What next for China’s sports industry
More questions raised in country’s post-Olympic Games period
Chinese people’s enthusiasm for sports has abated after the quadrennial Olympic Games ended, which gives us some time to think about the next pertinent matter: How should sports in China develop in this post-Games period?
Actually, this is not the first time that this post-Games period has been addressed, as pundits and experts had previously tackled the issue of how to develop the sports industry after Beijing held the Games in 2008.
Eight years have passed, and China has changed a great deal since we last discussed this concept.
China’s economic strength has been recognized by the world. People from Chinese Olympic cities such as Beijing and Qingdao are enjoying better sporting environments, China’s sporting level has improved greatly, the government has paid more attention to encouraging people to take up sport, and most importantly, the sports industry has gradually become part of people’s lifestyles along with recreation and health.
People are seeing the benefits of doing sports: making friends, getting healthier and gaining confidence. As a result, they are taking it more seriously than ever before as they realize that preventing disease through exercise is cheaper and more fun compared to taking medicine.
Essential to life
China’s central and local governments have also realized the importance of sports to people’s livelihood.
President Xi Jinping has pointed out that, for Chinese sport authorities, “the basic work is to fully understand the importance of improving people’s health level by developing the sports industry.”
Sporting events, such as marathons, have been held by local governments to encourage people to take up sports. Some cities have also begun attempts to reform local sports industries by allowing people to use their health insurance cards to access gyms.
The aim is to get more people involved in exercise, but the reason people join is that it makes them happy.
Happiness is the essence of sport. There has long been a debate about what sport actually is. It turns out that sport is a “physical action” carried out with the purpose of being happy.
Happiness has different meanings to different people. It could be getting healthier, or making new friends or simply having fun. So what is the exact meaning of “just having fun?” The answer could be found in your childhood when you told your father, “I want to play basketball for a while.” It might not be for getting healthier or for making friends, but just for fun.
Regardless of what kind of happiness it brings, it was reached by doing “physical action.”
However, the spirit of recreation has now spread into different industries, including sports.
For example, during the Rio Games, Chinese people were less interested in who won the gold medal or set the new world record. Instead, they paid more attention to the funny moments outside the Games.
The quirkier aspects of the Games, such as Chinese traditional cupping, the personality of Fu Yuanhui (the bronze medalist in the women’s 100-meter backstroke), and the live streaming of Zhang Jike (silver medalist in the men’s table tennis), characterized the Rio Olympic atmosphere in China.
Compared to the past, the Olympic Games has become a platform for sporting entertainment, where people tend to actively find visual stimulation for fun rather than passively staring at their TVs.
But the passion for this kind of fun will eventually subside after the Rio Games, and the less popular sports that were given a boost by the Games will sink back into obscurity.
While some of these sports are lacking visual stimulation, the Chinese female volleyball team, which won gold at the Rio Games, did find a way to promote itself. It was reported that almost 70 percent of the Chinese population, or nearly 1 billion people, watched their gold medal-winning game.
However, according to reports, the monthly salary of many Chinese women volleyball players is less than 5,000 yuan ($749), which is also lower than the salary of many whitecollar employees who work in Beijing and Shanghai.
If there is no competitive income for volleyball players, how will young people be motivated to take up volleyball as their career? And who can be expected to play for China in Tokyo and future Olympic Games?
These questions are not aimed at pushing enterprises into sponsoring women’s volleyball without any consideration of market discipline.
In fact, the governmental athletic departments and various sport associations also have a responsibility to promote and popularize the less popular sports and make enterprises willing to spend money on those sports, including women’s volleyball.
Sights set on winter
Beijing is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, and the development of winter sports will also be an important topic over the next few years.
The promotion of less popular sports is a sign of being a great sporting power. For example, the US used the Olympic Games as an opportunity to hold a “performance tour” around the country to popularize swimming. The tour made a profit of $1-1.5 million and the total income was approximately $8-9 million.
The most attractive prize (the chance to represent the US at the Games) and the top sport stars (like Michael Phelps) have made swimming a genuinely popular sport that brings happiness to audiences, athletes and sponsors, which is what the sports market needs.
So if sport insiders can start from happiness and market needs, China could create more valuable sporting events. After all, we have proven our sporting strength by winning 70 medals in Rio.