The "sports economy" behind the Olympics: users and brands are spending money

In 2024, sports events will be held frequently, and the Paris Olympics will attract global attention. Major brands are competing for sponsorship, and marketing wars are raging. From entrance dresses to award-winning equipment, Chinese brands are emerging. With the rising enthusiasm of consumers for sports, the sports economy is entering a golden period. However, brand competition is becoming more refined, niche sports are favored, and the value of athletes' IP is rising. In the face of broad prospects, the market still needs to be optimized to promote the release of sports consumption potential.

2024 can be described as a "big year for sports". The much-anticipated European Cup has just ended, and the Paris Olympics will take over, continuing to add to the enthusiasm for sports events this year.

In fact, each of the past three years can be regarded as a "big year for sports": the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and European Cup, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Qatar World Cup, the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, Chengdu Universiade and a series of World Championships... The Chinese sports market is enthusiastically encouraged, and the "sports economy" has also ushered in unprecedented development opportunities.

The 2023 Global Sports Industry Report released by Retailx, a retail research organization, once pointed out: "In the post-epidemic era, the Asian market, especially the Chinese market, is the fastest growing market for sports goods consumption in the world."

The Paris Olympics is in full swing. The world's attention is once again focused on this sporting event. Major brands are gearing up to take advantage of the marketing opportunity. In the fierce marketing war, who can catch this wave of "huge traffic"?

1. Behind the Olympics, brands are also "competing"

Large-scale sports events have always attracted the attention of brands with their focus effect, brand value and strong consumer driving force. According to the official website of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the sponsorship income of the Paris Olympics is 1.226 billion euros. The official partners are divided into four categories: global partners (15), senior partners (7), official partners (13), and official sponsors (44). A total of 79 companies have become official sponsors.

Image source: Screenshot of the Paris Olympic Games official website

While various competitions are in full swing, the appearance and competition uniforms of athletes from various countries have always been the high ground that major sportswear brands are scrambling to sponsor, and this year is no exception.

Image source: 36Kr

At the opening ceremony, delegations from Iceland, Slovenia, Lesotho, Serbia, New Zealand and other countries all wore Peak uniforms. The Chinese delegation's entrance dress "Dream Chaser" was made by Jiumuwang, and the award-winning dress was provided by Anta. The Chinese brand Range Rover provided all clothing and equipment such as entrance uniforms and competition uniforms for the Afghan Olympic delegation...

Range Rover is a new face at the Olympics. "Providing the Afghan Olympic team with a full set of sports equipment for the Paris Olympics has spread the flame of peace and hope. For Range Rover, it is also an opportunity to accelerate the pace of brand development." Pan Chunchen, general manager of Range Rover Outdoor Products Co., Ltd., said that this shows the world's trust in Chinese brands.

In recent years, many brands have actively developed sports marketing, and the number and amount of brand sponsorship for top sports events have shown a clear growth trend.

According to the "2024 Sports Marketing Value Insights" report, Chinese corporate sponsorship of the 2022 Qatar World Cup amounted to 1.395 billion yuan, ranking first in the world; compared with the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, the number of corporate sponsorships for the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games increased by 238% year-on-year and the total sponsorship amount increased by 47%.

As more and more brands participate in it, its content and form will inevitably be expanded, thus making sports marketing present four trends:

1. Marketing methods are becoming more refined and interactive

From the initial naming and sponsorship, the brand began to shift from simple capital investment to multi-faceted and omni-channel consumer penetration, and the marketing methods became more sophisticated and comprehensive.

For example, during the Paris Olympics, Yili made in-depth offline layout by designing a "national style bus" for touring around the country, having athlete spokespersons appear in magazines, and placing print advertisements in airports, subways, bus stations, etc.

Moreover, Yili focuses on social media interaction and "advisory marketing" online. Netizens think the athletes' traditional Chinese style promotional photos are good and ask "to put these photos on the packaging". Yili immediately set up a special team for Paris customized products and drew up the new packaging design draft for Kung Fu products overnight. The logo of this Paris Olympics was jokingly called "looks like Lu Yu" by Chinese netizens. Yili took the opportunity to invite Lu Yu to be the "Paris ambassador" of its brand You Yogurt, using the stalk to create secondary communication.

Image source: Weibo screenshot

It can be seen that the refinement and interactivity of brand sports marketing thinking is the result of in-depth insights into events, users, and media communication forms.

2. The range of brands involved in sports marketing has expanded

In the past, sports marketing mostly involved brands from closely related industries such as home appliances, dairy drinks, and sportswear. However, in recent years, sports marketing is no longer the exclusive domain of certain industries.

At this year's Paris Olympics, freshly brewed tea brands unexpectedly "showed up"; Bawang Tea Princess gave away free drinks at the offline pop-up store TEA BAR at the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris, and Heytea held a party at the pop-up store "Heytea Paris Watching Tea Room" on the right bank of the Seine. Even brands that have not obtained official cooperation status and have not worked with any athletes to create a strong connection between themselves and the event.

Image source: Weibo screenshot

3. Niche sports gain popularity

In addition to top-level comprehensive sports events, the value of vertical field events represented by marathon, basketball, and table tennis is also increasing, and the number of cooperating brands is increasing year by year; including many niche sports such as racing, BMX, baseball, etc. As the popularity increases, they are also favored by many brands, and marketing cooperation has increased significantly.

For example, this year's F1 Chinese Grand Prix attracted a breakthrough of over 200,000 spectators, and the fans' enthusiasm for buying tickets once caused the ticketing platform to "collapse"; brands such as Heineken and Mercedes-AMG also used the F1 Chinese Grand Prix to increase their presence.

At this year's Paris Olympics, breakdancing was listed as an official Olympic event for the first time; the domestic sports brand Xtep had already "locked in" the Chinese National Breakdancing Team and became the official footwear and apparel sponsor of the Chinese National Breakdancing Team.

Image source: Weibo screenshot

4. Increased value of athlete IP

Compared with celebrities in the entertainment industry who are often reported to have scandals, athletes have a healthier and more sunny image, are more popular with the audience, and have much lower endorsement risks. The professionalism and personal qualities of athletes have also become the focus of brand attention.

As the official sponsor of the Chinese sports delegation at the Paris Olympics, Panpan Food has three spokespersons participating in the competition, namely Zhang Yufei from the women's swimming team, Ge Manqi from the women's track and field team, and Wang Siyu from the women's basketball team.

New tea brands have also extended an olive branch to athletes. Shanghai Auntie signed Zhang Changning as its spokesperson, while Cha Baidao signed Yang Liwei and Yang Shuyu as its spokespersons, almost all of whom are rising sports stars born after 1995 or even 2000.

2. Consumers are serious about spending money on sports

Sports marketing has always been an important channel and tool for companies to enhance brand reputation, empower brands, and increase sales.

Data from the "Douyin E-commerce 2024 Sports Consumption Trend Report" shows that during last year's Men's Basketball World Cup, Douyin E-commerce's basketball and related product orders increased by 100% year-on-year; during this year's European Cup, Douyin E-commerce's football and related product transaction volume increased by 74% year-on-year.

Image source: Douyin e-commerce

Especially influenced by the numerous high-level sports events this year, the public's overall demand for sports consumption has increased and consumption of sports products has grown rapidly.

Nowadays, sports and fitness have become a fashionable lifestyle. "I like yoga and Pilates not only because they are good for shaping and improving physical fitness, but also because these sports have strong social attributes and can help me meet more like-minded people." Zhao Meng (pseudonym), a post-90s living in Xicheng District, Beijing, said that yoga and Pilates are her favorites, and the course fees and shoes and clothing equipment for the two sports account for a large part of her annual consumption expenditure.

Young people are just as enthusiastic about buying sports equipment as they are about sports themselves. Sometimes, in a yoga class, you can see more than a dozen colors of lululemon yoga pants; the Decathlon store, which is comparable to a large shopping mall, has become a new landmark for young people to go shopping and check in on weekends.

Image source: Canned Image Library

This trend has also directly promoted the rapid development of sports brands. Lululemon's financial report shows that its revenue in mainland China in 2023 is about 6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67.2%; Decathlon's revenue in China last year exceeded 10 billion yuan.

"In China, through the Douyin platform, we can complete a transaction every 15 minutes. This high efficiency is unprecedented. What is shocking is that with only 20,000 online viewers, the sales generated can be comparable to that of physical stores." Steve Dykes, Decathlon's global chief retail officer, once shared.

It is worth mentioning that sports brands are now entering a "refined" competition. For example, in addition to meeting basic functional requirements, sportswear products also have design details such as fabrics, styles, cuts, colors, and technological innovations that will determine consumers' ultimate preferences.

3. The sports economy has broad prospects, but the market still needs to be optimized

According to the "2023 Sports Marketing White Paper" released by "Miaozhen System", China's sports consumption reached 1.5 trillion yuan in 2023, and is expected to grow to 2.8 trillion yuan by 2025.

Although the development momentum is good, there is still a big gap between China's current per capita sports consumption and that of developed countries; at the same time, the supply and consumption environment of sports consumption also face some restrictions, resulting in the super-large-scale sports market not being fully released.

On the one hand, the public has long paid more attention to traditional sports such as basketball, football, table tennis and badminton, while the commercial potential and social influence of many emerging sports have not been fully tapped.

At the same time, the current supply of sports consumption scenarios in my country is insufficient, resulting in a large number of residents' sports needs not being met, which has suppressed residents' new demands for sports.

In addition, the current online and offline sports consumption channels are clearly divided, the degree of integration is insufficient, and a benign promotion model has not yet been formed.

For example, after reaping the benefits of online channels, some sporting goods brands focus too much on online marketing and neglect the construction and expansion of offline stores, and lack offline service activities and after-sales guidance, which will reduce consumers' enthusiasm for use and sustainable consumption.

However, this is also an opportunity for brands. If brands can invite professional athletes to serve consumers and form a community marketing mechanism based on sports training, it can not only greatly improve user stickiness, but also promote the professionalization and dailyization of national sports.

Industry insiders believe that in order to break free from the development bottleneck of sports brands and industries, we cannot just focus on products and marketing, but must transform to cultivating mass exercise habits and providing sports services.

In June this year, multiple departments jointly issued the "Measures on Creating New Consumption Scenarios and Cultivating New Consumption Growth Points", which proposed key tasks for cultivating new consumption scenarios in culture, tourism and sports, and provided many new opportunities for the development of the sports industry.

Image source: Notification screenshot

The release of this policy has further expanded the space and forms of sports consumption and stimulated market vitality. In the future, the sports industry will more deeply integrate business, tourism and culture and become a new engine for economic growth.