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Badminton is one of the few sports worldwide to have so far escaped the worst of the sponsorship meltdown, but leading figures know there is no room for complacency.

At a time when sponsors are fleeing the sporting landscape as the credit crunch bites ever deeper, sports equipment manufacturer Yonex announced a five-year extension to its long-standing sponsorship of the showpiece All England championships, the annual highlight of the sport in Britain.

The new agreement runs to 2014, by which time the partnership will have lasted 31 years, a record for same-name company sponsorship in British sport.

Badminton England (BE) Chief Executive Adrian Christy told Reuters: "It's fantastic and demonstrates the strength of our relationship with Yonex."

However, he added that the sport was taking a conservative outlook for the future.

"Our whole financial planning at the moment is modelled on not making assumptions about sponsorship and investment because we know it's going to be very, very tough," said Christy.

"Our aspirations are all around ensuring we don't dilute the quality of the program and we are being very cautious on our budgeting to ensure that we don't set targets that we actually can't deliver."

BE also have a five-year deal with holiday company Centre Parcs, who give backing to the England team and support the country's annual national schools championships.

"We are starting to punch our weight, which is encouraging when you think that BE has not had a non-sports brand partner for many years," said Christy.

UNCERTAIN LANDSCAPE

On the global scale, the Badminton World Federation, from its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, eyes an uncertain landscape.

In 2007, the finals of the much-vaunted Super Series had to be embarrassingly called off when host country Qatar could not secure a sponsor.

Last year's finals, with a record $500,000 in prize money, went ahead in Malaysia but without the star-turn Chinese who pulled out late in the day, citing a hectic calendar, risk of aggravating injuries and an upcoming three-month training camp.

The venue for this year's finals has still be decided but officials remain hopeful of finding a backer.

"The sport itself is not immediately suffering but we would expect it's going to become tighter and harder to find major sponsors for events," BWF Vice President Robin Bryant told Reuters.

"It remains to be seen, though, because governments are putting an enormous effort into raising the morale of the economies by putting cash in and I think a lot of major companies see they have a corporate responsibility -- subject of course to their cash ability to handle it.

"So we don't see it immediately but I think it's going to come and hit us."

Ahead of the BWF in another busy year is the Sudirman Cup mixed team event in China in May, the world championships in India in August and the remaining nine tournaments of the Super Series, which culminates in the finals in December.

Understandably, Bryant cannot help looking with some envy at other sports.

"I would have to say our sponsorship needs to grow in a way that we see other sports growing," he said.

"The sponsorship for our individual events is very small, relative to what I see coming from say the Australian tennis championships with 20 million dollars.

"It's a huge amount and it's an issue we have to face up to and we must look to making our events much more promotable, giving the sponsors much more value and giving the spectators exactly what they want.

"We've got a lot of work in front of us and I think we have to work with sponsors to achieve that."

(Source: Reuters)