"Grassroots events" go abroad, and IP plays a leading role

Reporter Liu Wang reports from Beijing

The "Village Super" model has crossed national borders and successfully set foot on the African continent, bringing new vitality and passion to this land.

According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, the Republic of Benin, located in Africa, drew on the experience and model of Guizhou, China, to start the first African "Village Super" football match. Just like Guizhou's "Village Super", Africa's "Village Super" will intersperse theatrical performances before or during the halftime every time, bringing a unique viewing experience to the audience.

It is no coincidence that China's "grassroots sports IP" has emerged on the international stage, and many event IPs with Chinese characteristics have begun to go international. The reporter of "China Business Daily" noticed that the 361° independent IP event "Touchdown and Ignition" also achieved the first time to go to sea, and a four-day event was held in the United States, demonstrating the charm of China's "grassroots sports" culture.

Obviously, China's "grassroots sports" IP has received more and more attention internationally, which is inseparable from the rapid development of China's sports industry. With the continuous growth of China's sports industry, more and more "grassroots event" IPs have begun to emerge and gradually move towards internationalization. This not only injects new vitality into the development of China's sports industry, but also provides a new platform for international sports and cultural exchanges.

The circle of "village super" friends has expanded

There has been an early warning of the "village super" fire going abroad. First of all, its unique form of competition and cultural connotation have attracted wide attention from the international community. The BBC reported: "A rural amateur football tournament in China's southwestern province has unexpectedly become the focus of attention...... and the 'Village Super League' has suddenly attracted a lot of attention both online and offline with incredible momentum." ”

In addition, British star Michael Owen sent blessings to the "village super"; At the end of 2023, after the "Village Super League" reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the Premier League, 44 local primary and secondary school coaches received a four-day training.

And now, the circle of friends of "Village Super" has expanded again. Recently, the first African "Village Super" football tournament started, villagers from many local villages formed 12 teams to participate, the game adopts a league system, held on the weekend, will last until the end of May. Among the 12 teams participating in the competition, except for the Paraku University team, the rest of the teams are composed of villagers from six local villages.

This has a lot of similarities with Guizhou's "Village Super", which is designed with the concept of "Super Saturday Football Night" in its schedule and only matches on weekends. In addition, in terms of the composition of the participants, according to a previous report by China Business News, the team members are people from all walks of life in the village, such as professional excavator masters, barbers, self-employed people who open shops, and special police officers...... The age range is also relatively large, ranging from 15 to 50 years old.

Compared with Guizhou's "village super", Africa's "village super" is inferior in terms of hardware facilities. The local courts are rudimentary, most of them are "run-out" earthen courts, the goals are made of a few wooden sticks, and there are no nets. But they have interpreted the charm of football in their own way, and they have also shown the world the energy and passion of the African continent.

The flip side of Africa's borrowing from the "village super" model is China's long-term assistance to it. Shou Xiaoyong, head of the China-aided Benin cotton technology project team, introduced that the China-aided Benin cotton technology project has been carried out for more than 10 years, and the project experts have promoted cotton planting technology in Benin, trained agricultural technicians, provided equipment maintenance guidance and agricultural material assistance, and led the local people to increase their income and become rich.

In addition to the "Village Super", another event has also attracted widespread attention at home and abroad, that is, the 361° independent IP event "touchdown and burn". In April 2024, 361° organized an American basketball training camp, as well as a 100-point battle between China and the United States and a game against the American streetball team. Earlier, the three-on-three basketball tournament "Basketball Battle Three-on-Three" also went international, covering Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines and other domestic and foreign regions, and striving to create a star of the event.

In fact, the event IP is self-evident for the development of the sports industry. According to Bao Mingxiao, dean of the China Sports Policy Research Institute of Beijing Sport University, the sports industry is a content industry, and innovative IP and events are the core content of the sports industry. It is necessary not only to promote the whole industry to establish a new development concept driven by competition, but also to build a competition system to promote the high-quality development of the sports industry.

Nowadays, the development of technology has provided convenience for the international dissemination of sports event IP. Zhang Qing, founder of Keyway Sports Consulting, told reporters that sports itself is a language, which can transcend different cultural backgrounds to establish a common cognition, which provides a foundation for sports events IP to go overseas. On this basis, whether it is "village super", touchdown and ignition, or basketball battle, it is the combination of communication characteristics and sports characteristics in the mobile Internet era to form a new style of competition, which spreads beyond geography.

"With the improvement of China's cultural soft power, there will be more event IPs going international in the future." Zhang Qing thinks.

The driving role of the event going to sea

In fact, with the "village super" going to sea, Chinese culture has also been further disseminated. On the field, the Chinese and French versions of "African Village Super Vibrant" big characters came into view. During the halftime of the game, students from the Confucius Institute in Benin performed Dong dance and Chinese martial arts, and the Chinese song "Singing the Motherland" was also played on the football field.

At the same time, some voices believe that "travel with the event" has gradually become a trend, and high-quality events play an important role in driving the regional economy and shaping the city's image. In 2023, driven by the "Village Super" series of events, Rongjiang County will receive a total of 7.6585 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 52.16%, and achieve a comprehensive tourism income of 8.398 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 73.94%; There are 41 new investment projects, 1.147 billion yuan of new industrial funds in place, and 11 excellent enterprises such as Guangzhou Zhongxu Future, Hunan Huacheng Biotechnology, Nanshanpo Group, and Guizhou Qingjiu have landed. Therefore, for the African "village super", many media also have more expectations in their reports.

In addition, the reporter noticed that while the IP of sports events went abroad, a wave of sports brands going overseas has formed.

For example, Anta's globalization has risen to the level of corporate strategy, and after that, Anta upgraded its development strategic goals from "single focus, multi-brand, and omni-channel" to "single focus, multi-brand, and globalization". Rely on frequent acquisitions to expand its overseas territory. At the same time, the main brand signed NBA basketball player Kyrie Irving as a spokesperson.

The relevant person in charge of Anta told reporters that the group's brand footprint, retail channels, R&D network, supply chain and production bases are all over the world, with a total of 75,000 sales outlets in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, R&D and design studios in the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea and other places, and joint innovation with more than 60 top scientific research institutions, universities and more than 3,000 upstream and downstream suppliers around the world.

In addition, as early as 2019, Ding Shuibo, the head of Xtep, led Xtep to officially open the road of multi-brand international development, successively promoted a series of "brand overseas" actions, and successively completed the acquisition of many international brands such as "Gasway", "Paladin", "Saucony" and "Myle".

With the help of touchdown IP, 361° also showed its brand image to the outside world. The reporter noticed that at the same time as the event, 361° joined hands with Solestage, the largest limited-edition sneaker consignment brand store in North America, to show the world its latest basketball shoes Big3 5.0 Quick and Big3 5.0 Quick Pro. In addition, during the visit of the Touchdown Fuel United Team to the United States, 361° announced the official launch of its overseas e-commerce website, which has become a new window for global consumers to understand products.

In fact, the event IP itself is an important starting point for enhancing brand influence. 361° stated in its financial report: "The Group has strengthened its independent sports scene, taking independent IP events and activities such as 'Track No. 3', 'Touchdown Ignite' and 'Women's Fitness Bureau' as the starting point to leverage the professional sports market, strengthen the exclusive sports ecosystem integrating online and offline, and drive the rapid expansion of brand influence." ”

Zhang Qing believes that 361° will further improve communication efficiency and build brand awareness by using sports as a transcendent language.

"This is going to be a trend in the future." Zhang Qing said that it is not only limited to sports brands close to sports, but also other fields can also use sports as a communication carrier for marketing, and the event IP will drive Chinese brands to the world.

The reporter noticed that many sports brands have chosen to sign overseas stars as image spokespersons in the process of going overseas, but more consideration is still needed in this process.

Zhang Qing said that there are two main categories of sports celebrity endorsement risks. The first is competitive risk. In competitive sports, especially high-level events, athletes are unable to compete due to injury or illness, or due to changes in the scoring rules of the competition, the athlete's original skills cannot be adapted to the new requirements, such as some aerials.

The second is the ethical and legal risks. In terms of moral hazard, it mainly refers to the negative public opinion caused by the athlete's misconduct, which has not yet risen to the level of laws or industry rules, such as improper speech and misconduct in public. More serious ones could be related to laws, such as Armstrong's ban on drugs.

Sun Wei, a brand marketing researcher at Tsinghua University, believes that the biggest risk of brands signing international stars is the crisis of celebrity public image caused by cultural differences.