sponsorship comes with the popularity of the game, the audience type and the achievement. No doubt Sridhar's achievement is significant, but it is just the beginning. Gopichand died an early death of his career.. there r lot of examples. More importantly Badminton is not as audience friendly sports as tennis or cricket. How many people love to watch badminton on TV? All these come before a sponsor comes. You guys need to be aware that sponsors are not donors, they will invest only when they get return. In India, media cries foul and shouts like beggers for sponsors.. If any achievement means sponsorship, why forget our kabadi, kho kho players? They are world champions!!
RE:why cry foul
by on Aug 22, 2007 10:17 PM Permalink
True sponsorship is no charity, and populatiry of the game can increase only if there are many stars like Anup Drishar come up. Spectator friendly is all about perception, in China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia badminton is very popular adn draws lots of crowd, but the same in India is just better thab being pathetic, because of our obsession with cricket and clebrity status. A player can be made into a brand only if he can attain success and if success needs to be acheived then there needs to be fash flow to push them, unfortunately Badminton in India is cash strapped though we have stars like Anup, Saina, Chetan Anand, Arvind Bhat and others they cant get exposure and match the international stars due to lack of support system. It is not that these players are asking money for their whims and fancies, but for working hard to get laurels to country. So i would suggest introspect before commenting.
