Compared with the United States, which sends the sports industry to the world, the commercialization process of sports events in China began late, and due to the system, the release of the commercial value of "sports stars" is still in the early stages in China. Among them, female athletes are even worse.
But it is undeniable that from Yao Ming, Li Na, to Su Bingtian, and then to Gu Ailing, who brushed the screen today, the commercial value of sports stars, especially female sports athletes, has entered the next stage in being highly concerned - while performance and performance on the field have become the biggest capital to improve commercial value, the resume story of the athletes themselves, as well as the spiritual core and values behind the experience, are being focused, amplified and shaped.
In 1984, Lang Ping led the Chinese women's volleyball team to win the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympic Games
In the 1980s, the ace player Tie Hammer Lang Ping, who helped the Chinese national team win the gold medal of the Women's Volleyball Team at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in the 1984 Olympic Games, and Deng Yaping, a table tennis player who created a legend of winning gold in the table tennis events of Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta In 1996, these two outstanding female athletes have become well-known sports heroes" with their outstanding competitive strength, becoming the epitome of their respective time nodes, but they are called "sports stars" and may be national" The term "celebrity" would be more appropriate. The reason is probably because in that era when even the acting industry was in its infancy, whether it was volleyball or table tennis, these two sports showed more pure competitive and hard-working sportsmanship, and there was no more commercial component involved in the event.
Deng Yaping successfully defended her title at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics after winning the table tennis singles title at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics
If we consider the commercial viewing of competitive sports and the personal commercial value of sports athletes, Li Na, Asia's first tennis Grand Slam women's singles champion and well-known female tennis athlete, can be said to be the most representative "sports female star" in the Chinese sports world in the past decade. Deeply engaged in the commercial operation of mature international tennis events, and in this process has achieved corresponding outstanding results and international popularity, which makes Li Na not only an outstanding female athlete, but also with her personal fame and charm, into a certain degree of commercial appeal, which has also contributed to her becoming a very competitive candidate for many brands, including sports and FMCG brands, in business cooperation, which can be confirmed by her repeated selection of Forbes China Celebrity List, which is dominated by stars in the film and television song industry.
In 2011, Li Na won the French Open women's singles title
Even in 2016, the Chinese women's volleyball team was tenacious in the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games that year, regained the crown, and touched the Chinese people, but because of the team-based competition mode, it failed to output a real sports star, although there were many seed players with good popularity and strength such as Zhu Ting and Hui Ruoqi in the team.
The Chinese women's volleyball team won the Olympic gold medal after a gap of 12 years in 2016
And from 2021 onwards, the second year of the post-pandemic era, it is clear that some qualitative change is quietly taking place in the industry. Subject to the epidemic postponed a year back to hold the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, and the consequent 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, so that the two Olympic Games were staged only half a year apart, and in the epidemic era, the importance of national physical fitness, and the corresponding sports fighting spirit has been cherished again, coupled with the strong position of social media in the public reading habits, making the public's attention to sports events easier and more spontaneous, coupled with the attention to international and domestic women's groups in recent years, All of them create favorable conditions for female athletes to "go out of the circle".
Tokyo Olympic fencing champion Sun Yiwen fashion blockbuster
At last summer's 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, we saw the strength of diving youngster Quan Hongchan win gold with impeccable strength, and became a veritable social media "top stream" with its rapidly spreading Internet popularity, and there was also a rescue from the first generation of overseas Internet celebrities Paris Hilton. And the fencer Sun Yiwen, with the elegant and spontaneous temperament of fencing, quickly became a unique style idol in the sports world, and invited him to cooperate with countless fashion magazines and commercial brands. Yang Shuyu, a player who won the precious bronze medal in women's three-person basketball in the Olympic Games for China, quickly obtained a commercial cooperation invitation from a head sports brand such as Jordan Brand with his spontaneous and healthy image, and recently cooperated with the top fashion house Prada to appear in its Olympic-themed image blockbuster.
Yang Shuyu presents an image blockbuster for Prada's Spring/Summer 2022 collection
Reviewing the above cases, we clearly perceive that commercial capital from international to domestic is gradually undergoing a change in consciousness about the concept of marketing with the help of the "celebrity effect".
Compared with the cyclical "melon ripening" and entertainment stars "human collapse" in 2021, in contrast to the fighting spirit that matches the Olympic theme year, the latter is undoubtedly an indispensable positive energy in this era, coupled with the high degree of discussion of feminism, which has achieved a number of female sports style idols with both strength and commercial value, for the brand, they naturally present a more positive and audience-oriented brand image. In the multiple choice of using celebrities or other traffic figures to shape and spread the spirit and culture of the brand, female sports stars are undoubtedly a correct and safe option.
This trend was pushed to a climax in the live broadcast of the Winter Olympics on February 8, which was highly concerned by global public opinion.
On February 8, 2022, Gu Ailing won China's first Olympic gold medal in snow sports
In the day's event, China's Gu Ailing won the gold medal in the freestyle ski women's big jump, which was also China's first ever snow sports gold medal. In fact, this post-00s Sino-US mixed race beautiful girl has attracted much attention since she announced her joining the Chinese nationality to fight for China in 2019, and with her good image, extraordinary business level and sincere patriotism, she has been influential in social media and commercial brands, and has invited to shoot countless magazine covers, as well as commercial cooperation from multiple categories from hard luxury to sports, from mobile phone applications to fast moving consumer goods, including but not limited to endorsements.
Before winning the Olympic gold medal, Gu Ailing filmed a handbag image blockbuster for Louis Vuitton
This Olympic gold medal actually completed the all-star "crowning" of this highly potential sports supernova. We see that Gu Ailing's hot search as a keyword has almost won nearly one-third of the well-known social media hot search list, and the Gu Ailing phenomenon has also officially opened the "all-star" era of contemporary Chinese outstanding female athletes to some extent.
This month, the Chinese women's football team won the Women's Asian Cup for the second time in 16 years
But almost at the same time as Gu Ailing's victory, the Chinese women's national football team reflected a different picture: during this Spring Festival, women's football team won a long-lost glory for China - winning the Women's Asian Cup for the second time in 16 years. But at odds with the honors is the stretched financial situation of outstanding women's footballers. As a result, it has triggered a nationwide reflection on the serious lack of commercial capital in the women's sports industry.
In the past, the purity and commercialization of sports seemed contradictory. However, in the face of these outstanding women who highlight the spirit of the times, the capital injection outside the flow may empower the sportsmanship to have a broader market prospect. With sufficient funds to support its further excellent development, better results to enhance higher and stronger sports soft power, and then drive the rapid development of national sports and sports industry, in such a positive cycle, the commercial value of sports stars is maximized, is the preferred track for capital empowerment industry.
The birth of Supernova Valley Ailing has undoubtedly helped the female athlete group gain valuable and broader capital attention. It is true that as one of the important driving forces for the development of the sports industry, the asset value of sports stars is formed in sports events, and the results of events determine the influence of stars. But what is more worth looking forward to is that starting with 2022, the energy and value of "female sports stars" will be released and disseminated more deeply in the capital empowerment, just like the positive, healthy and positive fashion of the times they have given us. WWD
Written by Li Chen
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