opening Pandora's box here but as grass routes and club/league badminton, clubs want BE to do something for them to justify the fees. So BE offers to send a coach to the club and lo and behold, only a fraction of the players want coaching. The rest want the coach to wave a magic wand tell them they'll be better players in the morning and that's about it.

 

We, as a whole and not individuals here seem to be missing how success works. Goals – coaching – practice – more coaching – more practice = result.

 

So why are people trying to short cut this formula to coaching (or most likely, coach appears) – play games = get result.

 

BE doesn't really have the support of the people and in return I'm not expecting much support back. That coupled with the lack of truly international standard players turns people away. Case in point. The last two years Nationals. Players have been allowed to almost disregard an umpire so they can talk (again and again), towel down and of course – touch hands! What happened to play must be continuous?

 

OK, I'm rambling a little and going off subject, but all for a good reason. People want to be entertained. At the highest level, players are entertained to a point, like at All Englands. However, as we've seen there, poor scheduling and matches with no bite because they are prearranged are boring.

 

If this team event is to work, we have to sell the players so the people know who they are etc, to the extent we know the players' loves/hates, favourite charity etc – anything to make this person real, interesting, potentially exciting to watch. At the moment only a relative few know who current England players are. We stand a chance with the men but I'm not being sexist here, who on earth knows the English ladies except for Mrs Adcock? What have they won…anywhere except at home?

 

OK, my rant may move too far away from the point, but success breeds success. I remember when I was up and coming travelling to see England versus China or Korea matches. We had great players in those days (mid 1980's) with so many legends to look up to. We had crowds of players watching them because we could get so near courtside and we wanted to watch our England stars like Gillian Gilks, Gillian Clarke, Gillian Gowers, Nora Perry, Mike Tredgett, Martin Dew, Darren Hall etc. Goodness knows how much we need quality like that again.

 

Paul

May 4, 2014
11:55 am
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Ed
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For me, I don't know less or more British players now than a decade back. The Adcocks, and Ellis/Adcock, I always watch their matches online, they are always high level and very tense to watch. I noticed a young British girl lately, don't know here name, or what tournament it was, but I was very impressed. I remember she was overwhelmed the first game, but in the second showed why she was on that tournament. Impressive.

In Belgium, badminton is not on the same popularity level as in the UK, but I have the impression the tables are turning. Not at the speed I would like to, but there is slowly coming more media attention, and the quality of game is increasing. Look at the results in the European championships. Slowly, but we are getting there. At least in our club the heroes are known. They are always used on the posters spread to announce a tournament. That enhances popularity of the players too. Could it all be better ? Surely, but then badminton doesn't get the budget of football, does it ?

Cheers, ED

May 19, 2014
10:06 pm
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Ed
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Bam, the girl I was talking about, read this. I knew it wouldn't take long…

All the best, ED

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