Popularity of Table Tennis vs Badminton?

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Opalescent;236495So i'm a TT player and one of my mates is a badminton player. We were having a debate on which one is more popular and I was really unsure.

Does anyone know how these two sports compare In terms of number of spectators, or number of people that play the sports, based on country, or on a global level?

What about in China? How does the popularity between TT and badminton compare there?

EDIT: My observation in New Zealand is that badminton seems more a little bit more popular at the club level, and there are more badminton clubs than TT clubs around.

But if you include the very casual (garage players, table in the office or at summer camp) then TT probably beats badminton.

Beyond club level i'm not sure since NZ isn't known for either of these sports, and so both of the professional scenes are very small.

I was just googling this question and this thread came up. Sorry for resurrecting the discussion.

I am a school teacher and was wondering why every school has a big badminton team but no tt team. In my current school of 800, there are 50 students being trained for badminton, 0 for tt.

I started a tt club in a school before. Feedback from students include:
  1. TT is too hard to pick up
  2. TT requires very precise techniques that take time to learn
  3. TT takes longer to setup and pack up

That sort of explain why badminton is very popular among teens. You know many of them have short attention span.
 
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says toooooo much choice!!
says toooooo much choice!!
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Interesting thread and posts!!

I played both sports from about 11/12yrs old, stopping TT around 21 yrs old, Badminton until 36 / 38 ish when recurring injuries just niggled me into stopping, started TT again at 52 & Badminton at around 48 / 49. Not playing Badminton at present.

My parents both played badminton so it was sort of ‘natural’ that I started to play Badminton, kind of hard to pinpoint why I started to play Table Tennis!! I think that my friend and his twin brother played TT as did their whole family (with their Mum being the exception!! )They had a table at their home and I think that’s why I started to play.

Badminton at club level in the UK is really ‘doubles’ orientated, you can just get more people on court!! It’s a practical use of the space,
TT is singles dominated.
Also back in the 70’s a lot of couples played Badminton, this resulted in their children being ‘dragged’ along to either watch or play in the junior section, which at my club would run at the same time as the senior club, enabling both parents to play without one having to be on childcare!! This trend has then reoccurred, the ‘backbone’ of the club I played at is made up of ‘Badminton’ families!!
TT seems to a certain extent be slightly less family orientated, but there’s still a number of families I know that play TT

I don’t have any stats or figures relating to popularity of both sports, but there has definitely been a reduction in the numbers playing both sports. At least at a competitive club level. Maybe more so for Badminton.
When I started playing badminton there were 2 main leagues, County League and Area League, both have reduced the number of divisions by at least 1 division, another trend is the reduction of female participants, in the past a team (men’s, ladies or mixed) consisted of 6 players (3 pairs) so each pair played 3 games, now the ladies teams consist of 4 players, no set pairs, each person plays with the other players, so each person still gets to play 3 games. But over 40yrs it looks like there has been a drop of around 20-30% of female players.
The TT league I played in has also reduced the number of divisions by 1 division, there is another league I now play in but didn’t back all those years ago, so unsure if there are less divisions now, At present there are 5 divisions.
Back in the 70’s I could count on one hand the number of ladies that played in my TT division, last season I didn’t play any ladies in league matches in that particular league, and 1 lady in the other league.
Additionally the number of Badminton and TT clubs has reduced.
 
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