This time last year in a post entitled “Badminton needs Wings” I wrote about the team up between Red Bull China and Badminton England at the World Championships 2011 hosted in London at Wembley Arena. I speculated how great it would be if BadmintonEngland would enlist the excellent marketing people at RedBull to work together to enhance the image Badminton across the world and in particular in this case the UK by holding some form of exhibition tournaments with lots of fireworks and general hype. The original post can be found here.
Well, one year later it appears that someone has been taking notice of that particular post as it has been announced that Badminton England has teamed up with Red Bull China to stage a tournament pitting the best Amateur Badminton Team in China against the Premier A Champs from England - Surrey County. The “Badminton London Super Cup” being held at Central Hall Westminster on the day after the Olympic 2012 Badminton event finishes (6th August) looks to draw upon the hype of the Olympic competition in nearby Wembley to draw in the crowds. There is one minor issue however, the event is largely “invite only” with very limited free tickets available. I am not quite sure who will be invited to this event, I certainly haven’t recived one! After the match has finished there will also be “An Audience with Team China” and “Special Entertainment” provided by Lin Dan! Again, I have no idea what this might be ? maybe he will be doing some tricks involving shuttles or perhaps he just plays the piano ?!
Overall I think this is actually a great idea and is a good start to raise the profile of Badminton, shame its a fairly small venue with very limited tickets available for the “average joe” but hopefully we can be treated to some great Badminton and look forward to more of the same in the future, maybe next time we can get Lin Dan himself for some games! Best of luck to Surrey County against the best Chinese Club Badminton has to offer!
