As I made my way toward the exit after witnessing yesterday’s U.S. Adult National Badminton Championships, my thoughts were drawn (as they often are) to the question of “who’s paying the bills?” While badminton is not the operational money-gobbler that many other sports are, it definitely costs money to stage a national title tournament. Like all Olympic sports, there is a Team USA for badminton, but it is the rare Olympic sport that doesn’t rely on additional revenue streams. And as I thought about that, it struck me that sponsorship presence at the Championships was decidedly on the very down-low. A quick check of the event program verified that the roster of sponsors was limited to just three: Yonex (the sport’s endemic equipment maker), Orange County Badminton Club (the host site), and a company named K&D Graphics.
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When last you left your intrepid Sports Fan I had successfully unlocked the key to witnessing perhaps the most fan-shy tournament of all time, the U.S. Adult National Badminton Championships, and was settled into a nearly courtside seat for the action. I had arrived in time for the Men’s Singles finals and was anxious to see the action pitting… OK, I had no clue who was playing. I looked around for the scoreboard, thinking that maybe the names of the finalists would be listed there. Doh! No scoreboard. No presentation of player names or identities anywhere. I noticed that some of the competitors on other courts wore their name on the back of their jersey, but that was not the case with the athletes before me. And then I heard The Voice.
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Shuttlecock. Why shuttlecock? It was the very first thing that popped into my head when I discovered that the U.S. Adult National Badminton Championships was just a 45 minute drive away from the palatial international headquarters of the “It’s Game Time Somewhere” Tour. It occurred to me that if I were trying to gain some respect and grow the visibility of badminton, I might start to think about another name for the game’s key piece of equipment. Immediately feeling guilty about my close-mindedness however, I vowed to:  (a) educate myself about the genesis of the shuttlecock, and (b) go witness one or more in flight.
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