Announcement

Badminton Global Fan, Commercial and Broadcast Figures

With the conclusion of the 2022 calendar, we are pleased to share with you important updates on our sport and BWF events.  These statistics evidence a significant return on investment in the delivery of BWF programmes and international badminton events.

Making badminton a popular and accessible sport for all introduces new possibilities for participation and competition, which enhances our capacity to achieve our vision of giving every child a chance to play for life.

Moving forward, the BWF is constantly keeping track of the way badminton fans and participants engage with the sport to ensure badminton remains relevant for youth and our fan base.

Member Associations are welcome to use these insights in your efforts to attract new sponsors, share the information with your players for their sponsorships search, editorial stories about the growth of badminton and other relevant purposes.


Badminton Fan Size

Badminton continues to be one of the most popular sports in the world, with particularly strong interest growth in Asia.  Among 51 markets covered in our 2022 Global Fan Study, the global size of badminton fans can be estimated at 709 million.

Badminton is the third most followed sport amongst 28 sport types across over 20 countries, as 16% stated to follow/watch badminton.  Only football and basketball fan shares are bigger (35% and 17% respectively).

In general, the interest level in badminton is very strong among its fans as following badminton on media happens much more often than in previous years.  It was reported that at least every second fan in most markets follows badminton daily or weekly on TV or social media channels.

The ratio of 51% male and 49% female fans reflects the significant progress in female interest, which is critical to continue building participation pathways for the long-term sustainability of our sport.


Badminton QI Media Value

The global quality index (QI) media value for BWF and Hosts commercial partners reached 1.7 billion USD in 2019.  In other words, if these partners had bought traditional advertising through broadcasters, this is the value they would have had to pay.

The 2019 figures were used as full-year 2022 numbers are not yet available.  Additionally, 2020 and 2021 figures were heavily influenced by the Covid-19 situation, which doesn’t accurately reflect the values.

The results revealed significant commercial interest in BWF events driven by the organisation of spectacular events around the world, fan engagement and the exciting performance of badminton players all year long.

The BWF will continue its efforts to increase the quality of event delivery, providing a consistently high standard of presentation, television production, commercial brand exposure and technical implementation of the competition itself.


Social Media Followers

In 2022, the BWF was named the number one performing international federation (IF) on social media in the #SportOnSocial League Table by sports marketing agency Redtorch.  We are extremely excited about this achievement as social media continues to have a huge influence on growing global awareness of our sports.

The key to success has been an improved relationship with the player group, allowing us to connect fans closer to players than ever before, both on our Anglophone channels and our Chinese platforms.

Our fan-first approach to engagement – in which we have explored a more informal voice, particularly on Instagram – has meant our storytelling has become more inclusive to more people.

With 10.5 million followers across all our social media channels, we look forward to building upon this foundation and working with our badminton community to keep badminton the number one sport on social media.


Broadcast Figures

The intense broadcasting interest in international badminton events reached a cumulative household reach of 680+ million in 2019.  Additionally, more than 27,000 hours of footage were made available to rights-holding broadcasting.

To date, badminton broadcasting is present in 119 countries and available across more than 60 platforms between free-to-air, pay TV and digital channels.  In addition, discussions are in progress with international broadcasters to offer badminton packages and penetrate untapped markets, enhancing the global distribution of badminton.

The BWF TV YouTube channel provides year-round event coverage worldwide, and helps fans connect and share their love of badminton, and aims to bring the sport onto a global stage.  The various badminton videos on the channel have reached the impressive mark of 1.2 billion total accumulative video views.


BWF Commercial Contact

Please contact Owen Leed, BWF Commercial and Communications Director, if you have any questions on the enclosed –  [email protected]