Sports Hall design

[Geof]

I went to see a friend playing indoor county bowls recently.The pitch/green if thats what they called it? was on the same level as an adjoining lounge and seating area.There were loads of people sitting in comfort right next to the game,enjoying a pint and watching with great interest . I have played badminton for years in cold uncomfortable halls which are very uninviting for spectators.I think until we can radically rethink our badminton hall design we will always suffer from low attendances.Even Milton Keynes our National centre is not spectator friendly although a perfect playing venue. I think we should learn a lesson from other sports.

[danbelcher]

Good point. As wonderful and modern as the National Badminton Centre is and I imagine it is a great training facility, it is however not much of a spectator venue but perhaps it was never meant to be. The outlook from the viewing gallery is limited which is a shame if they plan to hold more events there. It is nice though...

[jg]

The BA of E centre was built and financed purely as a training and playing venue and not as a venue for large scale events.

As for spectator attendances....dream on

[Dimo]

Yes, John, and that was a short-sighted mistake by the BA of E.

Oh, and my name isn't Don! Shurely shome mishtake!

[tma]

I recently played at the new badminton centre in Winchester and was very impressed by the facilities both for players and spectators. This seems like an excellent example of how halls should be designed.

[jg]

Don

The Milton Keynes facility was funded as a Training Centre of Elite Athletes....with the Leisure club tagged on to provide opperating income

The Information given at the time was that funding would probably not be made available if the venue was to be used for holding events. There was also a large cost implication in design and build if spectator facilities were to be added...not the least of the being health and safey points.

All that aside....where do people think these large numbers of spectators are going to come from to justify spending large amounts of extra money when other adequet facilities are available locally.....sure you may well get a few hundred turning up for one or two events...but do we really expect spectators to turn up repeatedly for events

[Pglews]

Exactly John, firstly theres got to be some sort of marketing initiative put into the sport. The image has to be one that appeals to people. The awareness of badminton is quite poor at the moment, from what I can tell, although by that I dont mean people who watch it. What I mean is people who are aware of the type of game that badminton is and the physical side to it. The image is not of a fast dynamic game and that point needs to be put across.
Maybe for starters doubles should be shown more than singles on the tv coverage that we do have, because its faster and probably more exciting than singles and therefore more likely to catch the eye of a channel hopper who catches the programme, but doesn't play.
I don't think the tennis stigma helps here, doubles being regarded sometimes as a far inferior game to singles in tennis on the whole. Otherwise why would there be more singles on TV than doubles.
Anyway, back to badminton, people involved in marketing the sport need to sell it based on its strengths...NOT those that appeal singularly to the player, but ones that are more likely to appeal to a general audience.
Obviously in theory (and this is over a long period of time) if we can up the interest, then this should result in sponsors being more interested in the sport and putting more money towards it. Then we can talk about putting that money towards spectator friendly venues, because the interest will be there.
Before anyone points out that this is probably a long way off, true, but it has to start somewhere!

[Dimo]

Jim (Gurling)

Well, the argument is valid but it still doesn't deal with some of the wider issues. Badminton in the UK will continue to take two steps forward and then one back in my view.

[Michael Banks]

Great point Pete. We should not compare ourselves with tennis. Tennis seems to be a singles game as far as the media is concerned, whereas badminton is different.

Doubles should be given a higher profile. This is where badminton comes into its own and can be seen as the fast dynamic sport it is.

The whole marketing aspect should be away from the tennis comparison. Badminton is fast and exciting, it is a game that can be played at lightning pace and by 4 people at the same time.

If we approach the PR aspect from a doubles perspective perhaps we can make inroads and get away from comparing badminton with anything else.

Let's tell the media that badminton is unique, and you can't understand it unless you have tasted it.

[Pglews]

Absolutely Michael, the problem is distancing ourselves from the tennis image. Even though tennis gets a lot of coverage, people who don't know a lot about racquet sports will possibly make an association there. There's proof of this on this very site, when a niave tennis fan tried to make claims about tennis compared to badminton. His points showed how he took badminton for granted and assumed things because of this.Obviously its easier for us badminton players to understand tennis, because there's more coverage, we get to see more of it than tennis players or neutrals would badminton.

There needs to be some kind of segregation and proper marketing, from an image point of view will help. The product has to be repackaged, in the sense that it needs to make people see what they are missing. There are far more sports with less action than badminton that have more coverage.

Last point, while we're at it, does anyone think gambling might have anything to do with it? We can get odds on Horse racing, snooker, darts, tennis, all kinds of sports, but I don't know about badminton. It would be interesting to see which sports would lose some coverage if people didn't bet on them.