Spanish badminton takes advantage of Carolina Marín’s drive to grow by organizing competitions. After the European Championship, organized in record time in Madrid, the Spanish capital will now become one of the main cities in the discipline worldwide with an event of the annual World Tour between 2023 and 2026. The event will have a budget of between 850,000 euros and 1.2 million euros per year. In addition, it will allow the return of the world circuit events to Spain, after the Barcelona Spain Masters was no longer held in 2020.
“The celebration of the European Championships in Madrid has highlighted the organizational capacity of the federation and the City Council”, he assures 2Playbook, Andoni Azurmendi, president of the Spanish Badminton Federation (Fesba). Thanks to the organizational capacity shown by the city in doing the work of a year and a half in just over two months, Madrid has carved out a niche for itself on the world circuit. The new Madrid Spain Masters will premiere in 2023 as a Super 300 category test, whose prize pool amounts to 300,000 euros.
The federative entity closed 2021 in profits, in a year in which it doubled its budget to 4.5 million euros thanks to the World Cup in Huelva, an event that featured five tournaments in seven days and an investment of 2 million euros by from Fesba and the International Federation (BWF); of this amount, 500,000 euros were only the canon. For this year, the federal entity will have a budget of around 2 million euros.
In the absence of knowing the amount attributed to it from the new multi-year aid from the Higher Sports Council (CSD), Fesba is committed to growing with the generation of new direct income. In addition to the collection for licenses, the acquisition of sponsorships is one of the elements that offers the greatest growth possibilities to Spanish badminton.
In fact, alliances with commercial brands in this sport are closely related to the organization of competitions. “It is a discipline that has a massive following in Asia, so that all the partners that appear in our events know that they have a great opportunity to show themselves to millions of people,” says the manager. An Infront study on the last World Cup event indicates that the championship had been followed in more than 640 million households.
In this way, the contribution of the institutions represents 40% of Fesba’s budget, the own resources another 40% and the remaining 20% is obtained with the organization of competitions. As main sponsors, it has Iberdrola through the Universo Mujer program, El Corte Inglés, Loterías y Apuestas del Estado and Yonex, the latter as technical sponsor.
The president of the organization assures that “the budget for the organization of a European is 800,000 euros, much less than what a World Cup entails.” Despite this, the continental event has left a direct economic impact of 2.2 million euros in Madrid. For this reason, Fesba is negotiating with the European Badminton Federation the organization of a new European Championship in Andalusia in the coming years. The project is in an embryonic phase, and the organizing city has not yet been determined.
Licensing stagnation
Unlike the attraction of competitions, the sport of racket and shuttlecock in Spain has not been able to take advantage of the appearance of a figure like Carolina Marín to achieve a great territorial implantation at the federative level. According to the Federated Sport Statistics, prepared by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, badminton has 9,600 licenses in Spain, and has only grown by 23% in five years, which keeps it well below other disciplines that have less presence in the elite.
However, Arzumendi points out that the main thing is to increase the number of practitioners, regardless of whether they join a federation or not. Currently, this figure is 200,000 people. “We prefer a downward growth, to cover those who are not so elite, the grassroots sport. Then if we are lucky enough to have talented athletes who are federated, even better”, says the manager.
To do this, the eye is on countries like France, where in recent years badminton has surpassed sports as deeply rooted as handball in licenses. Spanish badminton bets on school leagues, player recruitment and the creation of new categories as necessary elements to grow. After doubling the number of clubs in recent years, next year Spanish badminton will have a new sub-23 category, that allows the jump from youth to senior not to be so great.
