"Don't be too fast for a while, last time you ran too fast and exploded!" Ding Zuyu, CEO of E-House Group, instructed a female runner before the E-House Marathon Club (hereinafter referred to as E-House) all-horse test match that "bursting" refers to premature overdraft of physical strength, and the speed of the back journey has dropped rapidly. Ding Zuyu, whose best result in malaysia has already broken 3, is now worth half a coach. (Extended reading: Ding Zuyu: CEO of the most capable listed company)
It was also the day of his third anniversary celebration of the E-House Marathon Club, but there were more important things on the same day. On December 4, the Chinese Athletics Association (hereinafter referred to as the Athletics Association) and the E-House Marathon Club announced the joint construction of the athletics national team in Shanghai. The Athletics Association and E-House will jointly complete the construction of the national team, including men's and women's middle running, long-distance running, marathon and race walking, and prepare for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. This co-construction is not only an important change in Chinese athletics, but also an important node in the development of the club.
Founded three years ago, As a practitioner of the market-oriented training model for Chinese marathon runners, Yiju has contributed a unique sample for Chinese long-distance running.
Do China's industrial group
In 2014, running suddenly caught fire, and the sport became the "universal language" in the real estate industry, and under the influence of real estate running circle spokespeople such as Vanke Yuliang and Mao Daqing, E-House CEO Ding Zuyu also plunged into the running circle. He didn't play with tickets, and the 2016 Chicago Marathon went into 3 hours. Later, Ding Zuyu began to push others to run while running on his own, and it was not addictive to build a running group in the company, and in 2018, he also launched the E-House Marathon Club, which was the first marathon club founded by an enterprise in China.
"We want to explore a sustainable path that is founded by companies and combines professional and competitive sports." Ding Zuyu recalled his original intention.
From this point of view, Yiju became the first person to eat crabs. At the beginning of the establishment of the club, the Reference was made to the Japanese industrial group model. The industrial group is a group established by Japanese enterprises to absorb sports talents, and many sports projects have industrial group organizations, of which the more prosperous one is the long-distance running industrial group.
In Japan, there are almost no pure professional runners, but the running training system of Japanese schools is relatively perfect, from primary school to university has a complete upward articulation system, to ensure that students can always train in school clubs, and the undertaking of school training system is the industrial group. Japan's long-distance running talents generally have two development paths, one is to enter the industrial group directly after the emergence of high school, and the more mainstream choice is to enter the industrial group after graduating from university. After they enter the industrial group, they usually work while training, not only athletes but also employees of the enterprise, and athletes usually continue to stay in the enterprise as employees or coaches of the industrial group after retirement.
The school + industrial group model is the mainstream model of Japanese long-distance running talent training, and the Japanese marathon star Daisuke, who won the sixth place in the Tokyo Olympic Games, was a member of the Nissin Industrial Group before leaving Japan for training in the United States.
For athletes, the industrial group solves the livelihood problem, but also paves the way for the career after retirement; for the enterprise, it can promote the company brand through the exposure of the athletes in the running event, so the industrial group is also a win-win model.
▲In competitions such as Hakone Ekiden, the emerging running talents are the targets of competition for various corporate industrial groups.
The first person to eat crabs
Although Yiju refers to the industrial group model, the Chinese and Japanese athletics environment is different, and the operation cannot be completely "copied", for example, on the issue of the "organization" of athletes, China has special national conditions, and Yiju can only explore on its own.
When it was first established, E-House signed a group of outstanding long-distance runners, most of whom were retired athletes in the system, and a small number of amateur elite runners. After training for a period of time, the performance of some athletes has improved, so the provincial team has "invited" the athletes back, the athletes' training and competition, in fact, are still managed by the provincial team, and the athletes only have the logo of Yiju on the competition uniform, which makes Yiju more like a sponsor in many cases.
▲ E-House provides financial and training support for athletes who are not registered in provincial and municipal sports teams, which is also the important significance of the existence of social clubs.
From an athlete's point of view, most of them prefer to stay within a familiar and stable system, or choose to train and compete completely "freely" without any management. "In the face of clubs, an emerging organization in the country, many athletes still feel that there is too much uncertainty." Gu Yiwen, director of club operations and former long-distance runner, explained.
In the face of this situation, on the one hand, E-House has improved the club management model and created a more humane, more motivated and attractive platform, on the other hand, it has also strengthened coordination with official forces such as the WADA Association and provincial and municipal teams to let them endorse themselves. In 2019, the Chinese Athletics Association signed a contract with E-House, and E-House became a partner of the Athletics Association, and this announcement of the joint construction of the athletics national team is the deepening of cooperation with the Athletics Association.
In fact, this kind of co-construction model in which official institutions provide policy and talent support, social forces provide resource support, and the resources and personnel teams of national teams and club teams are highly shared have long existed in other sports, a typical example is ice hockey. The Chinese Ice Hockey Association has been built with a number of clubs, and this kind of club has also become an intermediary form between ordinary clubs and national teams.
The cooperation between the Athletics Association and E-House is similar, and E-House is currently the only co-construction partner of the Athletics Association. In terms of training resources, the Athletics Association will provide convenient training conditions for the club's athletes, allowing club athletes to train with the national team, and the Athletics Association will also arrange foreign training and competition resources for the club.
In addition to sharing training resources, the national team and clubs also share the head coach. Last year, Yiju hired legendary coach Li Li as the head coach, Li Li graduated from Beijing Sport University, and then went to the United States to develop, coached in the United States for more than 30 years, won the U.S. Olympic Committee "National Best Athletics Coach of the Year", and also brought out the famous middle-distance runner Bernard Lagart. One of the important contents of the joint construction conference is that Li Li was appointed as the head coach of the national middle-distance running project in the Paris Olympic preparation cycle, and Li Li has since become the double coach of the national team and the club, which is equivalent to calling Li Li, a coach outside the system, into the national team, which also represents an innovation in Chinese athletics.
▲ Li Li has become the head coach of the national team and the Yiju club.
These and official linkages have undoubtedly enhanced the club's attractiveness to high-level athletes. At present, the club's athlete management system is also a Chinese characteristic that is constantly exploring and reconciling. At present, a considerable number of club athletes have the dual identity of the system and the club, and this parallel is guaranteed by the system.
Article 7 of the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Registration and Exchange of Athletes of the Chinese Athletics Association issued by the Chinese Athletics Association in 2020 stipulates: "Institutions of higher learning and clubs may carry out dual registration with provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government. "In addition, many of the club's top contracted athletes have head coaches, who have been coaching the players in their training before they join E-House, and a symbiotic relationship has been formed between the coach and the athletes, which has also been brought to the club, and the relationship between the coach and E-House is more of a cooperative relationship than an employment relationship."
Commercialization in small steps
Although E-House does not expect the club to be profitable in the short term, and the current investment is far greater than the income, but if a club wants to do it for a long time, commercialization is still a prescribed action.
At the event on the 4th, E-House and Nike held a signing ceremony for top partners, and Nike was previously an E-House partner. In addition, the club also has sponsors such as officially designated sports headphones Shaoyin and officially designated sports nutrition camp SIS.
Coupled with sponsorship, the club's current commercialization is a "four-pronged approach": one of the directions is athlete brokerage, and now E-House's athletes have signed agreements with the club, and the club has the right to commercially develop athletes; at the same time, the club is also fighting for the public running crowd, developing running training camp products, and the E-House Marathon Training Camp has now opened the second phase. In addition, the club is also training athletes for some provincial and municipal professional teams.
The commercialization of E-House is still in the exploratory stage, and the running club needs to mature the environment if it wants to increase revenue, especially the construction of the event platform.
The Industrial Group Ekiden is an annual Japanese running competition with the same name as Hakone Ekiden, sponsored by the Athletics Federation of the Japan Industrial Group, and participated in the industrial group or the club. Because of the huge influence and the commercial value of the event, the participating clubs can naturally share the commercial benefits, but China still lacks an event platform such as the industrial group Yichuan.
Since the release of the Notice on Soliciting Relevant Information of Chinese Marathon Clubs in July 2019, the Chinese Athletics Association has attached great importance to the construction of marathon clubs, and the Athletics Association has repeatedly stated that it will establish a Chinese Marathon Club League. In the "Draft for Comments" of the "14th Five-Year Plan" athletics project development plan of the Chinese Athletics Association, it is proposed to increase the scale of the marathon industry from 94.8 billion yuan in 2019 to 150 billion yuan in 2025. These news are undoubtedly a positive for social clubs like E-House.
In terms of competition, E-House's "ambition" is not small, and the club has put forward the goal of advancing to the top eight marathons at the Paris Olympic Games. This ambition is not unfounded, the club's current talent reserve is quite thick, Olympic race walking champion Liu Hong, young strength - Xuzhou Olympic trial champion Peng Jianhua, "marathon sister" Li Zhixuan, National Games women's marathon champion and women's 10,000 meters champion Zhang Deshun and National Games women's 5,000 meters women's 3,000 meters obstacle course double champion Zhang Xinyan are listed. In addition, the team with Li Li as the head coach is also cultivating a new group of elite athletes.
Regardless of whether the goal of Paris Chong BA can be completed, E-House itself has provided a reference model for the professionalization of the Chinese marathon. As the first person to eat crabs, E-House has no way forward, which means that the club still has to constantly upgrade to fight monsters and find a path that suits itself. But in any case, E-House has stood on the right trend, that is, social forces will play an increasingly important role in the cultivation of middle-distance running talents in China.
Disclaimer: This article is original by Lazy Bear Sports and may not be reproduced without authorization.