Kevin Sukamuljo Conflict & BWF Cancelling Tournaments again! - The Badminton Experience EP.34 

Hey guys! Do you Think BWF should’ve let another country host the 2 events that are cancelled in China?? Let us know what you Think would’ve been best for the fans! 👏🏼

Nice to get a mention on the show! Keep up the good work boys 🙌

Re Badminton promotion, prize money etc. Hans mentioned a lack of countries as one reason perhaps but snooker & darts have even less but the prize money & profile seems a lot higher. I’ve been to the Allenglands a few times albeit 7+ years ago but I felt that there’s a real lack of engagement with the players too. It seems highly unlikely that you’ll get to meet them or hear them in person. At some stage following Covid perhaps players can meet the fans. Press conferences etc. Have a practice court set aside for some fun & tips, even from high profile former players. Such things can go viral. Also BWF need to stand back and have a real look at how the general public, general sports fan, western nation companies, etc view our sport. For anyone that hasn’t experienced the sport their perception is of a pastime type, slow-paced, tippy-tappy game and not the powerful & fast sport we know. A whole different marketing strategy is required with some outside expertise like Barry Hearn brought in.

Actually, the main problem with Coach Herry and Sukamuljowas Sukamuljo felt upset when Herry Gave his statement on media about Sukamuljo's attitude and body language after his lost in Indonesia Open. Kevin felt that it should have been done in private and instead of talked about that in public, it would have been better if the coach asked him what he was feeling that time. On the other hand, The coach felt entitled to give advice since he is te coach and he was just answered the question given by the media.

Very good episode. The Victor sweather is stylish. The drinking glases are very cool too! :D

Guess some of your viewers watched my recent review of Anders’ racket as I mentioned he’s the only one using a head light racket out of the top 10, hence the question 😂 good episode! See you all at the French open 😊

I'll explain about Kevin & Hery IP's case. At the beginning, Head Coach of Indonesian MD Herry IP never look at or interested at Kevin - Marcus. He always chose or prioritized other players coz he tends to favor tall and huge power or smash players. So at the beginning Kevin Marcus always got coached by coach Ar (Aryono). They always only practiced with coach Chafidz and coach Ar but never with coach Hery. Coach Hery never accompanied them to any matches, and never chose Kevin-Marcus to any big competitions. Like at that time Coach Hery didnt send Kevin Marcus to Europe and China tournaments at 2016. Then he asked them to loose at Final India Open 2016. When Kevin Marcus became the champion of All England without coach Hery's help, then suddenly Coach Hery began personally coached them, accompanied them, started to send them to many tournaments. He never did that before. And at Indonesian Open 2022 Coach Hery said not good things to media about Kevin. He said Kevin didnt appreciate his partner, the audience, a bit lazy, etc which is not true. But Coach Hery didnt tell that personally to Kevin. So Kevin exploaded with anger coz he spoke to media rather to speak to Kevin, himself.

Making badminton lucrative is not complicated. All resources need to be put into breaking it into the USA, currently the biggest economy. If it becomes a NCAA sport and kids can earn scholarships to college, that will start the cascade and everything will take care of itself. BWF needs to focus on this goal: make it a NCAA sport. Pickleball is 10x more popular than badminton now with 1/100 of the time. You need competent people in power. Great podcast guys!

hendra-ahsan are technically speaking independent players, but they're still part of the national setup. However, unlike others, they are free to have any sponsorships, pick their own tournaments but of course in return they have to pay for transport & accommodation fees during tournaments i think

I was at the World Championships and Osaka Japan Open and heard the same announcements. It is 100% about Corona. The message was something like "Please avoid cheering vocally. Cheer by clapping to avoid the spread of disease". It was a quite sad as there were many moments where I am sure the crowd would have loved to go crazy. Hopefully this will change next year.

Thanks Hans and Anders for the badminton experience :)

Love the catchy title. This is how you get views! Keep it up Hans and Anton.

As usual, good experience from Badminton Experience. Thanks Hanz n Anders.

Ahsan and Hendra are professional players. PBSI provide them a special treatment by allowing them to train in national center. I guess it's because they we're WR 2 back then.

Yeeeesssss. Suggestions: Make new tournaments. Super 800: Jakarta Open (Total Prize $1M. Decacorn Comp. from Jakarta GOTO will support this tournament) Super 900 : Bali Open (Total Prize $1.1M. The biggest company from Indonesia PERTAMINA will support this tournament)

The bwf needs to start organizing and investing in making schools of first world countries to play badminton in gym class. This will expose more children to the sport and they'll play it as adults. But most schools at least here in the US just focus on American football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. But a lot of people who had the smallest exposure to badminton in the US will say they enjoyed it, but because it was never played competitivel as a youth/teen, they have no interest in it.

Wow, I just found out that when the tournament was canceled, the players also lost a lot... as badminton fans, I think the fans are the saddest if the tournament is cancelled, because we are very boring if there is no badminton tournament

I looked at the Pablo Abian match. Abian was almost as excited and fired up as Antonsen, when he lost to Srikanth earlier this year😂😂😂

Thanks for answering my question

There are other background ofc, one of them Herry Ip and Marcus Gideon also didnt have a good relationship as well at least in the beginning. As Gideon was also sidelined by Herry IP in junior before eventually suceeding with Markis Kido. Which is a follow of another controversy with the late Markis Kido and Herry IP. In 2008 Kido didnt want to be coach under Herry IP. He instead asked pbsi to be coached under Sigit Pamungkas and went on to win gold medal in olympics. Herry ip which was part of the preparation of markis and setiawan said he was dissapointed he got 'couped' at the time, and said have move on. People have been speculating whether there is a connection as remember the incident earlier of marcus gideon and herry ip, because surprise-surprise.......marcus gideon partner at the time was sigit pamungkas son, a guy called agripinna. Allegations at the time mentioned marcus and agripina was asked to practice with the walls, not being sent to all england even though qualified etc. which lead to marcus quiting the national team this was in 2013 and suceeding with markis outside national team. Back to early kevin as a junior was partnered with a returning marcus by chafidz yusuf head coach md junior and was transitioning transition to senior. This is when he said he was sidelined and mostly trained under Aryono Miranat, kevin went on to mention both coaches are the most influental for his career vs herry. Another incident was when kevin was asked to lost in india final for olympics 2016 qualification etc. Although all players and miranat agreed they should play their best. Even winning all england was something herry ip did not predict or prepare kevin-gideon for (mostly with miranat). Kevin also alleged herry ip have favoritism toward taller players and bias against shorter player like him and gideon. At least according to the meeting organised by pbsi, they both have forgiven each other and on paper the drama is over and have begun training together again, since for 3 months past kevin only trained under miryanat. With gideon doing double duty sometimes joining training under miryanat or herry ip. Arguably of course its about the system where coach might not have the priorities of players as they are paid by the federation and sometimes have position above players, and whether a system of independent players with personal coaching team would avoid this kind of conflict as players are not forced to work with coach that might have frictions. Ofc hoping for kevin and herry ip can make the relationship work again.

1. I suspect Chinese players returned to China after Japan Open because they can only apply for visas for the Europe tournaments from China. They cannot apply for the Schengen visa for the tournaments from Thailand or another third country because they are not permanent residents or on work pass there. 2. On engaging China market - it's telling that the BWF teams tournaments for the next 3 years are held in China - Sudirman 23 in Suzhou, 25 swapped to China for India in exchange for India hosting BWC 2026; Thomas Uber 24 in Chengdu. That said, I recall even the sponsor of the Denmark jersey included Chinese text for the brand. You just cannot ignore 1.4+ billion people.

Thanks again for the behind the scenes news (Kevin). Is there a badminton news website (in English) that gives recent badminton update info about anything linked to badminton?

As a Chinese fans I can tell you, Guangzhou is one the best cities on handling covid 19, the biggest badminton city as well, so BWF finals still alive. And I guess players only need to be quarantined for 1 or 2 days before the matches, but not allow to go out during the matchs. Anonther good news is that Guangzhou still not desided whether to opem the stadium to the audience. As for issue about testing postive, the time for quarantined only basic on your recovery conditon, if get well in 5 days then you can probably go home in a week.

wow im early, seated for my favorite channel

yes, the cheering thing at the Japan Open was for covid. The spectators were asked to show their support by clapping hands, and not by cheering to prevent the spread of covid

BWF seems like a very reactive organization rather than being proactive. Not surprised considering how much badminton has “ grew “ in term of popularity compared to other sports

what is your opinion on widening the rubber court side area to prevent stepping and ripping off the outer mat?

It is rather strange that now they are hosting the 2022 World Team Table Tennis Championship Chengdu.

The Daddies is independent player but the PBSI let them to practice at the national team as sparring partner

Love u all

I think BWF should try and focus not only on organising tournaments, but to also work as a marketing agency to promote brands in tournaments and the sport as a whole. To attract countries with high income to spectate badminton, it would be worth it to also have local hype with events and functions on site rather than just on social media. Maybe set up a badminton court at a public square somewhere crowded and let people play with professionals so that the sport seems engaging while promoting the tournament and badminton. There are much more effort needed on BWF's side and that for me feels like a good start. The higher the investment, the wider the audience, the more income the sport will have and thus luxury brands will follow to sponsor tournaments for a bigger prize pool.

Wasn't the US open (Badminton) cancelled as well??

Question : Hans did some crazy diving in matches to save just one point. Is that really necessary or he just can't help himself?

I hope one day, ShuttleHard can collaborate with Badminton Experience sit together in one podcast.

Just to respond to your statement @HKV w.r.t. Ahsan & Hendra being independet, a couple of interviews came out recently and Hendra revealed that even though they’re playing professionally, they’ve been allowed to train at the PBSI with the other players.

In my personal opinion, badminton lack of buzz and lack of enganged fans internationally that can make this sport trended (talk of the town). "Social media only" example, fans in some platforms like instagram, twitter, tiktok mostly are indonesian or malaysian, not long after the latest thomas cup I saw more indian fans join the discussion, while korean and chinese fans have their own forum, I rarely found western fans interact. These is not enough promotion, excitement, engagement that high end international brands need. Cant lie, bwf really bad at promoting tournament, the more hype one tournament the more it will attract sponsors, just like how big excitement for indonesia and malaysia open this year attracted big sponsor for the tournament and added new sponsor for indonesian national team.

Thank you for doing this podcast to make people informed of whats happening inside the sports… I’m not a fan of antonsen but hearing him with lots of input that can make the sports more interesting to others…

How do you schedule your training weeks? Do you do fitness and strength training on the same day as court training?

AA says that he doesn't deserve to be WR2.. i think he does. When momota wasn't there.. AA was second best in 2020 and he deserved to be WR2 that time.. He's getting the benifits now.. i think he'll remain WR2 for couple more weeks because he was awesome in 2020&21

I was so disappointed at the all England. There was nothing around it. The matches are cool, but further there is nothing

aa & hkv: to the point of "why are there no big sponsors like rolex / louis vuitton / mercedes / etc...?" why would a luxury brand want to be associated with a sport/tournament where the winner only wins $70,000 (give or take a few thousand... the singles winner earns 7% of $1,000,000), and can't crack $500,000 in annual earnings. that's peanuts in the eyes of a luxury brand. could the winner afford the advertised product(s) regularly as part of their normal lifestyle? a typical professional badminton player cannot. an avg. software engineer will net 3x+ over a 10 year period than tty/momota/axelsen's best 10 years of earnings. how sad. to the point of int'l fans: the bigger the prize pool, the bigger the int'l audience. people love to watch athletes compete for a lot of money in any sport. it also inspires kids worldwide to take up the sport as a possible career pursuit. the initial zero sum solution is for bwf doubling the prize money while reducing the # of tournaments by 50%.

Love the podcast!

The world has moved on except for China. I was also in Thailand during the pandemic and stayed at the same hotel with the same arrangements as you guys (I work in football) for 3 weeks and I have to say it was one of the most miserable experience in my life. And on top of that I served a 2-week quarantine when I returned home. Can't imagine athletes going through that...

Hopefully in denmark open u guys can invite some guest from another country 😁

I feel smarter every time i heard this podcasts

Please do a show together with Kai Schäfer and Tobias Wadenka!

great show

You need seruni audio SEM-02 mic.

Antonsen touched on the Signature of no loud cheerings in Japan. It's more of culture.

When you're recording a podcast, is there any sign that the time is approaching an hour? because the topic of discussion is always about an hour 😂 how do you manage it? or is it a feeling of guesswork that comes automatically? 😅 Or have you prepared a scenario before?

Luxury brands sponsor certain sports because of the prestige of the events. Sports like tennis, golf, yatching and F1 all have a history of the rich, aristocrats and royalties participating in the sport itself, and they also are patrons of some of these events. Badminton, which for me, has way more entertainment value than any of those other sports mentioned, does not have the same appeal to these brands. And that is fine, so long as other brands that see value in badminton and the fans that it attracts, which are usually the common folk. Although luxury brands are aspirational, it is the mainstream brands that are willing to pump in the cash for badminton because the fans are the right target for them. This is me speaking as a Commercial Manager working in Sports 😁

Personally, after every point I score I make sure to make eye contact with my opponent and then I slide my index finger across my throat while screaming obscenities in Klingon. The umprire has never said anything. Maybe it's because we don't have any.😉

I have a quick question. Where do I see when the next tournament is and who is playing? Any apps or website? 🇩🇰

YEAYYY TBE !! 🎉❤❤❤ already made my October 🤣🤣

funfact: besides getting information and reviews about badminton, I can also practice my listening skills kwkwkw

erling harland in badminton!!!

What about AirBadminton?

ANTONSEN should make more intresting and excitation player to spread develop of badminton

👍👍👍

I agree with you that teenagers act stupid.Even in college sports, teenagers act crazy 🤣 .

I honestly miss 19 year old Anders Antonsen! 😂 Let's make TBE a luxury brand and sponsor badminton tournaments 😃😃😃

When you were so dorminant for many years , there is nothing bad to say about the coach . But when the pair is now struggling to perform like it used to be , you start to blame the coach , because of something 2016 incident . This is not valid reason . The fact that they are not performing are becasue , they are older , injuries , and like it is said , the slower shuttle , they can no longer hv the advantage to play the quick style , it is not as efective as if you play the faster shuttle . So i suggest the pair to silence , stop talking , start focusing , find the formula to counter the issues , together with the coach .

I don't care about kevin, his attitude stink and mocking other players during a match. Fajar and Alfian is getting a much worse criticism from the fans, from PBSI and their coach and look how they turned everything around.

Well, I'll just accept the fact that badminton will never be famous all over the world

I seriously think BWF is doing a extremely horrible JOB , like VERY VERY badly handle, i wish some rich billionaire would buy it and repair it , They cant get anything right! I think if it was run by someone else their be alottt more millionaire badminton players without sponsors, and over take boring tennis.

The thing coming from esport. is that bwf is the only provider. In esport , for example CS there is like 3-4 companies doing event, even 2 of them merged. And they do incredible jobs trying to be better than the other event organizers. It's always who will have best entertainment story telling ( with videos ) , content between matches , best line up of casters. I'm sad to see badminton such a "highlighted sport" to be only from bwf, and it's like athlete are just there and play. You should definately check Blast Copenhagen by your own eyes Anders and Hans (NOV 23 - 27, 2022) watch only the final) it will be a qualifier for blast world final (in dubai) even if you dont play csgo , the event will be 10x better in terms of entertainment in area than any badminton tournament. even it's better than any top tennis world tournament and it's not even the MAJOR (wich is the most important tournament, each teams receive around 500 k just by participating , it's a nightmare to be able to achieve to participate to a major then there is in-game object that you can buy only during the time of the major (wich support players/teams) . So even if you end up loosing all your groupstage matches you'll get out with roughly 100 k per persons. 2 months ago there was the Cologne tournament (wich is like All england , its not a major but its called " Cathedral of CS" because venue is insane , crowd too). Check " NAVI vs FaZe Clan: THE WHOLE THING! IEM Cologne 2022" It's final it last 8 hours between the 2 best ranked teams in the world (goes the long way ) . Maintain a 8 hours show with crowd and live it's something way more difficult than any sports event you've seen. I was there on stage it was incredible (intro teams , videos produced during the matches ) the ending. Also Nicolai " dev1ce" Reedtz is the most accomplished cs athlete " he won 4 majors with astralis (danish teams) he is one of biggest stars and when i talked to him he told me that when he was young he used to train and played against Viktor Axelsen . He stopped badminton after injuries. When he saw me at gym doing some shadow we start to talk about badminton. He said he is impressed by Viktor the way he wasnt the really best at his age and now he achieved so much . So i asked him : " Would you prefer to be dev1ce or Axelsen? He said he enjoyed so much winning titles but olympics title it's something crazy to get, that we would be really proud to get gold. So he has major respect to Viktor. you should definately do a TBE with him !

As soon as video started, I couldn't help but notice those gigantic thighs of Hans.. 😛😍🦵 I guess, he never skips Leg Day!! 😂