Xinhuanet sports BEIJING, April 10 (reporter Li Xu) at the end of March, in the competition of ONE Tokyo Station in the comprehensive fighting event, Chinese player Xiong Jinnan TKO (technically down) challenger Li Shengzhu, for the third time, Zhang Weili successfully defended the golden belt; At the beginning of March, Zhang Weili defeated Tesia-Torres in UFC, becoming the first Chinese boxer to enter the top ten of UFC. During this period, Lin Heqin won his first show in the ONE field; 60 days after he was crowned WBA world champion, xu can also held his first WBA world champion gold belt at the end of March…… Many good news came in a month, which was the footnotes of the rapid progress of Chinese fighting movement.
As a sports project covering boxing, taekwondo, Muay Thai, karate, Sanda, jujitsu and other physical contact sports, fighting because of its strong antagonism and high appreciation, it has a broad market in the world. In recent years, with the introduction of Document No. 46 of the State Council “Several Opinions on Accelerating the development of sports industry and promoting sports consumption”, fighting sports are the same as sports such as Marathon and bicycle, it also ushered in rapid development in China.
Favorable policies and capital influx have ushered in a good time in the sports industry through a sweet period. Since Document No. 46 of the State Council was issued in 2014, the National Fitness Program (2016-2020) favorable policies such as “Healthy China 2030 Planning Outline”, “guidance on accelerating the development of fitness and leisure industry”, “guidance on accelerating the development of sports competition and performance industry” have come out one after another.
“It can be said that the introduction of Document No. 46 sounded the LaCorne of the attack of Chinese fight movement and also promoted the rapid development of the whole related industry.” Hou Chuangye, co-founder of senior fight self-media “fighting fans”, told the reporter.
With this east wind, brands of big and small fighting events have sprung up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. According to incomplete statistics of “fighting fans”, about 800 fighting events were held in China last year, with about 50 related active competition brands and more than 7,000 boxing clubs nationwide, professional boxers and martial arts students are increasing year by year.
At the same time, based on the optimistic prospect of Chinese fight sports, UFC, ONE and other world excellent fight competitions have entered China ONE after another, and continue to absorb excellent Chinese players to fight their own competitions. Xu can, Li Jingliang, Zhang Weili, Xiong Jingnan and Lin He Qin are the outstanding representatives among them.
“Foreign competitions frequently enter the Chinese market, which is the best proof that the Chinese fighting market is rising.” He Yunbo, vice president of Endeavor Wei Mei, who runs UFC in China, said. Xiong Jinnan, who fought in the ONE field, also believed that China’s fight movement had made great progress in recent years, “This sport has begun to be popularized and recognized in China, and more and more people have participated in it, this is the light of hope for Chinese fighting.”
The sports brand 361 Degrees is considered to be the biggest beneficiary of the golden belt won by Xu can, the champion of Xinke world. “The reason why we choose to sponsor Xu can and his team is based on the value of the broad market prospect in the field of Chinese fighting.” Han Wei, director of the 361-degree Public Affairs Center, said, “fighting movement is in a warming state in China, and consumers’ understanding and preference for fighting movement are deepening.”
There are many chaos and poor realization. The industry needs to be standardized
while achieving achievements, China’s fight movement also encounters “growing troubles”. The number of events is large but the quality is uneven. The influx of large amounts of capital is difficult for commercial realization. The rapid development of the project but the slow reform of the public concept still puzzles the Chinese fight movement.
“Fighting started late in China and the degree of professionalism is still very low. This makes our audience base, business model and related culture have a certain gap with countries with excellent development in this field.” Hou Entrepreneurship said.
Although China’s fight movement has experienced a golden period in the past five years, some previous events hyped national emotions and blew “patriotic whistle” in order to quickly accumulate audiences “, to a large extent, it hurt the development of Chinese fight movement.” This kind of hype is not conducive to the healthy development of the project itself, but will further lower the public’s awareness of fight.”
“As a sport that is not the mainstream in China, fighting is still in the cultivation period in China at present, and we cannot pull out the seedlings to encourage them, promote the expansion of the project through these behaviors that violate the law of healthy development of sports.” He Yunbo believes that fighting sports need to gain more positive and positive publicity and popularization in China, instead of advocating fraud. “We want to let the public know that fighting events do not represent violence, exaggeration and speculation, but a healthy sport, so that more people will accept this sport.”
In sharp contrast to the audience’s failure to buy money, in recent years, a large amount of capital has poured into Chinese fight sports one after another, giving birth to a large number of related events. However, with the difficulty of commercial development and poor liquidity, these fanatical capital is continuously losing.
“Compared with developed countries, our competition profit model is very single. Besides advertising and sponsorship, we can’t find other mature sustainable profit methods.” Hou Chuangye said, “when the competition has been losing money, the capital side is no longer willing to invest. In addition, due to the influence of the big environment, it can be said that the whole market has been in a cold state in the past two years.”
However, in Hou’s view of entrepreneurship, when any industry is just developing, there will always be a large number of people and capital rushing in. After the big waves of sand, it will leave high-quality and good reputation competitions, “This is bound to make greater progress in China’s fight after reshuffling.”
China, which has a large base, thick reserves and great development potential
is troubled by many problems, also has its own unique advantages. He Yunbo thought that China’s fight sports had a large reserve of talents, “there are many excellent athletes in professional teams of all fight projects in China, after retirement, they all hope to transform into stand-up combat or MMA athletes and achieve new glory on the professional combat stage.”
Han Yi also said that the rich population base and talent accumulation of fighting are the powerful driving force for China to develop fighting movement, while the long-standing martial arts cultural tradition and martial arts spirit, it is a very good congenital condition for us to develop fight movement. “What we need to do at this stage is to change these martial arts enthusiasts from the cognition of traditional martial arts to the cognition of modern competitive fighting. This process needs to be cultivated.” Hou entrepreneurship pointed out.
As for the sound business model, he Yunbo believes that the Chinese fight market is constantly improving. “With the improvement of economic strength and the upgrading of consumption, Chinese sports consumption demand has begun to shift from traditional sports manufacturing consumption to entertainment and ornamental consumption.”
Take UFC as an example, 2017 Shanghai station, as the first stop in mainland China, attracted more than 15000 spectators to watch the competition on the spot; The competition at Beijing station in 2018 was also packed. “The emergence of a large number of paid live spectators and online spectators not only shows that UFC has a solid brand appeal in China, but also means that more and more Chinese begin to recognize and accept this sport.”
In China’s fight events, how to build a brand, form sustainable development, and how to enhance credibility and influence still need the continuous efforts of relevant people. “UFC took 25 years to form a mature commercial model including paid live broadcast, copyright sale, ticket revenue, advertising agency, peripheral development and other links, this provides a good example for Chinese fighting events.”
“We are very optimistic about the future of Chinese fight movement and believe that fight movement will have a good development in China.” He Yunbo said.
As the deep observer and recorder of this project, Hou entrepreneurship even thinks that fighting is likely to become the third largest sport after football and basketball in China.