With another heavy blow, Wanda exclusively joins hands with the Badminton World Federation, is the spring of China's badminton industry coming?

On the last day of September 2016, Wang Jianlin and his Wanda Group took the tenth single in the sports business. For its part, Wanda Group announced that it would sign a strategic cooperation agreement with the World Badminton Federation (WBF) to obtain all business development rights for all international tournaments hosted by the WBF from 2017 to 2025.

Following soccer, ice and snow, triathlon and basketball, Wanda has been awarded the core resources of important international sports programs. From Yingfang to triathlon, and then hand in hand with FIBA and FIFA, how much more ambition does Wanda Group have in the sports industry?

Back in history, Wanda in February 2015 to 1.05 billion euros, led the merger and acquisition of the surplus party sports media group, after a series of acquisitions, Wanda in November 2015, surplus party and the world ironman company merger, formally established the Wanda sports, put forward the grandiose words to do the world's first sports company.

At that time, Wang Jianlin revealed Wanda Sports' playing style in an interview, saying that the sports industry is divided into three ends, ABC, of which the A end is the international organization in the sports industry, including the international organization of the major comprehensive events and the international organization of the single events. The previous cooperation with FIFA and FIBA, as well as this hand in hand with the World Badminton Federation, are big moves for Wanda to continue to make efforts in the A end.

It was also revealed that Wanda Sports has also been awarded the WAF TV production business, which includes providing the main broadcast for important events, producing programs and serving other broadcasters. In addition, Wanda Sports will also help the WBF with digital communication.

At the conference, Wang revealed where the intention of signing the contract with the Badminton World Federation lies, saying that this all-round cooperation between PCG and the Federation is Wanda's 10th sports business cooperation agreement, through which Wanda will have more say in the upstream resources of sports.

In addition to this, Wang also said that they have two other cooperation projects to be announced before the end of the year. Judging from these collaborations, expanding the mass base and realizing value-added in the market is Wanda's goal.

So why is the WBF helping Wanda achieve their goals? Let's start with the WBF and their events.

The BWF, known as the Badminton World Federation (BWF), is the supreme governing body of badminton in the world. The predecessor of its organization was the International Badminton Federation (IBF), founded in 1934. The IBF is currently headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Currently, the world's most influential international badminton tournaments are under the management of the IBF. The top events include the World Cup, Sudirman Cup, Thomas Cup and Uber Cup. Every year, the WBF also organizes various tournaments with different levels and prize money to further promote badminton through these tournaments. At the same time, holding the tournament IP of the world badminton federation, naturally also mastered the business development rights of these tournaments.

The WBF's commercial development and marketization is not as good as Wanda's other two partners, FIFA and FIBA, but after many years of development and progress, the WBF has also found a suitable path for badminton.

Before that, the WBF had eight major official partners, including not only giant companies like Red Bull and IMG, but also Chinese brands like Li Ning and Chery Automobile. Not only that, the WBF has been able to find different levels of partners for each of the Super Series, the Open Championships and competitions such as the Tangyu Cup.

According to official figures released by the WBF in 2015, the association's revenue reached $16.9 million last year, with most of that money coming from commercial sponsorships. In the same year, the WBF's total expenses were $16.891 million, (realizing a $9,000 profit .......) That's clearly not comparable to the volume of other programs.

This lack of broadcasting revenue has been a problem that the WBF has had to deal with. Although after joining hands with IMG, all kinds of badminton events are able to cover 500 million viewers globally, but there is no way to sell the rights of the events at a price. In the final analysis, or from the badminton game influence is limited, can not raise the audience to pay the fatal injury of the habit of watching.

While China's entry into the world badminton federation is only 35 years old, looking at the current international badminton world, both from the competitive and market point of view, China will play a pivotal role, which is the world badminton federation chose to China's Wanda Group and the depth of the cooperation is the reason why.

As Wang said at the launch, badminton ranks among the top two sports in China and is also a big sport in the world. China, the No. 1 badminton power, has always had an outstanding record. Wang said the market expansion of badminton should reach a new stage with the development of athletics.

Badminton is most important to the country's people for providing leisure, fitness and sports functions, in addition to the demand for spectating during major tournaments. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the recently released China Interest Report, badminton ranked second in the hot ranking of Chinese people's interest in sports, second only to fitness.

Currently, there are more than 500 million badminton fans and more than 125 million people playing the game around the world, while China's badminton population has also reached 200 million in recent years, in addition to East Asia, Southeast Asia, Scandinavia, and other traditional areas of badminton, badminton is developing rapidly.

Through these data we find that badminton has a great influence in China and the world, and has a particularly deep mass base in China. At present, in many cities, there is a shortage of badminton venues, users can not book a venue at peak times. The Wanda teamed up with the World Badminton Federation to enter the badminton, is to see the deep mass foundation of this sport.

Previously mentioned, the layout of the Wanda Group has two types of logic. Join hands with FIBA, FIFA, because the soccer and basketball industries have a high degree of marketization and mature business model. After cutting into the football and basketball resources from the top, Wanda is able to stimulate the consumption of spectator games.

On the other hand, the previous Wanda Group from Providence to acquire triathlon, heavy acquisition of surplus, and is in the layout of participatory snow and ice projects and running projects. And for badminton, both in the direction of participatory development or spectator development, have great potential.