Badminton
The unfortunate truth is most folks don’t appreciate just how much people love badminton. To them it’s dusty racquets stashed away in a garage and a fuzzy bird’s nest that refuses to fly where you want it to fly. Hang out with actual players for any length of time and you’ll see athletes who take the sport seriously, train for it accordingly and love every minute of it. That’s why any gifts featured here are useful. Novelty badminton merch and fan gear do not fall under useful.
Don’t get us wrong, finding that perfect gift for your badminton enthusiast can be a difficult task. Spend too little and it feels like you didn’t care enough to learn about the sport. Buy without doing your research and you’ll struggle not to purchase things they already own. That’s why we approached the topic from another angle. We considered what the dedicated club player would use. What a beginner needs to enhance their experience on court. What veteran twenty years in would still be happy to receive as a gift.
Badminton players come in all shapes and sizes. From the casual players who meet up on Thursday evenings and pretend to be hardcore. To the weekend warriors pushing themselves harder because their game means something. Then you have families who simply want to upgrade their garden set so they can last more than two summers. We tried to find gifts that each of these players would enjoy without going for the cliché.
If it made our cut it had to help players better themselves, feel more comfortable or allow them to connect with the sport they love. Quality grip tape can make more of a difference than you know. The right bag can turn a training session around before you’ve stepped foot on the court. Finally, nothing beats handing someone a proper shuttlecock. You know, the feather kind. Everyone who plays thinks the plastic cage ones are awful, they just don’t know quite why yet.
We wanted this collection to be small but meaningful. Every product you see was hand picked because we felt it deserved a spot here. Not because we needed to fill up space or it looked good on an Instagram post. If someone you know plays badminton, start your research over here.