Badminton is a sport that offers quite a large prize money. Although much smaller than that offered by tennis on the ATP Tour and WTA Tour, including the Grand Slams, the total prize money offered by badminton on the BWF World Tour is still greater than in many other popular sports.
Badminton players can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from the dozens of BWF World Tour tournaments they participate in and become winners. In addition, top performers have a great opportunity to earn millions of dollars from sponsors, as Lin Dan and P. V. Sindhu did.
On July 21, 2022, the Badminton World Federation issued a report on badminton athletes with the highest earnings until the middle of this year. The world’s number one men’s singles player, Viktor Axelsen, tops the list.
Axelsen earned US$232,750 or almost a quarter of a million dollars. He got that much money after winning several tournaments, such as the 2022 All England Open and the 2022 Indonesia Open.
Axelsen is followed by Tai Tzu Ying, Taiwan’s number one women’s singles player, and the world’s number two. So far, Tai Tzu Ying has won US$140,300 in prize money.
Chinese mixed doubles player Huang Yaqiong is next with US$127,180. Her income is slightly higher than her partner, Zheng Siwei, because she once played with another partner, Ou Xuan Yi, earlier this season.
Here are the top 25 earners (as of 18 July 2022):
- Viktor Axelsen US$232,750
- Tai Tzu Ying US$140,300
- Huang Ya Qiong US$127,180
- Chen Yu Fei US$123,050
- Zheng Si Wei US$119,687
- Nami Matsuyama, Chiharu Shida US$103,894
- An Se Young US$103,105
- Akane Yamaguchi US$82,225
- Lakshya Sen US$75,460
- Ratchanok Intanon US$75,150
- Fajar Alfian, Muhammad Rian Ardianto US$65,630
- Lee Zii Jia US$64,595
- Yuta Watanabe, Arisa Higashino US$62,162
- Wang Zhi Yi US$57,640
- He Bing Jiao US$57,355
- Liu Yu Chen US$55,649
- Ou Xuan Yi US$54,024
- Pusarla V Sindhu US$53,852
- Busanan Ongbamrungphan US$49,785
- Yugo Kobayashi, Takuro Hoki US$48,027
- Zhao Jun Peng US$46,975
- Jonatan Christie US$46,360
- Bagas Maulana, Muhammad Shohibul Fikri US$43,894
- Jia Yi Fan, Chen Qing Chen US$43,214
- Wang Yi Lyu, Huang Dong Ping US$43,202
The players above can still add tens of thousands of dollars because many big tournaments have not been held, such as the 2022 China Open ($1,000,000 in prize money) and the 2022 BWF World Tour Finals ($1,500,000 in prize money).