Badminton Has the Stars. Where Is the Money?
India has built a generation of badminton champions. From Prakash Padukone and Saina Nehwal to PV Sindhu, Satwik-Chirag and now Treesa-Gayatri, the sporting success story is undeniable. But while India has produced world-class players, has it built a sustainable badminton business? This article explores the economics behind Indian badminton—from sponsorships and endorsements to leagues, academies and media rights—and asks what it will take for the sport to turn sporting success into long-term commercial growth.
8/23/20267 min read
For one week in August, badminton has had something it rarely gets in India: the full spotlight.
The world’s best players descended on New Delhi for the 2026 BWF World Championships, with the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium becoming the centre of global badminton from August 17 to 23.
For Indian fans, the tournament produced another reminder of just how far the sport has travelled.
Ayush Shetty stunned world No. 1 and defending champion Shi Yuqi in the opening round. And then came the breakthrough that captured the home crowd: Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand reached the women’s doubles semi-finals and secured India’s first World Championship medal in the discipline since 2011.
The pair eventually took bronze after losing to world No. 1 and defending champions Liu Sheng Shu and Tan Ning.
It was a landmark achievement.
But it also raises a bigger question.
India has built the badminton stars. Has it built the badminton business?
From Prakash Padukone to Treesa-Gayatri
Indian badminton is no longer an occasional Olympic success story.
There is a pipeline.
Prakash Padukone opened the door internationally. Saina Nehwal pushed badminton into the mainstream. PV Sindhu turned herself into one of India’s biggest individual sporting brands. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty gave men’s doubles a superstar pair.
And now a younger generation is emerging.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s World Championship bronze is particularly significant because it is not simply another medal for India’s collection.
It represents depth.
The pair were unseeded when the tournament began. They defeated the world No. 4 Chinese pair Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian in the quarter-finals before losing to the defending champions in the semis.
That is what a healthy sporting ecosystem is supposed to produce: new stars replacing established ones.
India has increasingly developed that sporting side of the equation.
The commercial side is more complicated.
Where does badminton’s money actually come from?
Unlike cricket, badminton doesn’t have one enormous commercial engine.
Its economy is fragmented.
There is money in:
Player endorsements
The biggest Indian badminton stars can attract brands because they offer something advertisers value: individual recognition, a relatively young audience and an association with fitness and performance.
Tournament sponsorship
Events such as the India Open and World Championships bring brands into the sport through title partnerships, venue branding and activation.
Broadcasting and streaming
Badminton’s global calendar produces a large number of events, but the value of individual tournaments varies considerably by market.
Ticketing
Live badminton can create a strong arena experience, particularly when Indian stars are competing at home.
Equipment
Unlike many spectator sports, badminton also has a large participation economy. Rackets, shoes, shuttlecocks, apparel, coaching and academies all form part of the ecosystem.
Academies
This may be one of the most important businesses of all.
Every champion requires a development system — coaches, courts, strength and conditioning, travel, nutrition and competition.
And India’s badminton boom has created demand for precisely that infrastructure.
The problem is that these revenue streams don’t automatically combine into one powerful sports property.
That is where badminton has struggled.
The PBL experiment
India has already tried to solve this problem.
The Premier Badminton League was supposed to do for badminton what the IPL did for cricket: take individual sporting talent and package it into a franchise entertainment product.
The concept was compelling.
International stars.
Indian stars.
Franchises.
Player auctions.
Television.
Sponsors.
Short, easy-to-follow matches.
On paper, it looked like the perfect modern Indian sports league.
But the economics were never as straightforward as they appeared.
During the PBL’s third season, reported franchise economics showed the problem clearly.
The annual cost of running a franchise was around ₹6.5 crore, while central sponsorship, team sponsorship and broadcast revenues amounted to roughly ₹3.5–4.5 crore. Ticket sales contributed only around ₹20 lakh in the previous season.
The result?
A reported annual loss of approximately ₹2–2.5 crore, before prize money.
Franchise owners expected it could take five to six years to break even.
That is a very different proposition from the fantasy of immediately creating the “next IPL.”
And there was another problem.
The league was short.
As one sports industry executive noted at the time, by the point the excitement around the league began building, the season was already over. (The Economic Times)
That is a fundamental problem for a sports business.
You cannot build a habit if the product disappears just as people begin watching it.
Badminton’s biggest commercial asset may not be its league
This is where badminton differs from cricket.
The IPL’s greatest asset is not any single player.
It is the league itself.
A cricket fan can follow the IPL even if their favourite player changes teams. The franchises, rivalries, auction, schedule and table create a self-sustaining entertainment product.
Badminton is different.
A huge portion of its commercial value is concentrated in its athletes.
PV Sindhu is a brand.
Satwik and Chirag are a brand.
Lakshya Sen is a brand.
And now Treesa and Gayatri have an opportunity to become one.
That creates both an advantage and a weakness.
The advantage is that a breakthrough athlete can suddenly generate enormous attention.
The weakness is that when the athlete isn’t playing, the attention can disappear with them.
The sport therefore faces a fundamental commercial challenge:
How do you turn individual popularity into a permanent property?
The sponsorship paradox
Badminton isn’t commercially unattractive.
Quite the opposite.
For brands, it has many appealing characteristics.
It is relatively accessible.
It is associated with health and fitness.
It has a young audience.
It is popular among urban families.
And unlike some sports, its biggest stars are often individually recognisable.
That makes badminton particularly attractive for endorsement campaigns.
But there is a difference between a sport being attractive to advertisers and a sport creating a large media-rights business.
The former can exist without the latter.
A company might happily sign a badminton player for a campaign without necessarily wanting to spend enormous sums acquiring the rights to an entire badminton league.
That distinction matters.
Because the biggest sports businesses eventually turn their audience into multiple revenue streams.
Broadcasting. Sponsorship. Ticketing. Merchandising. Hospitality. Digital content. Licensing.
Badminton still has room to grow across many of these categories.
The real business is being built away from the spotlight
Perhaps the most interesting part of Indian badminton’s economy isn’t the stadium.
It is the academy.
Every successful player represents years of investment.
Coaching.
Facilities.
International travel.
Equipment.
Physiotherapy.
Fitness.
Sports science.
Competition.
And increasingly, data and technology.
The academy model can therefore become a business in its own right.
It creates a fascinating cycle:
More champions → more interest → more children playing → more demand for coaching → more academies → larger talent pool → more champions.
That is how a sporting ecosystem becomes self-sustaining.
But there is an important question around the economics of that system.
Who pays for the next champion?
Families?
Government programmes?
Corporate sponsors?
Private academies?
Sports foundations?
The answer is usually a combination of all of them.
And that makes badminton less like a single sports business and more like an ecosystem of interconnected businesses.
What the World Championships tell us
The 2026 World Championships offer a perfect snapshot of where Indian badminton currently stands.
The sport can attract the world’s biggest players to India.
It can fill a major indoor arena with passionate supporters.
It can produce breakthrough performances.
It can create national headlines.
And it can turn young athletes such as Treesa and Gayatri into household names almost overnight.
Their bronze is especially valuable because it creates a new story.
For years, Indian women’s badminton was heavily associated with Sindhu and Saina.
Now another generation is knocking on the door.
That matters commercially.
New stars mean new audiences.
New audiences mean new sponsorship opportunities.
And new stars can make the sport feel less dependent on one athlete.
But the next step is converting that temporary attention into something permanent.
What badminton needs to unlock its next level
The answer probably isn’t simply another franchise league.
India has already demonstrated that copying the IPL model doesn’t automatically work.
Instead, badminton needs a broader commercial strategy.
1. Build a consistent calendar
Fans need to know when badminton is happening.
A tournament appearing for one week and disappearing for several months is difficult to turn into a habit.
2. Make players the protagonists
Badminton needs more storytelling.
Rivalries.
Personalities.
Training stories.
Behind-the-scenes content.
Documentaries.
The sport already has the athletes. It needs to make audiences care about them beyond the scoreboard.
3. Make doubles a bigger commercial product
Satwik-Chirag demonstrated how powerful an Indian men’s doubles story can become.
Now Treesa and Gayatri have given women’s doubles another potential star pairing.
India shouldn’t treat doubles as secondary.
It could become one of the sport’s biggest entertainment assets.
4. Make live badminton an experience
Ticketing can’t simply mean watching a match.
Music, food, fan zones, player interactions and digital engagement can turn tournaments into events.
5. Give sponsors something beyond logos
The next generation of sports sponsorship is about content and community.
A badminton sponsor should be able to build a grassroots programme, create digital content, run amateur tournaments and associate itself with player development.
That creates a longer relationship than simply putting a logo around a court.
Can badminton become India’s No. 2 sports business?
That might be the wrong question.
Badminton doesn’t need to beat cricket.
It doesn’t even necessarily need to become India’s second-biggest sport.
It needs to become commercially sustainable on its own terms.
Because the foundations are already there.
India has the athletes.
It has the audience.
It has academies.
It has tournaments.
It has sponsors.
It has an increasingly sophisticated sporting infrastructure.
And it has something even more valuable:
proof that Indian athletes can compete with the world’s best.
The 2026 World Championships have provided another reminder.
Ayush Shetty can beat the world’s No. 1 player.
Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand can reach a World Championship semi-final and leave with India’s first women’s doubles medal at the event since 2011.
The sporting product isn’t the problem.
The challenge is what happens between the tournaments.
Can badminton turn a medal into a fan?
A fan into a viewer?
A viewer into a customer?
A customer into a sponsor?
And a collection of individual stars into a sports business that keeps growing even when the stars change?
That is the next match badminton has to win.
India has already learned how to produce badminton champions.
Now it has to learn how to build a business around them.