What makes a sport popular?
If we can answer this, we can understand what badminton is getting right — and not so right.
Wherever you go, there’s nothing that excites and unites people quite as much as sports. And the United States is no exception. Baseball, football, soccer, basketball, golf, you name it — America can’t get enough of it!
There’s enough material out there about what the most popular games are, so let’s not go over that again. Instead, let’s consider some of the main factors that make a sport succeed in the hyper-competitive market that is America’s public imagination.
Accessibility
There are some notable exceptions to this, namely motorsports, but generally speaking if your sport is difficult to understand or prohibitively expensive to keep up, you’re fighting an uphill battle.
Table tennis is a perfect example of accessibility done right:
- It’s not dependent on weather.
- The equipment is affordable.
- Tables are easy to find.
- The technique is simple.
- The rules are just as simple.
X-Factor
As we consume more of our content (sporting or otherwise) online and in smaller doses, there is an emphasis on finding shareable moments that can resonate with all audiences, not just die-hard fans. And some sports are more naturally equipped to provide that than others, whereas some are more of an acquired taste — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
This is not a hard-and-fast rule by any stretch, but here are some examples of “x-factor” that travel well:
- Physicality: Think of a baseball player hitting a 500ft home run. The arc of the swing, the sound off the bat, and the flight of the ball are viscerally satisfying. The same can be said for an acrobatic catch in the outfield.
- Style: Think of a basketball player doing a stylish slam dunk. It’s always impressive when someone is able to master a technique and then apply their own spin to it.
- Hype: when the athletes have physicality and style, the crowd will do the rest.
- Superstars: sport can often be highly nationalized, but sometimes there are athletes who are so talented, so exceptional, that they transcend those boundaries. Think of the “Big Three” in tennis — Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer. Athletes like these supercharge the growth of investment and interest.
Legacy
To take it back to badminton, if there’s one lesson to be learned from America’s history in the sport, it’s that a correlation exists between national popularity and international success. In other words, when a country is highly competitive or successful in a sport, that sport tends to become more popular. And if that success is sustained, that sport moves from being a part of the zeitgeist to being engrained in the nation’s identity. Just look at Indonesia’s relationship with badminton, India’s relationship with cricket, or Brazil’s relationship with soccer.
But that is easier said than done. If a country isn’t doing so well on the international stage and domestic popularity is suffering as a result, it can be tough to break that.
Structure
To help grow talent and interest in a sport at any level, national or international, it’s important to have robust structures in place, and to ask some major systemic questions:
- Grassroots: are there clubs or teams at the local level? are there good, qualified coaches? Is the sport accessible? Is it visible in schools?
- Amateur / Semi-professional: for those who are passionate but don’t wish to go pro, are there opportunities to compete?
- Professional: are there a lot of tournaments with high-quality competition? From a monetary standpoint, is it viable to go pro?
Betting
Though there are plenty of valid ethical questions to be had over sports betting, it can’t be denied that this market is massive and looks primed to become even bigger — forecasters say that the industry will be worth anywhere between $100-$300 billion by 2030.
This is relevant because, well, you can’t bet on sports without sports you can bet on. And what makes a sport good to bet on?
- Complexity: can the game be broken down into various, measurable parts? betters need substantial numbers to make informed decisions, and multi-faceted sports in order to make more complex bets (parlays).
- Structure: does there exist a tournament or tour format that is competitive and easy to follow?
- Narrative: are the players compelling enough to invest in?
Youth
While the world’s most popular sports have genuine cross-generational appeal, it is vital to gain the buy-in of young people for many reasons:
- Talent: in most sports, going pro is only an option for young people. So, to get more athletes on the circuit (and hopefully generate the kind of self-sustaining success discussed earlier), you need young people to care in the first instance.
- Future consumption: even if the young people in question don’t go pro, at the very least you’ll have a generation of supporters who will follow the sport, invest in it, and hopefully spread the word to future generations.
Conclusion
Of course, there are nuanced, sport-specific factors on top of this that may help or hinder a sport’s ability to succeed in certain markets. Still, I do believe that the factors listed above are applicable and act as solid indicators as to whether a sport can thrive in a given market. Crucially, these factors connect with and feed off one another.
With badminton, there’s absolutely no reason why these factors can’t be met in the United States. It already has an innate accessibility (hence it’s “backyard game” status), as well as a decent degree of x-factor and youth engagement. As for structure, legacy, and the rest… that can be worked on!
Did I miss anything? Let me know!
