"Sichuan, Xiongqi".
The shouts cut through the silent night sky, and the Sichuan Provincial Gymnasium in the center of Chengdu was crowded.
On October 17, the opening ceremony and opening game of the 2023-2024 China Women's Basketball League (hereinafter referred to as the WCBA League) were held here. This is the first time since the 2020-2021 season that the WCBA league has resumed its home-and-away format during the regular season. Three Chinese women's basketball players Li Meng, Wang Siyu and Han Xu made their debut in the new season when they returned to Sichuan.
The picture shows Wang Siyu, Li Meng, and Han Xu displaying the championship ring. Photo by Liu Xingchen
"Come on sister Li Meng". During the game, a child on the sidelines waved a cheering stick and shouted, and the childish and cute voice made Li Meng instantly overjoyed. Fan-player interactions like this happened that night.
Outside the main entrance of the Sichuan Provincial Gymnasium, there is a ticket office to serve the women's basketball event. The reporter observed that from 3 pm to 3:30 pm on the 17th, 102 people came to exchange tickets and consult about ticket purchase. At that time, there were still 4 hours before the official start of the opening ceremony that night.
"The 90 yuan and 280 yuan tickets were sold out after they went on sale online, and I still have some loose tickets for the 180 yuan and 120 yuan prices on hand." The ticket staff said.
The picture shows people buying tickets at the ticket exchange office. Photo by Liu Xingchen
In the past decade, such scenes have been rare. The reason is the rise of the Chinese women's basketball team.
Chinese women's basketball team, the glory of the three major balls
At the Hangzhou Asian Games, women's basketball player Yang Liwei became one of the flag bearers of the opening ceremony of the Chinese sports delegation, walking at the forefront of the phalanx. "This honor does not lie with me personally, but with the recognition of the Chinese women's basketball team by the outside world."
In the past two years, the Chinese women's basketball team has achieved remarkable results. World Cup runners-up, Asian Cup champions, Asian Games champions, with an average age of 25.7 years old, they have become the best team in Chinese sports in the "three balls" event.
Many people say that this is the best era for girls, and the four words "Fearless Jinlan" have become the most vivid interpretation of the spirit of the Chinese women's basketball team.
The picture shows the Chinese women's basketball team taking a group photo on the podium of the Hangzhou Asian Games. Photo by Shi Chunyang
When the team stood on the podium again and again, the attention of the Chinese women's basketball team reached an unprecedented height. According to incomplete statistics, after the Chinese team defeated the Japanese team in the women's basketball final of the Hangzhou Asian Games, there were as many as 11 hot search terms about the Chinese women's basketball team.
Turning back the clock to five years ago, China defeated the Korean and Korean teams to win the women's five-a-side basketball championship at the Asian Games in Jakarta. On the 11th day after winning the championship, Xu Limin, the head coach of the Chinese women's basketball team at the time, was angry with the team.
"Are you satisfied with winning the Asian Games? Over there, that's the second in the world, and [you] are far behind. Following the direction of Xu Limin's finger, there is a huge photo hanging high in the training hall of the General Administration of Sports-the Chinese women's basketball team "92 Golden Generation" won the silver medal at the Barcelona Olympics.
After climbing and rolling, the new generation of Chinese women's basketball team has now touched a historical height, which is enough to compare with its predecessors.
The national team feeds back the league
According to Xu Jicheng, vice president of the Chinese Basketball Association, the women's basketball team has reached the harvest season.
In the field of sports, it is not uncommon for leagues to continuously provide talent for national teams. Today, the Chinese women's basketball national team has the ability to feed back the league.
"The attention of the WCBA league must be linked to the results of the Chinese women's basketball team. When the national team results up, the attention of the league may increase. A senior media person who has been deeply engaged in the women's basketball field for nearly ten years said.
The picture shows enthusiastic fans at the scene. Photo by Liu Xingchen
In the new season, in the core team of the Chinese women's basketball team, except for Li Yueru, who went to the Turkish League, all the other players returned to the WCBA League to play. The national players have their own "star halo", and the fan culture of the women's basketball audience has gradually matured.
From women's national basketball tournaments to the WCBA league, fans have followed along the way. Taking the Sichuan women's basketball team as an example, before the start of the game, as the defending champions, they received the championship ring of last season. Li Meng, Wang Siyu and Han Xu released celebratory dance videos on social platforms, with a cumulative number of interactions reaching 501,000.
The picture shows screenshots of the works of Li Meng, Wang Siyu and Han Xu.
"The WCBA All-Star Game held last season had a rating of 3.94 on CCTV, and Chairman Yao joked that it was higher than the China derby rating he and Yi Jianlian had in the NBA (American men's basketball professional league) that year."
This slightly ridiculous example by the vice president of the Chinese Basketball Association has become the most powerful evidence that the Chinese women's basketball national team feeds back to the league.
"Once, no one watched the women's basketball league without tickets"
Eight years ago, when media across the country aimed their long gun sprints at the Chinese Men's Basketball Professional League (hereinafter referred to as the CBA League), the news about the Chinese women's basketball team and the WCBA League was only forgotten in all corners of the Internet. "The news is very scattered, I remember that there is a post bar whose name should be 'Chinese Women's Basketball'." Several fans recalled.
In the final of the 2015 Wuhan Women's Basketball Asian Championship, the Chinese women's basketball team lost to the Japanese team by 35 points; At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Chinese women's basketball team only won 1 victory in the group stage, and finally ranked 10th...
Screenshot of the 2015 women's basketball team losing to Japanese media reports.
The successive losses put the team on the cusp of the storm in an instant, and that period was also the low ebb of the development of the WCBA League in recent years, "In those years, fans went to various divisions to watch the game and broadcast it live by themselves. According to a number of media sources, the situation of fans broadcasting the league live on their own will still occur until 2019.
Due to the poor record of the national team, the WCBA league was rarely cared about at that time. Even when spectators can enter the stadium without tickets, the stadium stands are still a large empty space.
"We used to cover the WCBA league and there was only a few local media. It is only at the finals level that there is a large amount of media. ”
Don't let the Chinese women's basketball team sink too
Stumbling, the WCBA League went all the way. When the strength of the Chinese women's basketball team surpassed the Asian range and ranked second in the world, the league is also facing new problems while recovering.
According to a staff member of a women's basketball club, at present, many team social accounts are not operated by sports professional teams, and some clubs have not even opened social media at the time of the rapid development of new media. Compared with the CBA league, the standardization and professionalism of the WCBA league still need to be greatly improved.
WCBA League standings.
At present, the WCBA league has a total of 19 participating teams, but the competition pattern is unbalanced, and the four teams with national players, Sichuan, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia and Jiangsu, far exceed other teams.
At press time, the first round of the league is all over, with a total of 4 games with a difference of 20 points or more, and the largest difference reaches 44 points.
The excessive strength gap leads to a lack of viewing of the game, and the level of competition is far from comparable to the CBA league, which is not conducive to the growth of players. When the Chinese women's basketball team helps the league attract spectators, how to retain the fans who enter the game is a problem that needs to be considered in the future.
The cruelty of competitive sports is that once the team's performance declines, the attention will inevitably decline.
At present, the overall age structure of the Chinese women's basketball team is more reasonable, but it is foreseeable that after the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, from the perspective of age, several main players in the team will enter the end of the golden period of their careers, and the difficulty of maintaining their status will increase day by day.
In the eyes of many media people, at that time, the Chinese women's basketball team needed to face more challenges if it wanted to maintain its world-class level.
This is a rule, but also a harsh reality in competitive sports.
Based on past experience, mining and transferring talents from the league is still the only way for the national team to complete the replacement of the old and the new. However, due to the limited competitiveness of the league, the speed of improvement of the ability of the new generation of players has slowed down.
The opening of the WCBA league to foreign aid policies in the new season is good news for local players. Compared with the CBA league, the strength of women's basketball players is at a relatively higher level, and many champions of the Women's Professional Basketball League (WNBA League) have landed on the WCBA arena.
"I'm looking forward to playing against world-class players, many of whom are WNBA mainstays and I can learn a lot."
Han Xu, a center of the Chinese women's basketball team and a member of the Sichuan women's basketball team, said. In the eyes of Gu Jiaqing, the head coach of Zhejiang women's basketball team, the addition of international players will improve the level of domestic players and help the Chinese women's basketball national players prepare for the Paris Olympic Games.
Image source: FIBA Weibo.
Zheng Wei, the head coach of the women's national basketball team, once said in an interview that the Chinese women's basketball team has a championship mission in terms of the "three big balls" of Chinese sports.
On October 19, the host city of the 2024 Paris Olympic Women's Basketball Qualification Tournament in China was determined to be Xi'an. In February next year, the Chinese women's basketball team, which is in the same group as France, New Zealand and the second place team in the Americas qualifiers, will attack the Olympic qualification.
"In Paris, do the best we can." Wang Siyu, who completed the quasi-killing of the Hangzhou Asian Games, is full of confidence. For the Chinese women's basketball team, whose strength is still on the rise, it may only be a matter of time before it enters Paris, and the team's goal may already be aimed at the podium.
Honors are in the past, see you in Paris for the Chinese women's basketball team.