Fan circles save Chinese table tennis! Look at the capital situation behind Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, and review the commercial development history of the national table tennis team

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that sports events have become commercialized? Perhaps this article will give you some inspiration.

This article sorts out a large amount of historical materials, and explores several major issues of sports commercialization through reviewing the commercialization process of the national table tennis team from 1952 to 2024, as well as insights into the current Wang Chuqin incident;

• Can sports be commercialized?
• How is sports commercialized?
• Does the commercialization of sports have more advantages or disadvantages?
• What does the commercialization of sports bring?
• Is it a good thing for the sports circle to become a fan circle?
• Is fan clubization more beneficial or harmful to the contestants?

These are issues that Chinese sports have been exploring in recent years.

Wang Chuqin is a microcosm of the era of China's national sport, table tennis, in its exploration of commercialization. Reviewing the recent hotly debated Wang Chuqin incident has certain reference significance for the commercialization exploration of China's sports industry.

1. Can sports be commercialized? First of all, the commercialization of sports is an irreversible trend.

It is mainly policy support. For example, in 2010, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Sports Industry", requiring all regions and relevant departments to speed up the formulation of supporting implementation plans and specific policy measures to promote the development of the sports industry.

The core reason behind this is that under the national strategic background of China's industrial structure adjustment and stimulating domestic demand, the commercialization of sports is imperative.

The commercialization of sports has huge room for development, and it has great positive significance in boosting employment, stimulating consumption, improving the physical fitness of the people, adjusting the industrial structure, promoting industrial development, and solving the problem of athletes' re-employment.

But how can sports be commercialized? Where is the tipping point?

Take the commercialization of the national table tennis team and the Wang Chuqin incident as examples.

Without background research, there is no objective right to speak. Before that, we need to take a look at the four main stages of the commercial development of national table tennis.

2. Initial stage of commercialization:

During the period from 1952 to 1999, the state led sports to rapidly enter the professional stage, but commercialization was basically zero.

The so-called national system = "playing table tennis with the whole country's strength."

From selecting players from sports schools, entering provincial teams, and then entering the national youth team, second team, and first team, there are intensive training, joint practice, and exchange and selection every year. It is a complete mechanism.

The best seedlings, the best coaches, the best training models, the best survival of the fittest mechanism... the national system has become the magic weapon for the Chinese national table tennis team's enduring prosperity.

Why does table tennis adopt a national system?

To see the big picture from the small, the development of the Chinese national table tennis team is a microcosm of China's economic development .

China's economic development relies on the socialist planned economic system = a system of concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks. Compared with the liberal market economic system, this system can concentrate the country's strength, implement the country's predetermined strategic development more effectively and controllably, adjust the direction of industrial development, and quickly catch up with developed countries.

Therefore, in the early days of the People's Republic of China, many Chinese sports generally adopted a national system, relying on the power of the state rather than the market to select and train talents, which led to several direct results:

1. The competition results are rapidly catching up with the UK and the US.

China can catch up with the results of developed countries in various sports with the whole country's efforts.

2. Sports events have become a “face project”.

Compared with Western countries, this system has allowed us to skip the stage of popularizing sports and directly enter the stage of professional and competitive sports. For a long time, the public has paid more attention to the stadium rather than their interests and qualities, so that the gold medal theory has become the mainstream discourse system for a long time.

3. The deformity of popularizing sports in China.

Under the national system, sports funding mainly comes from the state's fiscal expenditure, so sports with low investment and promotion costs will be given priority, such as table tennis and badminton, while sports such as football have high costs, which makes national promotion difficult and slow.

4. The commercialization process of various sports is slow.

Under this mechanism, nearly 70% of the General Administration of Sports’ budget comes from national financial appropriations.

In the early days, the Chinese national table tennis team's commercial income mainly came from sponsorship, but the sponsorship income would not be used directly on the team, but would be directly turned over to the national treasury.

This system has also led to problems such as insufficient commercial vitality in sports events, the inability to fully unleash the commercial value of athletes, and low commercial enthusiasm among practitioners.

This system became the foundation of the Chinese national table tennis team and lasted until 1994.

3. Commercialization Exploration Stage:

During the period from 1994 to 2015, commercial exploration was mainly based on the strategy of national system reform and expanding B-side events. The financial situation improved significantly, but the commercialization effect was still not ideal.

In 1994, China Sports Lottery was issued nationwide, marking the beginning of China's sports reform to a national system.

As a national public welfare lottery, sports lottery raises public welfare funds, "takes from the people and uses it for the people". It can not only support the development of sports and social welfare undertakings, but also greatly reduce the burden of sports on the national finance.

It also directly led to the change in the development of Chinese sports from being dominated by government capital to being dominated by social capital.

But after the sports lottery was added, the government still held a dominant position. It can also be said that the national system has changed in economic basis, but the policy has not changed much.

At the same time, the national table tennis team is also exploring B-side commercialization.

The official establishment of the Table Tennis Super League in 1999 marked a solid step forward in the professionalization and commercialization of Chinese table tennis.

However, the Table Tennis Super League has had huge problems since its launch, such as lack of commercial operation, low attention to the event, small number of league players, the concept of clubs has always been weakened, and there is a serious lack of market operation value, which has led to a slow commercialization process...

In 2009, in order to prevent the shrinkage of the global table tennis market, the Chinese national table tennis team proposed the "Raising Wolves" plan.

After the 2012 London Olympics, Cai Zhenhua proposed the "Third Entrepreneurship of Table Tennis" (abbreviated as the Third Entrepreneurship), and appointed Liu Guoliang as the executor of the commercialization of the national table tennis team: the general guiding ideology is to hope that table tennis will be more commercialized, more popular, with more people watching the games, more people playing the game, and more people buying tickets.

However, the correct implementation path has not been found, and not much practical change has been brought about, and the idea eventually became a slogan.

• In the 2013 Table Tennis Super League, during a match of the Shandong team, there was only one elderly male spectator in the entire audience, and he was still eating a sesame seed bun!
• In 2014, the Chinese Table Tennis Super League was without sponsors and broadcasters for the first time, and was in a "naked" state throughout the entire process.
• In 2015, the editorial department of CCTV’s sports channel gave a statistic: “Badminton sponsors’ advertising investment on CCTV is twice that of table tennis sponsors.”

The commercialization of national table tennis events has achieved little success during this period. The core reason for the above results lies in the fact that the reform of the national sports system is not deep enough and the appropriate reform method has not been found.

Because table tennis, as the "national sport", has more constraints than other sports if it wants to completely break away from the system and move towards an independent commercialization path. Without the determination to deepen reforms, it will be difficult to achieve results.

Because generally in a completely "professional" operating system, the club will have the greatest control over signing players and coaches.

For example, players can seek a balance between the club and the national team, or even refuse to be called up by the national team. This is definitely impossible in the Chinese table tennis team, because the Chinese table tennis team exists to complete the task of winning gold and silver medals for the country.

Therefore, once an international competition year comes, the game time of the Table Tennis Super League or even the entire season cannot be determined in advance - we must always cooperate with the national team's preparation plan and make way for the national team.

Such "professionalization" and the failure to find the right way to open it have become two major obstacles to the commercialization of national table tennis.

4. Commercialization trial and error stage:

During the period from 2016 to 2020, Guoping took a two-pronged approach, focusing on the B-end while exploring the C-end. Under the combined efforts of new leadership, new media, and new models, Guoping launched a deeper commercialization attempt.

How to expand the table tennis market is a core issue for the national table tennis leadership team.

Summarizing the actions of the Chinese national table tennis team over the years, we can find that the Chinese national table tennis team is actually exploring in two aspects.

On the one hand, there are B-side actions: imitating the NBA model, they want to build the Table Tennis Super League into the NBA of table tennis, but the participation of masters from foreign associations is low, the commercial operation effect is very poor, and there is no way to solve it for the time being.

Later, active players of the national table tennis team were allowed to join foreign leagues, but these B-side actions had little effect.

On the other hand, there is the C-end action: opening up the market through the celebrity effect.

In 2015, Liu Guoliang, then the head coach of the national table tennis team, said in an interview: "Table tennis needs the star effect. In a market-oriented environment, sports events cannot do without star creation and brand building."

But Liu Guoliang had not found a good opportunity before.

The turning point came in 2016.

On the one hand, 2016 was the year when the entertainment industry’s traffic fan culture emerged. On the other hand, the 2016 Rio Olympics was also the first world competition after the rise of information platform apps such as Toutiao.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, topics such as #Ma Long was called "little dragon", #Zhang Jike was joked about "stop sleeping and wake up", and #Liu Guoliang was called "a fat man who doesn't understand tennis" quickly became popular on the Internet and swept major self-media, bringing the Chinese national table tennis team unprecedented popularity and attention.

The Chinese national table tennis team saw this opportunity, and on September 19, 2016, shortly after the Rio Olympics, Chinese national table tennis head coach Liu Guoliang took the lead in opening a Weibo account, and then led the entire national table tennis team to join major social platforms.

The sudden popularity on Weibo opened Pandora's box for the C-end commercialization of the national table tennis team, and the celebrity effect finally found a solution.

• In 2016, Liu Guoliang, Zhang Jike and Ma Long formed an Olympic team to compete with the artistic team led by Lin Chiling at the "919 Music Fans Carnival Night" program. In the same year, he led the team to participate in Weibo Night.
• In 2016, more than a dozen Olympic champions such as Ma Long and Ma Lin and well-known sports stars such as Sun Jihai invested in and joined China's first fashionable sports-themed boutique hotpot chain "Cut Track Hotpot".
• In 2017, Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen, Fan Zhendong and Wang Chuqin came to "Happy Camp".
• In 2018, Ma Long, Ma Lin and Wang Nan recorded "Hello! Lifestyle". Liu Guoliang appeared on "Tucao Conference"
• In 2019, Ma Long, Xu Xin, Liu Shiwen, and Wang Manyu went to "Day Day Up". In the same year, Ma Long and Xu Xin went to "National Treasure".
• In 2020, Liu Guoliang and Fan Zhendong recorded the variety show "No Work on Weekends"
• …

Creating a star effect and integrating into the fan circle seem to have become the lifeline for the commercialization of the Chinese national table tennis team.

At the same time, the profit-sharing rules within the national table tennis team are also being optimized : for example, the team's overall endorsement share, the athlete's individual endorsement share, and the bonus payment ratio are all increasing.

In the past, 50% of the bonus had to be given to the team. Now, athletes can turn their efforts into actual benefits.

This also stimulates athletes to accept fan clubs and integrate into them.

In fact, are these actions effective in commercializing the national table tennis team?

The 2023 Table Tennis Super League starts at 359 yuan for the semi-finals and 499 yuan for the finals, and you have to make an appointment to buy tickets. In 2017, the Shenzhen Table Tennis Super League ticket was only 60 yuan.

At the same time, the commercial value of national table tennis players has soared and the size of the table tennis market has continued to grow.

Looking at the essence through the phenomenon, and through the commercial exploration path of the national table tennis team, it is not difficult to find a core question: if the national table tennis market, or even the sports project, is to develop, should we expand the B-end first? Or should we expand the C-end?

Deng Yaping's point of view indirectly reflects the answer to this question: When talking about the fan circle issue in the sports world, Deng Yaping once said that when she first came to prominence, many people liked her because of the sport of table tennis itself. Today's young people are more likely to become interested in sports because they like a certain athlete, and the way of getting started is different.

With the changes in the times and media, the development path of the industry also needs to be adjusted to keep pace with the times.

The fact that enterprises have entered the IP era in 2024 is a good example.

5. Aggressive Commercialization Stage:

2021-At this stage, the national table tennis team fully embraces the fan circle. The national table tennis team + sponsors jointly create "fan circle ping pong" under the trend of interests.

During this period, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha became the "commercial potential projects" that the national table tennis team focused on cultivating.

Starting around 2021, the fan circle's actions have been officially brought into the national table tennis team through methods such as hyping up CPs.

But before mid-2023, Zhang Jike was the traffic star of the national table tennis team. During this period, he entered the entertainment industry, bringing the entertainment of the national table tennis team into the public eye, and also overshadowed the brilliance of other national table tennis players. But later, Zhang Jike was sadly removed from the stage for various reasons.

It was also after that that Wang, Sun and others officially entered the "fan circle ping pong" stage.

Signing contracts with brokerage companies, creating CPs with different team members, pulling down others, creating confrontations, buying hot searches, controlling comments, and setting up fan clubs, the national table tennis team and sponsors, as the initiators, have jointly planned one traffic feast after another and enjoyed the monetary dividends brought by the traffic.

The 2024 Olympics will be the outbreak point for the achievements of “fan circle ping pong”. The above fan circle actions can be seen at this Olympics.

For example, the "Wang Chuqin upset incident", if you paid a little attention to the public opinion trend of this hot topic at that time, you would find many unusual things.

Therefore, the author believes that it can be said that this Olympic Games marks the official entry of the Chinese national table tennis team into the "fan circle table tennis" era.

6. Final words

The author believes that the commercialization of table tennis is an inevitable and irreversible trend in the era of industrial upgrading and consumption upgrading.

Judging from the commercial results, fan clubs have saved Chinese table tennis to a certain extent.

As the founder of the Chinese table tennis fan circle, Liu Guoliang has been successful in commercialization and has lived up to his mission. The fan circle he brought has truly expanded the table tennis market and brought tangible dividends to active athletes, retired athletes, and the national table tennis team.

And the country welcomes this, of course, provided that it does not affect the results.

But Wang Chuqin's upset and the lack of young talents in the national table tennis team may also be the sequelae of commercialization, which sounded the alarm for Liu Guoliang's commercialization path.

*The article represents Dong Da’s independent opinion, which is compiled and analyzed from online information and is for reference only.

References:

——The most basic understanding of China's sports system: the past, present and future of the three national systems

——The Chinese national table tennis team announced its new endorsement late at night. In the Olympic year, among Sun Yingsha, Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong, who is the money-making king?

——Flow password, don’t be greedy

——Is fan circle the honey of sports marketing?

——History of the development of Chinese table tennis

….

Author: Dong Da