The Badminton World Federation (BWF), which recently witnessed Denmark’s Poul-Erik Høyer being re-elected as its President, has reportedly suffered a loss of $9.82m for the 2020 financial year due to Covid-19 pandemic’s effects on its several events throughout the calendar year.
In its financial report for the year ending December 31, 2020, the badmonton’s world governing body deficit of $9.82m came with the federation projected to report a profit of $4.31m.
Although the BWF had projected an income of $39m, the Covid pandemic led to a total income of $3.9m for 2020, which was $25.79m in the previous year.
Meanwhile, the federation’s events also saw a dip as it was at $3.56m in 2020 as compared to $25.13m in 2019.
The BWF on its side said that the fall in revenue happened due to several of its tournaments were cancelled or postponed due to the Covid pandemic.
Of all the events which were cancelled, the three main events were the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals, World Tour Finals and badminton at Tokyo’s summer Olympic Games.
Significantly, the BWF event’s broadcast and sponsorship rights are sold by the Infront agency as per an eight-year agreement between the two sides for the period between 2018 to 2025.
Meanwhile, the deal also included digital and betting rights.
Also, the BWF has said that the current four-year contract cycle, due to expire in 2021, was extended by 12 months to 2022 with a significant number of events not hosted last year due to Covid-19.