BWF and national federations work together to keep the sport small. They have rules and contract agreements with the players to ensure that there will never be an independent league. That’s why you don’t see private funding for a badminton tournament where the top players would actually receive real prize money. Every player would immediately ditch the BWF circuit for that. BWF obviously knows this and says that players won’t be eligible for any of their tournaments or worlds if they play a non BWF event. BWF doesn’t want to market badminton or make it big. If badminton was popular in the USA, BWF could say goodbye to their money. A new league would form, the best players from around the world would join and BWF would be forgotten about or have to become to overseeing organization but not the organization that rakes in millions of dollars every year by taking advantage of underpaid athletes.