PHOTO: K. GOPINATHAN

Venugopal Mahalingam

BANGALORE: The only way to sell badminton worldwide is to brand the players and the game as they do in football and in tennis and, in this endeavour, the Badminton World Federation's new initiative of `Super Series' is a step in the right direction, said Venugopal Mahalingam, the Events Director of the BWF.

In a chat with The Hindu here, Mr. Venugopal, a former National player of Malaysia, says, "a game like football has a brand player like David Beckham, whereas we have none and the Super Series is aimed at giving a better platform to star players."

"Super Series has a select band of players competing in the event based on world rankings. In the inaugural season, we have had four events; we are planning for eight more and it will culminate with a Masters play-off. The response from sponsors and the media has been encouraging."

Organisers arranged

Mr. Venugopal disclosed that the BWF has already signed up organisers for the next three years for the Super Series event and a Malaysian company will be a title sponsor. "Our Malaysian sponsor is yet to give a title name to the events," he added.

The Masters event would consist of eight top players of the circuit and according to Mr. Venugopal, it will be similar to the tennis Masters event and would offer double the prize money of Super Series events.

"It could be around $ 500,000 and at this stage I am not hazarding a guess until things are worked out with the sponsors," said the BWF official. BWF, which changed the format of the scoring system, is not planning to make further changes in the format of tournaments.

"Of late, there have been too many events and while we try to stipulate the number of Grand Prix events that member nations could organise, there is no cap on smaller events," said Mr. Venugopal.

The BWF official defended the new scoring pattern (rally points) as an attractive proposition for sponsors and players.

"Initially a lot of people were sceptical but now most of them love it. The game is faster and for the spectators and TV audience, the game is an enjoyable experience. Earlier they could take a break and come back to watch a single point being played over and over again, but it doesn't happen with the current scoring system," said Mr. Venugopal.

Developmental work

Mr. Venugopal said that the BWF for the past few years had been working basically on the structure of the game and organisation and from this year, it would concentrate on the developmental work and on spreading the game in Africa and America.

A BWF certification programme for coaches, which would be universally recognised, is another main agenda of the World Federation. According to Mr. Venugopal, this would be done after the 2008 Olympics.

It had been hardly two years since the BWF moved base from London to Kuala Lumpur and Mr. Venugopal said that the rationale behind the change was to cut the overhead costs of the operations from London and to divert the funds thus saved for developmental activities of the Federation.

"Over the past two years, we have funded various badminton programmes in our member nations to the tune of $ one million," said the BWF official.

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