Yonex - Bad for badminton, Discuss

[The Expert]

No other sport is so dominated by one manufacturer. The IBF and most of the national associations have a very cosy relationship with them and their chief executive and senior officers are treated as demigods. This is very bad for badminton as in truth it seems international badminton dances to a Yonex tune, this caps prize money and keeps the sport stuck in narrow monetary band.

[redkingjoe]

my understanding is: Yonex is spending a lot of money in sponsering badminton in term of prizes and some other stuff for international and local tournament

let's assume yonex is sponsering US$10 millions worldwide...what will happen if yonex suddenly drops all the sponsering money?

do you believe that someone else will pay more than yonex to support the sport? how about all these clonex around? nike, adidas, reebok, carlton....banks...or what?

[ants]

Good point you have there Red. There might be pros and cons in an organisation takes control too much in a sport. However if no body is willing the take up the challenge by sponsoring.. who is going to promote the sport then?

[rhombus]

Dear Ants,

I have a video from the Yonex All England Badminton Championships in the late 1980's which in those days was held at good old Wembley. The prize money for the winner of the Mens Singles (Yang Yang beating Frost) was £5,000. What was the prize money this year.......$10,000. I hardly think that Yonex are falling over themselves to sponsor the event, they seem to get it almost for free. Sponsorship is a major headache at all levels of Badminton. Take my county of Kent. In 25 years of playing county badminton, never had a tracksuit sponsored by a company, never had expenses like travel and accomodation payed for, and if you went for Yonex TERMS (ie sponsorship) it was impossible to get unless you were in the top 10 singles players in the country.You had to be financially independent therefore to even represent your county, which I have to say was an honour and that's why we played. The whole infrastructure is supposed to have changed, but I do not think it has. A club junior who I played with for a number of years got to international standards and had lottery funding.....£ 1500 for the year. In 1 year that was cut to £750. How on earth can players travel the world learning their trade on that sort of money. Professional means dedicating your whole life to Badminton, and not supporting yourself through second jobs or having your family financially support you through years of struggling through the ranks. How is a promising youngster from a poor background going to make it in this kind of environment. I would be interested to know what % of this $10 Million comes here (Europe) and how much is spent in Asia ?. Maybe Martin Dew- Hattens may know ?

[djg]

I agree with the original suggestion that the dominant position of Yonex is not good for badminton long term. But this is not a criticism of Yonex. Yonex is a business and part of their objective is to get as much publicity and advertising for as little money as possible. If they can continue to be the dominant supplier without spending any more money then that is what they will do. Right now they're doing a very good job at this because there is very little serious competition. They stepped up when others didn't and deserve credit for that. This may be good for Yonex but not necessarily good for badminton now.

We don't want Yonex to spend less, we want them to spend more for less. But without any significant competition in the market they have no pressure. The problem is getting adidas, nike, Wilson, Forza, Carlton and others to spend more. Shouldn't this be the goal of the IBF ?

Perhaps the biggest concern is that the IBF and so many of the national associations appear to have such close deals with Yonex. I see this as a potential barrier to getting other companies to spend more money on sponsorship. How do you compete on a level field with the official IBF partner ?

Regardless of how good Yonex has been over recent years it has to be better for the long term future of the sport if there are 3 or 4 major suppliers all with similar market shares, each successful and each fighting to grow its position. Perhaps if the IBF spent more time on encouraging this rather than trying to change scoring rules we'd be getting more TV coverage. How much TV coverage does a tennis tournament get when the top prize is just $10k ?

[flea]

Yonex are like a disease, they have systematically destroyed the competition and then left the sport to rot. Strange thing is they haven't necessarily done this on purpose, it's just that their competition is so weak and as they were one of the fist players (no pun intended) in the badminton market they had a big advantage. Lack of supplier competition has meant sponsorship has been maintained at such a low level and thus prizes have been disastrously poor. A winner of a large badminton event gets the same money as someone winning a county/state tennis tour event.

So, have Yonex single-handedly killed the game? No, not at all, they have just taken advantage of one of the most poorly run sports in history. The IBF are a joke and so are most of the national bodies, they have handed Yonex such dominance it is now hard to oust them. There is also an element of Yonex being in bed with the IBF which stinks. The badminton authorities are to blame for not turning badminton into a mass media sport over the last 30 years. remember, tennis was a nothing sport up until the open era started.

Solution? Get a large blue-chip multinational to sponsor an event. Ford, Sony, American Express, Panasonic. Let's look outside the sport for sponsors, away from equipment suppliers. Nearly all other sports have sponsorship form non-related business. How do you do this? Get one of the top execs there to take up the sport and actually play it regularly. If they played it they would throw some money behind it. Golf tournaments get astronomical amounts thrown at them. Why? Because all the top business execs play it. We are not talking the money levels of CL footie, or Superbowl coverage, but the large companies can easily spare a few thousand for badminton. have the badminton authorities every targeted top blue-chip execs? probably not, probably never, that is why Yonex will remain dominant for the foreseeable future. But I say bring on Ford and Coke, if anyone knows any of the top execs send details on a postcard to the IBF.

Anyway, rant over, new here, hope to get to know some of you!

[ants]

If Yonex is spending less... then other sponsors should step up and over take Yonex. I do agree too much Yonex is also bad for for badminton, it means that Yonex is monopolizing the game.
Beside sponsoring $ for prize money. Yonex also sponsor the players to go and play the game at a certain tournament. It means sponsoring their air tickets , accomodation food etc not forgetting the equipments as well. So can we suggest other corporate companies to take over Yonex's job?

[alansd]

I think the reason that yonex had a stranglehold on the sport is being missed. Its because people buy the rackets, and people do this because 90% of the professionals use them. This is just the power of advertising working like it is supposed to. If the people that actually played the sport stopped using yonex so much the would not have the money to monopolise the market.
If you go on to badminton forum.com you will see hundreds of threads about yonex rackets. I dont believe (but am willing to be contradicted) that yonex make better rackets than any other brand but the majority of social players will copy the most famous players. I think that this website has a more balanced view because the average player here is of a higher standard, perhaps more likely to compete agianst a yonex sponsored player than idolise them!!

[soup]

I read this subject with interest. There is no doubt Yonex must be rubbing their hands, given their status. One of the main reasons for this is the demise of Carlton. I have worked in sales now for 18 years in the sports sector. Things have never been the same for Carlton since they came under the wing of Dunlop Slazenger. Then Sport And Soccer bought the Dunlop Slazenger Group. Need I say more.
I keep in regular touch with Mr Carlton himself (Tommy Hepburn) who still looks back in anger at Carltons fall from grace.
Yonex needed Carlton, but where are the other brands. I recall when I was playing fringe players such as
Yelex and John Mott. I guess with dwindling numbers playing our game, market forces dictate there is no need for choice.
That said, Yones do make damn good product and they have ridden the peaks and troughs in the game. A global brand that is enjoying the state of the game i'm afraid. I never palyed Yonex and would love to see a revitalised Carlton re-launched through Tommy's guidance.
Does anyone remember the worst racket that Carlton produced, the CG8. A wrist breaker

[djg]

Does anyone remember the worst racket that Carlton produced, the CG8. A wrist breaker

There's been some bad ones but some good ones too, I still remember my first 3.7X

Do you have inside knowledge that Tommy Hepburn is working with Carlton again ? A revitalised Carlton would certainly be good for badminton

[soup]

thanks for your reply. no tommy is working in a call centre in glasgow. the sbu seemed not to need his services. a great loss to the game.
how do you know him?

david

[djg]

[QUOTE=soup]thanks for your reply. no tommy is working in a call centre in glasgow. the sbu seemed not to need his services. a great loss to the game.
how do you know him?

I don't know him unfortunately. But I think that Carlton need some help and I thought that your post suggested that you may have some inside knowledge that something was happening behind the scenes. Badminton needs someone big enough to compete with Yonex, Wilson and Forza appear to making some moves but I still think a stronger Carlton brand would be good for badminton.

[The Expert]

Table-Tennis has Volkswagon as one of the sponsers!!!

Much better money for the players, better structure, better website...better everything.

http://www.ittf.com/

[scsiscan]

Badminton needs all companies such as yonex, carlton, forza, etc .........

If they didn't pay uut cash to players then where would we be ?

So what if yonex is dominant. They pay for it. Its business.

[Smurf]

Yonex is simply a big fish in a small pond. It's down to the national and international governing bodies to make the pond bigger, which they seem spectacularly unable to do.

[Loafer]

the bottom line, is that the sports govering bodies should be more commercially astute and be encouraging other companies to get involved with sponsorship of tournaments etc.


yonex have a stranglehold on things currently but it is only to be expected. they are in the business of self promotion and making money, they will do all they can to acheive that.

it requires other companies to step up and take some of the market back, the IBf should do what they can to support this (hence earlier comment) but the onus has to be primarily on the other companies.