By Avishek Roy, IANS,
Hyderabad: The organisers of the World Badminton Championships are banking on star Indian player Saina Nehwal to draw home crowd to Gachibowli’s Balayogi Stadium which was sparsely populated on the first two days.
Saina, who played her first match of the Championship Wednesday, managed to attract a sizeabe number of fans to the 4,000-capacity indoor arena.
The organisers are hoping for a much improved attendance in the remaining days as Saina is expected to go far in the championships.
Badminton Association of India (BAI) president V. K. Verma said he expected a fair turn out in the last three days of the event.
“The distance of the venue from the city could be a major factor for the lack of spectator support for the championships. Also the media hype over swine flu might have also kept people away. But today’s turn-out for Saina’s match was good. Hopefully, her progress in the tournament will bring in more and more people.”
The season tickets, priced at Rs.9,500 (gold class), Rs.6,000 (silver) and Rs.4,800 (bronze) for the entire tournament, were sold online. The prices were later slashed to Rs.3,500 (delux) and Rs.2,500 (standard).
The sale of season tickets is now over and daily tickets of Rs.300 and Rs.150 are being sold.
An official of ticketcounter.com, the company engaged for selling tickets, said the prices of the tickets were too high for a sport like badminton in the country.
“They could have priced the tickets much lower. Also there was not much publicity of the tournament in the city. The sale of online tickets have been okay, but not many people have turned up on the first two days,” a company official said.
“Today the sale has picked up and around 300 tickets have been sold till the evening,” he said.
But Verma insisted the ticket were priced reasonably.
“The daily tickets are priced as low as Rs.150 and it is easily available at the stadium counter.”
Chairman of the Organising Committee Punniah Coudhary told IANS that there was nothing wrong with the publicity the tournament received.
“We have promoted it well and there are enough hoardings in the city.