Guangzhou: The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has unveiled a list of international tournaments for 2018 on Monday, including naming Guangzhou as the host of its prestigious World Tour Finals for the 2018 to 2021 tournament cycle with total prize money of 1.5 million US dollars. The World Tour Finals which previous known as the BWF Super Series Finals, had been held in Dubai from 2014 to 2017.
BWF also announced HSBC as the principal global partner and premier sponsor across all BWF tournaments and major events such as the Sudirman Cup, Thomas Cup and the Uber Cup Finals.
“This is a significant milestone in our federation’s history,” said Poul-Erik Hoyer, the President of BWF.
“We are stepping boldly into the future with a partnership that will define badminton for the ages.”
“It has distinguished itself across the panorama of sport as a brand of excellence – a brand with which BWF is proud to partner.”
“We are partnering with HSBC because we are committed to being the world’s sport.”
BWF stated the reason why Guangzhou was chosen to be the host city for the World Tour Finals was due to the popularity of badminton in China and HSBC was also putting a lot of focus on the Pearl River Delta region.
“The Pearl River Delta is an important market for HSBC and it’s great to see Guangzhou being celebrated as the new home for the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals.”
Under the new structure for international tournaments from 2018 to 2021, the BWF tournament will be divided into different grades and levels. The top level is the BWF World Tour Finals with a shared prize of 1.5 million US dollars. Others include BWF World Tour Super 1000, BWF World Tour Super 750, BWF World Tour Super 500 and BWF World Tour Super 300.
Below are the titles of the different tour levels of BWF tournaments:
Grade One:
a. Olympics
b. BWF Major Events (World Championships, World Junior Championships, World Junior Team, Senior World Championships, Thomas and Uber Cups, Sudirman Cup)
Grade Two:
Level 1: HSBC BWF World Tour – Finals (Guangzhou)
Level 2: HSBC BWF World Tour – Super 1000 (Indonesia, China, UK / All England)
Level 3: HSBC BWF World Tour – Super 750 (Denmark, Malaysia, China, Japan, French)
Level 4: HSBC BWF World Tour – Super 500 (Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand)
Level 5: HSBC BWF World Tour – Super 300 (Thailand, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Spain, Taiwan, Macau, India, Korea)
Level 6: BWF Tour – Super 100 (Indonesia, France, China, Canada, Japan, Russia, Vietnam, India, Netherlands, Germany, Scotland)
