Zhu Ting is absent, Jin Softjing joins forces with Larson, and it is too difficult to commercialize the new season

Reporter | Ren Si zhuo

The 2017-2018 season was the first year of the Chinese Volleyball Super League, when the Chinese women's volleyball team was crowned the "East Wind" of the Olympic gold medal in Rio, which ushered in an unprecedented investment record.

However, the Chinese women's volleyball team at the Tokyo Olympic Games, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, will start this autumn and winter in the 2021-2022 season, even if it ushers in a real sense of "big shuffle", it may also face the most difficult season.

The new season is about to start, and the clubs have successively determined the big list for the new season.

Zhu Ting, who is the most concerned by fans, may miss the new season due to wrist surgery and postoperative rehabilitation. A few days ago, Zhu Ting revealed in the live broadcast that she is already looking for surgeons and rehabilitation doctors, hoping to return to the stadium in a healthy state.

As the star of the Chinese women's volleyball team, Zhu Ting won the Tuchao League championship, the Champions League championship and the Club World Cup during her stay in the Turkish Super League, and was personally awarded the MVP. After returning to China in the 2019-2020 season, Zhu Ting joined the Tianjin women's volleyball team, helping the team win two season laurels and winning the MVP for the second time.

Losing the joining of Zhu Ting, the Tianjin women's volleyball team reached a cooperation with former Cuban successor Vargas in the new season to strengthen the team's offensive strength. Previously, Vargas played for Fenerbahce FC and was the team's star.

In the charity competition between the Tianjin women's volleyball team and the Shenzhen Zhongsai women's volleyball team on October 17, Vargas performed well.

In this game, the national player Liu Yanhan also appeared in the Tianjin jersey, and she is very likely to join the Tianjin women's volleyball team in the new season, becoming another help for the Tianjin women's volleyball team.

The lineup of the Shanghai women's volleyball team has also undergone no small changes.

On the one hand, the team carried out a replacement of the old and the new, the main force received Zhang Lei retired, the main attack Zhang Yichan and the second pass Bian Yuqian transferred, and the young players Liu Zeyu and Chen Houyu entered the first team from the youth team.

On the other hand, the team not only renewed Larson's contract, but also introduced Jin Softjing.

At the Tokyo Olympics, Larson helped the U.S. women's volleyball team win the first Olympic gold medal in the team's history and won the MVP, after two seasons, Larson helped the Shanghai women's volleyball team win the second place in the 2019-2020 season and the third place in the 2020-2021 season. Jin Softjing joined the Shanghai women's volleyball team in the 2018-2019 season, scoring 573 points in the season, second only to Tianjin women's volleyball team Li Yingying.

The addition of the two top stars will comprehensively enhance the strength of the team and will also bring more highlights to the volleyball super. Is the Tianjin women's volleyball team joined by Vargas better, or is Jin Softjing and Larson leading the Shanghai women's volleyball team to the top?

In addition, the newly established Shenzhen Zhongsai women's volleyball team has also obtained the qualification for the volleyball super, and Bao Zhuang will lead the team to participate in the competition in the new season as the head coach, and this new army may bring surprises.

Although there are many points to watch in the new season, there are also many problems.

A few days ago, the Volleyball Association issued an announcement saying that due to the consideration of epidemic prevention and control, it was initially determined that the next three seasons of volleyball super league will adopt the tournament system.

Although the Volleyball Association stipulates the league time span and the number of matches in the announcement, the time span of each league is not less than four months, and the number of matches is not less than 200 games. But the drawbacks of the tournament system are still inevitable.

The schedule of the conference system is more compact and dense than that of the home and away system, which is not conducive to the commercial development of volleyball super. In addition, fans will be more troublesome to watch the game offline.

In addition, the pursuit of professional and commercial volleyball super, the biggest problem facing the new season is to find a competition operation partner.

In April 2020, due to the arrears of the volleyball window to pay the contract, the volleyball association announced the termination of the contract, and the three-year cooperation between the two sides was declared over.

Previously, under the operation of the Volleyball Window, Pai Chao achieved good results in the process of commercialization.

In the first year of the super league, it ushered in the sponsorship of bright dairy, peak sports, Linglong tires, Coca-Cola, Osports all sports media, sports treasure and other enterprises, compared with the embarrassing scene of no sponsorship that had appeared before, the newly started volleyball super made a good start in the commercial exploration.

The super league also increased the number of participating clubs to 14, and revised the regulations for the transfer of athletes and the introduction of internal and external invocations, which facilitated the joining of foreign aid.

In addition, in terms of copyright, the concept of non-exclusive broadcast rights proposed by PaiChao has attracted the participation of well-known media such as NetEase Sports, Ali Sports, and People's Sports, bringing about 30 million yuan of copyright income to Pai Chao.

According to the data, in the 2017-2018 season, the average rating of CCTV sports channels was 0.39, and many games ranked among the top 10 of the weekly ratings list; the live ratings of the women's volleyball finals "grab seven" battle were as high as 0.66, setting a new high for the super ratings; the ratings of the All-Star Game on the CCTV sports channel were as high as 0.6, more than most of the games in the AFC Champions League, the Chinese Super League, the NBA and other events in the same period.

But in the following two seasons, the revenue of the two major sectors of sponsorship and copyright was far less than expected. On the one hand, the expected season title sponsor has never appeared, and it is difficult to break even. On the other hand, major copyright owners have withdrawn, leaving only Migu Video, and the economic situation of the super is even more severe.

The tentative competition system, the event operation partners that have not yet been found, and the Chinese women's volleyball team in the Tokyo Olympic Games, sponsors may reconsider sponsorship matters, and the commercialization of the new season is facing no small challenge.