BWF’s futuristic approach & accession planning for global sports development.

Source: https://corporate.bwfbadminton.com/about/

Considerably one of the fastest sport Badminton, has a history of its own. A game invented in India (back then British India) which was popular amongst only emigrant officers of the British India Army. In the early days Badminton was known as Poona or Poonah, named after the Garrison Town of Poona (now Pune). Some say that the first draft was in Garrison Town of Poona and others say that the rules were first drafted back in Badminton (country estate), from which the game derives its name.

In the next 6-Olympics events, Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000), Athens (2004), Beijing (2008), London (2012), and Rio (2016) badminton made a considerable impact with substantial development in terms of viewership, number of individuals being named World Champions, significant increase in no. of players associating with the sport in different regions of 193 global members. In 2005, International Badminton Federation was renamed to Badminton World Federation (BWF) & on 24th Sept 2006 BWF became the Official-World Governing Body. (Source: Olympic Badminton History | BWF).

Those are some of the historic facts of Badminton, but what’s on the other side? 

It is essential for any sport to sustain or to be able to stay in the game there has to be consistent changes, and willingness to support innovation. BWF has been never behind in the game with their futuristic approach to further enhance the sport for better experience & participation. With an aim for more people to be associated with various categories, as per their needs and wants, the governing body is keen and committed to focus on four-key areas Entertainment, Participation, Partnerships and Capacity, as per BWF Strategic Plan 2016-2020. Badminton is 2nd on the list of most participated sport in the world, it currently has over 450 million viewers globally, over 500 million global fan-base, 1.28 million BadmintonWorld.TV subscribers, 7.3-million Facebook followers, 1.7 million Instagram followers, 1000+ LinkedIn followers, 133K Twitter followers, and has 335+ Million active participants worldwide. 

Strategic initiatives & futuristic development steps are essential for the development of the sports, because of which the badminton equipment business, flourished. Manufacturing feather shuttle’s & high-end rackets/racquets were obviously the main ingredient, but customizing the weight accordingly to the players & his/her style of play. Type of match was also a taken into consideration, for example: if a player is competing in Singles or Doubles as it would be a need for some players to have a slightly shorter racquet (within the guidelines of BWF’s rules & regulations for equipment’s). Specialized rubber-sole-shoes were also introduced which later went-on to be designed specifically for an athlete as part of the sponsorship deal signed between them along with specific branding & promotions associated to it. For Instance, Yonex Sunrise India shared a video of Facebook featuring Mr. Lin Dan. 

Moving to the competition side of the game, maintaining standards of wooden courts or synthetic counts, the lighting, the ventilation, etc. are also aligned with the facility management perspective of organizing an International, National sporting events. Synthetic flooring in available for organizers, but the maintenance part has to be taken care. Any mismanagement of the facility or mishandling of the flooring material can cause serious damage to the support staff, organizers, viewers or resulting in career threatening injuries for an athlete. Performance management of the stadiums & consistent feedback system is equally important to keep-up with the standards of the elite sports.

Keeping the future of the sport as the bigger picture, BWF Committees have been able to jot-down 9-Key Research Area’s (KRA’s), which of course work in-sync to achieve their goals and objectives in-line with their Vision & Mission statements. The one which is currently being worked on, or let’s say in the initial stage of acceptance at the global level, is the AirBadminton Concept, which also gave birth to a concept called AirShuttle. It is conceptualized to facilitate and promote fun, more participation and inclusiveness (Source: BWF AirBadminton). 

Here is how it works. AirBadminton is nothing but an outdoor version of Badminton. The idea is for people from different age groups and ethnicities have access to the game. Badminton is heavily affected by the surroundings, hence BWF has introduced an AirShuttle, which is specifically designed to be played in an open environment. The integration is as smooth as it can, because the AirShuttle is designed to work with existing rackets/racquets so the people can have more access to this invigorating version. 

AirBadminton can be played on surfaces like Sand, Grass or any hard surface for that matter. To have a similar look-and-feel like any regular badminton court there is a specialized-equipment-kit which included two-boundary lines (16m each), four-short-lines (6m each), 1-foldable net system, four marking cones, four anchors (for sand support), a hammer, and four spikes (for sand) or eight spikes (for grass) to make things easier. Conceptualization of AirBadminton started in June 2013, where tenders were unlocked to identify research partners.

Source: BWF AirBadminton Project History

It took 6+years, for this concept to be in the final phase of on-ground testing & implementation while working with various partners like Nanyang Technological University (NTU), University of Alicante in Spain, former & current Olympians, National Team Players, Club Players, Student, Spanish National Team Players, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Guangzhou in partnership with BWF’s Global Development Partner, HSBC. (Source: BWF AirBadminton Project History) 

This futuristic approach for the development of badminton, is nothing less than a revolution. We could now possibly imagine regions who do not have access to state-of-the-art sports facilities, or those who are affected by some natural calamity would now be able to have access to this mobile-version of Badminton. With AirBadminton the possibility of extensive grassroots development programs would surely take an upsurge. We also believe AirBadminton is a very-well planned and implemented, extension to Shuttle Time: Schools Badminton Programme, which was introduced in 2012 by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). 

As a recreational player & a passionate follower of the sport, being able to witness a change in strategy through which more and more people could have access to a sport, which is considerably an expensive one especially when it comes to elite-level category. Development strategies like these can help to better a build connect with our day-to-days lives when we can play it in our backyard or out on a trip with considerable amount of space available, just to ignite that self-belief, while being able to have fun which gives directions to our dreams, while being able to learn to train, than train to train, and train to compete, and finally win like champions to be the Greatest of All Times (GOAT), and stay active for life while sharing his knowledge in the process.

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