When you think of sports, maybe you picture cheering in a packed stadium or the thrill of lacing up for a weekend hike.
Today's sports aren't just play their big business.
We discuss how can sports plus consumption give the domestic economy a big lift.
And feeling those Monday blues?
Not a motivational Monday.
Tune in for a boost that will have you saying, bring it on Monday.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Ha Young.
For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yishan in the studio.
First on today's show.
Today in China, sports aren't only about breaking records on the field.
They're about driving growth off the field too.
From the rise in grassroots levels, such as the Village Super League this summer, to the annual winter sports boom of the ice and snow economy.
Sports are transforming everything from tourism to retail.
With fresh guidelines now in place to fuel high-quality growth.
The nation aims to expand its domestic sports industry to over 7 trillion yuan, or about US985 billion, by 2030.
So what will it take to make sports one of the biggest engines of China's future economy?
What do the new government guidelines say about boosting China's sports economy?
Well yeah, this is the newly issued guideline that was issued on September, the 4th 2025, and is issued by the General Office of the State Council.
And it outlines 20 measures in six fields, which focuses on expanding the supply of sports products and events and encouraging sports consumption and supporting sports-related businesses, and also driving new growth in this industry.
So, more specifically speaking, this plan.
It highlights developing the outdoor sports industry, particularly boosting the snow and ice economy, for instance, and also there's the up grading sports equipment.
That's creating more say, consumer scenarios and strengthening collaboration across the sector as well.
So we're seeing a very holistic and dynamic upgrade of all different say streams and sectors and areas within this whole sports industry all over China.
Yeah, that's the feeling I got when I was learning about this story is that there are a lot of things in play here.
And one of the things is support for talent, starting here at the bottom and developing talent from the age of childhood and up.
There are other issues at play here about financing and services in those industries.
But then we're talking too about industries like gyms and just personal exercise, how people can get out and where they're going to spend their money and things related to sports.
Yes, indeed.
And why is the government putting so much emphasis on expanding domestic sports consumption right now?
Let's say, first of all, it works, right?
Because well, like you mentioned earlier He Yang, I think it's back in this June there is this grassroot tournament that's called Jiangsu Football City League, or Su Chao in Chinese.
And that one alone, the football league or the tournament that it carries, It attracted over say, 900 million views on Douyin, which is the Chinese TikTok, after just three rounds.
And also the league blends football with all different sectors, like food, like folklore and online discussion, like memes and tourism.
Turning just one simple match or rather matches into full blown festivals.
That's how this say one event, sports event, is carrying on to just elevate itself from just being an event up to say a leading sports consumption, in some ways.
So there's been a recent state council executive meeting emphasizing that there's a need, let's say, for a broad set of measures to unlock the potential of domestic demands, and also this meeting pointed to the sports industry and sports consumption as key drivers in boosting that demand.
That uh, football league.
I don't i don't even know if they predicted it would be this successful.
This is kind of a phenomenon, right.
They've had an average game attendance of 60 000 people.
Usually that's first sports that have been around for decades.
Right.
Very well established.
Not that football or soccer is new in the country, but still this 13 team league is new.
And we talked about it on the show.
It's a mix of, you know, people who have office jobs and students who go to universities.
And that's kind of the appeal.
Right.
This is insanely popular that that fan turnout thus far has generated 38 billion yuan in total consumption across ticket sales.
And then things like you mentioned to you Sean, like team merchandise and tourism, people traveling into the towns to see it.
And then, you know, your related industries like hotels and things like that.
Yeah.
So it's just in general.
It's a good way of attracting just normal day to day people, grassroots people's attention.
Willingness in participating in such events, whether you are there or you're just there, you're just online and discussing about it over this topic is say, a major trend.
So this is according to Professor Wang Yusheng of the Central University of Finance and Economics.
So he pointed out that in recent years, many major consumption phenomena have revolved around sports, and also associate researcher Wang Peng at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences also said that the sports industry and sports consumption are being seen as a new growth engine with broad development potential at this point.
So at a time of say, rising external uncertainties, in these sectors sports sectors they are becoming especially important for say, stimulating domestic demands.
And in fact, they're showing really good outcomes as we see in some of the major examples this year.
Yes, and speaking of outcomes, let's look at the numbers.
This is according to monthly magazine Business China on news portal thepaper.cn.
For every one yuan spent on sports consumption, apparently it can drive an additional 78 yuan of revenue in related industries.
Pretty good return.
Yeah, and that almost creates...
You know that multiplier effect, that it's not just you adopting a hobby or going to see an event, but it really gives the economy a boost.
And that is something we like to see.
Yeah.
Chinese athletes always do well on the international stage.
Right.
You know, we'd like that.
Well yeah, of course, because it helps to create a lot of interest in sports, in the sports where the athletes won the medals.
The 519 world championship titles that Chinese athletes hold is very impressive.
They also set 68 world records from 2021 to 2024.
And the events were the biggest in the world, right?
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
They had the Hangzhou 2023 Asian Games and then Paris in 2024 for the Summer Olympics there.
And I see the sports economy as kind of a big spider web where you have these athletes that do well on the international stage.
When they do well, they get attention in the media, right?
And when they get attention in the media, it draws interest to the sport.
And when it draws interest to the sport.
That's when you get younger people interested in learning how to do that sport.
And that's how you cultivate the talent from the ground up.
So, you know, we see these major events and these athletes win and we think oh, that's great for the athlete, but actually it's, it's great for the sport in the country where that athlete is from.
Yeah, and i remember back in 2022 that's when i first started working as a journalist i'll, i'll believe and back then i was sent to say, interview sports photographer.
That's the first time I ever heard of this job.
That exists for many years apparently, and she just explained how much she wasn't enthusiastic about photo shooting the very moment when a skier jumps, jumps to the highest spot, and you just capture that spot and capture that beautiful turn of all of these athletes performing their best.
It's just spectacular view for not only the photographer themselves, but also for, you know, the just general public who perhaps have never tried skiing before.
And that shocked me as someone who is terrible at sports.
To be honest, if you've never tried skiing, i wouldn't start with that jump.
Start on the ground maybe, and work your way up from there.
Yeah.
What progress has China made in turning sports into a growth driver?
I mean, how has China's sports industry performed on and off the field?
Wow.
We've experienced such a rapid growth, especially in recent years.
And this is according to Xinhua News Agency, who reported that the added value of China's sports industry recorded an average compound annual growth rate of 165 percent from 2016 to 2020, and that's during the first four years of the 13th five-year plan period.
Also, the official data suggests that the country's sports industry has maintained an average annual growth rate of over 10 percent in the past five years, which just proved that it's doing pretty well, to be honest.
Yeah.
Even this year, in the first half of this year, retail sales of things related to sports, like sporting goods and all the things related.
You've got the four major e-commerce platforms, right?
JD, Taobao, Tmall and Douyin.
All together, the sales on there for sporting goods surpassed 218 billion yuan.
That's over $30 billion.
And if you compare that to 2024, that's almost an 18 increase, which is obviously very impressive, regardless of the industry that you're talking about.
And if you compare that to the growth of retail sales in general, it outpaced that 6 increase there.
So really impressive.
And obviously people are getting into it.
I've got my favorite sporting goods store.
It's two subway stops away.
Apparently it's famous.
I don't know the name of it.
I always forget it.
But when I talk about it in the office, I always get a good response from you should.
That's where he shops for all his sporting related stuff.
I love that store.
It's huge and they have everything.
And it's always packed.
I guess that's kind of related to our chat here.
Whenever I go there, which is about I don't know once every couple of months, it is constantly packed with people.
Yeah.
And I remember someone shared with I think it's a previous colleague shared with me that their family, which live nearby to one of those stores.
They buy their daily necessities like mittens, gloves and wear winter jacket just from that store, even though they don't need it, as in sports wears that desperately.
Oh, so it's kind of like a new development in fashion in our country.
That is, you know, people are ditching high heels and traditional suits.
Well, suits were never really all that popular here.
But anyway, people really like outdoorsy wear.
And it's perfectly normal to wear something like a windbreaker as your jacket and walk into an office or some yoga pants right, you see those on the streets.
Excuse me why.
What's the problem?
Is it the yoga or the pants?
What's the problem?
Uh, i don't have a problem with either, but when you combine them and walk into the office, call me old-fashioned but or old school, but i think it should not be permitted.
Yeah, especially yeah, yoga pants in the office Coming up tomorrow on Roundtable.
I know the athleisure wind blew all over the world even before COVID and it was exacerbated during COVID.
But if you're in the office, I still think that you know, at least show that you're committed to the job and don't turn up with anxiety, especially if you don't wear a top that's long enough to cover the crotch area.
It is disastrous anytime now or a hundred years in the future, in my humble opinion.
I was speaking more to being out in public.
Um, you can see it everywhere right, when people are out in public, they're wearing the athletic wear as casual wear, and that's just huge.
In canada and america too, a lot of people dress like that on a daily basis.
Yeah, so let's talk about, you know, The reasons behind the rapid growth of China's sports industry and what steps has the country taken or plans to take to keep that momentum.
Well, first of all, we've got a major, say, long-term goal as a support.
So the National Fitness Plan of 2025 to 2031 clearly sets the target for the total scale of the sports industry to reach five trillion yuan and that's roughly 701 billion US dollars and that's in 2025 which will further promote deep integration between sports events culture and tourism and other sectors all together in one mechanism let's say and there's always the policy support as well because as we've already mentioned that China has published several documents that incorporates sports consumption into top-level planning.
And that's also an endeavor to elevate it to the level of a national strategy, let's say.
It's really being promoted from the official side as well.
These documents.
They clearly call for expanding the scale of the sports industry and sports consumption, while optimizing the consumption environment and accelerating the establishment of a modern sports industry.
These are all just bigger words, But I would say that nowadays we're just at that point where sports industry is on the trend and it's being supported and encouraged for more and more people to be part of, whichever way you are going to be part of it.
And one of the things is about venues too, right?
Yeah.
You can promote sports all you want, but if people don't have a place to play, then there's no sports to be played, right?
Unless you're in your living room.
So facility construction is a part of it, all related to consumer activities and resource support.
They plan to implement that at a faster pace.
Also too, I like talking about I've mentioned it a couple of times already, you know the grassroots level sporting events.
When you give people some place to go and some team to cheer for, then it just helps create more of a buzz and people start talking about it.
When people start talking about it, then people start doing it and going to the games.
And I think, going back to that, Jiangsu Football City League is just the perfect example.
Example and I wonder, I don't know, I was trying to think um, you know, they see the success of this.
The wheels must be turning.
Okay, where else can we do this type of thing?
With what other sports can we do this?
And I don't know if anything's in the plans yet, but I think it would be great if it were.
Yeah, actually you are right Steve, because in the first half of 2025, actually there are seven provinces that include say, northern China's Hebei province and eastern China's Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.
They all hosted 511 events. key sporting events.
There's probably just the scale is not as big as the Suchao in Jiangsu province.
But altogether these events, they generated over 16 billion yuan in sports and related consumption fields.
And that's averaging more than 30 million yuan per event.
So that's a lot for these individual regions in China and definitely brings in revenues for them as well.
Well, it's the same thing, right?
I mean when a big concert is held and people will travel from outside a region to go see that concert or to see whatever event.
It doesn't matter what.
The event is right.
When you bring people in from outside or local people get involved, there's just so much to be gained economically speaking.
You've got the tourist, uh tourism side.
You've got the catering side, the accommodation side, the reputation side.
I've brought that up on the show, which is really, really important too.
You've got companies, um, collaborating with each other on how to help out their own businesses.
Um, So if it's sports this time, then all the better.
Yeah, and you guys mentioned Su Chao and this.
I wonder if they have drawn inspiration from the success of the village basketball tournaments a couple or more than a couple of years ago.
What was that?
Tell me, please.
Oh, in villages in China, all over China, I believe that you know villagers started playing basketball against.
You know friendly matches with or sometimes it could get a little intense with neighboring villages.
And that became a big deal.
Something like that is actually, you know, the exact fun people want and need.
And apart from fun, I think another big reason is that these places, whether it's a village or a city or just a region hosting such an event, it helps enhancing their own reputation, let's say, letting the wider public knowing that yeah, we're just a small area, but we're good at these sports and we're hosting events to celebrate it it's.
It's something that can attract perhaps more investment and talent and also create such a favorable environment for the local economic development as well.
It brings in more opportunities for themselves, and you guys talked about a few days ago, i believe um, bringing the sports coaching service to your doorstep.
Oh yes um, is that somehow related here?
I mean, i see that another big sort of argument for these um, you know sports, or a development of the sports industry, or some can say, a challenge of the sports industry.
That is not only.
Do you want people to buy tennis rackets, sports shoes, running shoes or whatnot?
What about the service aspect of things?
And also, you know, just people's sort of increasing expectation and awareness when it comes to such service.
Yeah, we talked about it a few days ago on the show and the fact that you can go on an app and hire a trainer to meet you wherever you want and do whatever kind of exercise you're interested in, I guess.
I think you're right.
I
When you live in a big city like Beijing, then it just feels like a city a lot of the time.
And if you don't have sports right in front of your face available to you and that could be a gym, that could be a park to exercise or cycling routes or wherever if you don't have that, it's not really on the forefront of your mind.
So when you have services like that, then it does put it on the forefront of people's minds.
So I do feel like there's a connection here.
And again, it's about getting people involved in the easiest way possible for them.
Yeah.
And that previous topic on hiring a coach on an app, let's say that has it's nature.
That's partially planted in the fact that some young people, like teenagers.
They require say, one-on-one training to get themselves ready for the coming exams.
That's regarding their say what is it called again?
College or rather high school entrance examination.
So that's part of the reason why parents they're hiring one-on-one coaches and kind of encouraging such services.
And it has say something to do with the rise in public awareness of sports.
That's naturally generating demand for athlete skills training, and particularly in youth sports as well, because the sports training industry, with youth as its primary say consumer group, has become one of the most dynamic segments of the sports industry.
Taking back on the example of Suzhou and Jiangsu Province, I think in this summer, During the time that the tournaments were being held, many malls locally within Jiangsu province or in nearby regions they were hosting individual events, attracting parents taking their kids to come over and just participate in some sports events as a way of Like what?
At the mall?
I'm curious.
Yeah, in the mall where sometimes the mall has like an... external area of playground.
And you just set up a space where young, say 10 year olds can play basketball.
Oh, not just basketball.
The reason I asked is because we have a mall down the street from our studios here and they always have events there.
I saw breakdancing competition one day, which was really cool.
These are kids, by the way, not adults.
And they're so cute, little tiny people, right?
And they're out there like popping and locking.
That was one weekend.
Then another weekend, I saw Muay Thai tournament of some sorts.
These are kids.
Where?
In the mall.
Really?
It was organized.
It wasn't like a street fight or anything like that.
It was an event with a ring.
There were lots of people gathered around there and cheering and supporting the kids, but putting those events on display generates more interest, right?
And because if some kids are out there and they don't do Muay Thai or breakdancing and they see it and they think oh, that's cool, they ask their parents to get involved.
Then they need new clothes, right?
They need new clothes or equipment, right?
But that feeds back into the sports economy and that's how it grows, how the lower stream is connected to the upper stream in a way.
And also yeah, you're definitely right on that because in recent years there's been a changing attitude, say among parents, along with the rapid growth of youth sports.
And it has really helped driving such a participation rate, let's say.
And experts point out that the school PE programs.
Also there are the extracurricular training within schools and also youth competitions.
There are all key ways to spark that interest, not only going to the mall during weekends, but also schools that are working hard.
To say, elevate their PE course quality and also try to make it more fun than just preparing for exams.
Big events help too, right?
When you have the Olympics in your country, in your city, as we saw here a couple of times, right?
2022 was the most recent one here in Beijing.
That was the Winter Olympics.
So that put those sports on display.
And then you saw the growth of the ice and snow sports economy. achieving pretty significant gains.
And people now are loving, in the wintertime, skating.
There are shopping malls here, too.
I've seen it two or three times with ice rinks inside where kids are practicing figure skating or adults are just kind of going for a casual skate around the ice.
Then you've got areas like the northeastern part of the country, like Harbin, which are famous for the ice, for the ice and sports economy there.
Putting these events again same thing.
Putting these events on display just helps generate new growth.
Yeah, and also speaking of locations that have really benefited from these big events, or this you know big push towards winter ice and snow sports would be Zhangjiakou, because you know that's in Hebei province and so close to Beijing and there's even a special train that goes there and Every year.
Well, in the coming months you'll feel it.
People in Beijing at least, will be talking about oh you know, spending a ski weekend in Zhangjiakou.
Also in Xinjiang, apparently now skate or not, Not necessarily skiing, but it gets really cold there, you know, and skiing is huge there.
And it once more puts places such as the Altai Mountains and the Tien Shan Mountains on on the map for Xinjiang that this is a wonderful place for skiing.
In the last season, the last ski season.
So that would be what like six eight, nine months ago 2024, 2025.
Ski resorts across China recorded a total of 256 million visits, which is impressive.
It's a 14, almost 14% increase from the previous year.
And within those resorts, there were 196 million transactions, which is almost a 73% increase.
So more people are going, more people are spending.
I can imagine the lineups for the chairlifts would be quite long at those popular ski resorts, but people are obviously loving it.
They're really into it in the wintertime.
Yeah.
And what about the challenges that still stand in the way of China's sports industry?
What do you see as maybe the still very, well... Things in the way?
Yeah.
I don't want to say large, but you know, obstacles, speed bumps, what about those things?
Let's say this is relatively a newer trend.
So, given the current circumstances, China's sports industry, it still faces the issue of say, emphasizing hardware, or rather the hardcore venues and facilities, over its services in some places.
Because As we see commonly online, there are just comments on how services provided in these venues.
Sometimes they're not equally as good as the venue that's set up to provide these services.
How we balance such a service level and the venue quality is one thing.
And, in the meantime, while emerging areas such as the event-driven economy and outdoor sports are indeed developing rapidly, the traditional sports goods manufacturing industry still faces mounting pressure to transform and upgrade, particularly through say, digital integrations.
And Well, one example would be that, let's say, events are nice.
Events are really fine occasions to attract food, traffics and people's participation, but it's not that we are having events every single day.
So still people are going to gyms.
That kind of is requiring more remodeling and just public sports facilities ski resource.
They still have such a room to improve in the near future.
So that's the very practical, say, challenges this industry is facing.
Yeah, the facilities need to go along with the growth, but the service quality also right, needs to go along with the growth so that people will enjoy their experience when they do it.
Going forward.
How can China further promote its sports industry and Possibly unlock even more economic potential?
If you again look at that Jiangsu Soccer League as an example, they've taken advantage of something regional there, right?
The areas are located next to each other and they've created this intense competition there.
Friendly, of course, competition, but they've done it because of the communities involved.
So those governments, those local governments, they recognized it and they saw the opportunity.
So the point there, the learning point there, I think, is recognize your local region and take advantage of your own circumstances.
Yeah.
And also, like how I mentioned earlier, just try to address shortcomings in fitness infrastructure, because that's where people go to on a daily basis.
Yeah.
Sports can reunite people and cheering for a team.
They also have the power to lift whole industries.
China's push shows how passion on the field can translate into momentum for the economy.
With more of us joining in cheering playing, supporting sports can become a lasting engine for growth and community.
Coming up during the second half of the show, why pay for classes when you can trade skills?
Teach, learn, connect.
Poetry for yoga, coding for tennis, for example.
No certificates, just curiosity and real human connections.
Could swapping skills be the future of learning?
Stick around, everybody.
We'll be back after this break.
