| Editor by Huo Sen
| Xu Song
wtt The Saudi Grand Slam has been settled. Chen Meng, who performed most brilliantly in this event, also naturally got a precious singles ticket to the Paris Olympics.
But after the Table Tennis Association officially announced the Chinese teamâs entry list, some discordant voices appeared on the Internet. Some questioned the unreasonable selection rules of the National Table Tennis Team, some questioned the unreasonable age structure of the National Table Tennis Team members, and even There are also people who base their accusations on individual team members for undermining team unity.
What is quite intriguing is that during Chen Mengâs match against Hina Hayata, there were voices cheering for Hina Hayata in Chinese. Even after Chen Meng won the final, a small group of fans turned on Chen Meng. Dreaming of booing...
Fans and friends who have some knowledge of the national table tennis situation in the past two years have also realized at this time - it is the extreme fans in the "rice circle" who are causing trouble again.
In February this year, Table Tennis Association Chairman Liu Guoliang made a serious statement during a team meeting, asking everyone to be consistent in thinking, consciously resist the "rice circle culture", create an excellent and clean environment, and devote themselves to preparing for the Paris Olympics.
In April, when He Xiao, the leader of the National Table Tennis Team, attended the "100-Day Countdown to the Paris Olympics Symposium", he once again reiterated the National Table Tennis Team's determination to resolutely resist the rice circle culture.
In the sprint stage of preparations for the Paris Olympics, in just two months, the two team leaders continued to make statements on the same topic, which is enough to prove that the national table tennis team is alert to the impact of "rice circle culture".
But even so, it is really regrettable that something like this happened at the Saudi Grand Slam in May.
When did the gold medal team, which has always been known for its low profile, achievements, and reputation, become associated with the "rice circle culture"?
In fact, it only took seven or eight years for the Chinese table tennis team to grow from a dream team that silently harvested championships to the number one Internet celebrity sports team with both performance and Internet popularity.
There is an old saying that "a lot of people are popular, and the right is wrong", and the same is true for the team.
Internet attention has brought traffic and market to the national table tennis. At the same time, it has also caused the instrumentalization of information caused by the changes in the communication environment, as well as the individual's desire for ideal intimacy caused by the increase in contemporary social pressure. Some bad habits in other circles, It slowly penetrated into the table tennis team and stuck to these market carriers - the national table tennis players.
After all, taking the initiative to embrace the market based on performance was the choice of National Table Tennis back then. The reason why this choice was made was because the sport of table tennis has long faced the commercialization dilemma of "acclaim but not popularity".
National table tennis is stuck in the results.
As a sport, if it wants to be truly promoted and developed, professionalization and marketization are almost the only way.
If there were still fans who didnât understand this truth in the past, I believe they can figure it out after last yearâs Womenâs World Cup.
was defeated by a sonorous rose 20 years ago, and faced the European women's football team with head and kick kicks to easily "defeat" the opponent. When their opponents entered the fast lane of professionalization for more than 10 years, their marketization, promotion, and number of participants soared exponentially, completely leaving the Chinese women's football team behind.
This is the power of "professionalism".
In the 1990s, starting from the Football League A, sports projects began to test the waters of professionalism.
During this process, Guoping also made some attempts, but objectively speaking, the effect was limited. Of course, there are reasons why Chinaâs sports management and management are not separated, and sports performance as an indicator of local political performance is difficult to be completely introduced to the market. After all, Chinese football is already the project that has gone the furthest on the road to marketization, but todayâs Chinese Super League What a piece of shit!
As a "national sport", if table tennis wants to completely break away from the system and move towards an independent commercialization path, it will have more constraints than other projects.
The simplest logic is that in a completely "professional" operating system, the club will enjoy the greatest dominance over contracted players and coaches.
For example, players can seek a balance between club and national team, or even refuse to be called up by the national team. This is definitely impossible for the Chinese table tennis team.
Many fans know that the Chinese table tennis team is always tasked with competing for gold and silver for the country.
Therefore, once there is an international competition year, the competition time of the Table Tennis Super League or even the entire season cannot be determined in advance - it must always cooperate with the national team's preparation plan and make way for the national team.
is so "professional", how can it make sponsors willing to pay?
Therefore, even though Guoping has thought of many methods and made many attempts, and even asked Kong Linghui to take a photo album, which was considered a very "trendy" operation at the time, overall, the market feedback was not It is not obvious that the marketization road of national table tennis is still bumpy, and the overall income level of table tennis players is not very high.
At this time, a serious question is placed in front of table tennis people, that is - once Chinese table tennis fully moves closer to the market, what impact will it have on the team's performance?
Enterprising commercial reform
In 1999, the Table Tennis Super League was officially launched, which marked a solid step forward in the professionalization of Chinese table tennis.
However, it is only one step.
The Table Tennis Super League has had huge problems since its inception, such as the lack of commercial operations, low attention to the event, a small number of league players, the concept of clubs has always been diluted, and a serious lack of market operation value, etc...
once had rumors in the world. According to the data broadcast by CCTV, the ratings of table tennis are quite good, almost double that of badminton events of the same scale, but the advertising investment of badminton sponsors on CCTV is twice that of table tennis.
This shows how poor the commercial development of table tennis projects is!
With the advancement of the national "National Fitness Plan Outline", the commercial reform of table tennis is imperative.
Against this background, after the 2012 London Olympics, Cai Zhenhua, then deputy director of the State Sports General Administration, proposed the idea of ââa "third entrepreneurship" for national table tennis, aiming to shift from a single training and competition to a diversified direction. development and comprehensively enhance the domestic and international influence of table tennis.
And the executor he appointed was his most outstanding disciple-Liu Guoliang.
However, the road of commercialization of national table tennis has been full of twists and turns from the beginning. Whether it is filming commercials or appearing in variety shows, it is a little awkward and lacks experience.
However, in terms of the commercial packaging of the event, the National Table Tennis Championships came up with new ideas. At that time, the direct selection of the World Table Tennis Championships introduced online voting for the first time, which brought a lot of popularity. Although it was regretfully stopped due to lack of operational experience, it It also brought valuable experience to the subsequent commercialization of through competitions.
After several years of hard work, the National Table Tennis Team is keenly aware that online social networking is likely to become an important platform for sports business in the future.
As a result, Guoping began to encourage its players on a large scale to use their personal social media more and actively show themselves to fans and even netizens outside the circle.
Although these actions are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the returns are not high, in fact, it is very necessary for a mature sports business alliance to actively manage its own audience group, whether it is the European Football League or the NBA, it has always been They all regard this as an important part.
With the support of many "people-friendly" measures, Guoping has gradually narrowed the distance between it and young people on the Internet, laying a key foreshadowing for the subsequent commercial development of Guoping.
The opportunity came unexpectedly!
"The fat guy who doesn't understand football"
During the 2016 Rio Olympics, a netizen from Taiwan, China, left a message on the Internet asking: "Is the fat guy behind the Chinese team who doesn't understand football an official? It seems like he is the only one in the audience who doesn't understand. Ball..."
This "fat man who doesn't understand ball" is Liu Guoliang.
Because this joke is so full of postmodern deconstructionist humor, the "fat man who doesn't understand football" and its derivative jokes spread almost at an exponential speed on the Internet.
This also made the National Table Tennis Team realize for the first time that in the Internet era, the influence of stalks on "traffic".
Therefore, Liu Guoliang took action personally, calling himself "the fat guy who doesn't understand football" on Weibo, and interacted cordially with the fans who came after hearing the news, attracting hundreds of thousands of fans at once.
After that, the National Table Tennis Team further captured network traffic through events such as "Zhang Jike Wakes Up" and "Xu Xin Shows Love". In the end, the number of views on National Table Tennis related topics during the Olympic competition week reached a terrifying 310 million. Discussions The volume exceeded 277,000!
During the entire Rio Olympics, the search volume for the term "Zhang Jike" exceeded 400 million in one fell swoop, overwhelming Sun Yang, who is also a national star.
National Table Tennis Team also struck while the iron was hot. They used another popular online joke "The Empire Destruction Dragon and the Empire's Ferocious Tiger" to package and launch Zhang Jike, who was already a star, together with Ma Long and Xu Xin, creating the "Dragon Tiger Python" "Classic IP.
Facts have proved that the effect of this move is extremely good. Not only Zhang Jike's personal value has soared, but the commercial performance and endorsement fees have exceeded 2 million in one fell swoop - you know, the annual endorsement fee of 800,000 yuan offered by Anta to Kong Linghui has been recognized by the industry That's a huge premium. Wang Liqin, who has the highest commercial value in national table tennis, has only barely reached the level of one million yuan.
At the same time, the commercial value of Ma Long and Xu Xin has also been greatly improved, as well as storyteller Fang Bo, pig farmer Chen Qi, chubby Fan Zhendong, Xiaozao Liu Shiwen, and big baby Ding Ning, these distinctive characters Active athletes have also begun to gain a large number of regular fans.
After gaining successful experience, Guoping began to make great strides in expanding its business territory, with results, variety shows and endorsements blossoming.
In 2017, after accumulating sufficient operational experience, the National Table Tennis Team creatively introduced the direct team selection competition of the current World Championships to the market in a commercial package, and named it "The Strongest 12-Man Competition on Earth" (the "marvelous12)", the gimmick of 12 national table tennis first-line players + 12 retired national table tennis stars as commentators made the game popular before it even started. The quality of the subsequent games made the fans hooked, which not only won commercial gains, but also gained Word of mouth has become one of the most outstanding marketing cases in the history of national table tennis.
At this time, the commercialization process of the national table tennis team has been on the fast track. With always stable results, experienced traders, stars with distinctive personalities, and a growing market, it seems to be prosperous.
But at what cost?
The End of Traffic
Table tennis itself also has certain shortcomings, especially because the ball is small and spins greatly. If the venue is too large, it will affect the viewing effect. If the venue is small, there will not be many spectators on site, so the ticket revenue will be low. Difficulties in commercial operations and other insurmountable difficulties have all led to - from the perspective of pure sports operation, the commercial development of table tennis is destined to be difficult.
The National Table Tennis Team has a unique approach, and all efforts made are based on the premise of "people".
attracts fans by creating unique athlete IPs - the peerless Ma Long, the unruly Zhang Jike, and people's artist Xu Xin. Although this is a business expert, many of them come because of "people" Fans are destined to focus on "people" and ignore the charm of table tennis itself.
This is very similar to the standard routine of creating "traffic idols" in the entertainment industry.
The only difference is that the strength of the national table tennis players is guaranteed and managed by the country, so there is almost no risk of house collapse (before retirement).
But this does not mean that there are no other risks!
Therefore, after the Rio Olympics, old fans were surprised to find that suddenly, the grievances between Zhang Jike fans and Ma Long fans among the fan groups on the Internet were so deep that they even wanted to buy each other's hot searches. The war spread offline, affecting families on both sides.
During the Tokyo Olympics, Liu Shiwen became the eye of the traffic storm in the fan circle. First, she missed the opportunity to play singles due to the postponement of the Olympics, and then she lost the mixed doubles gold medal, which led to mutual criticism between Liu Shiwen's fans and Xu Xin's fans. Continuously...
is so chaotic, and naturally it will not have a good impact on the unity of the team.
The key point is that the fighting power of the fan circle does not stop there. Fan Zhendong was followed, Wang Chuqin was secretly photographed, and fans of the three major women's singles players Sha Mengyu were at each other's throats, which is enough to show that the situation has become serious and is on the verge of being semi-out of control. Under the agglomeration effect, the "rice circle culture" of national table tennis, which has grown quietly and unknowingly, has gradually shown signs of backlash. So much so that the Table Tennis Association had to make repeated requests to boycott and severely punish the rice circle.
At the same time, the business structure based on "star players" has also brought a new topic-what happens after the star players retire?
At least so far, although the national table tennis team does not lack world champions, it has never been able to find the next "idol superstar" like Zhang Jike who has both the strength on the court and the ability to fully grasp the market.
Once Xu Xin and Ma Long fade out of the national team, Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin, and even the new generation Lin Shidong can continue to protect the glory of the championship on the court, but on the business track, can they inherit the glory of their predecessors?
I'm afraid it's not easy.
As we said before, the current professional path of national table tennis has been based on the inherent defects of commercialization and marketization. In fact, any gift of fate has already been secretly marked with a price.
20 years ago, sponsorship and bonuses from badminton matches overwhelmed table tennis, but today, Fan Zhendong still admires the bonuses from badminton matches with his real name online.
A conclusion that can be seen with the naked eye - if you rely only on competition bonuses, the income level of table tennis players is completely disproportionate to their sports performance. However, relying on the operation of traffic, they can obtain dignity off the court and in endorsements that match their status in the world. income.
This can not but be said to be a kind of irony.
At the same time, the table tennis leagues led by Japan and South Korea have gradually turned to profitability after several years of difficult operations. In this Olympic cycle, the speed of progress of Japanese and Korean table tennis, especially Japanese womenâs table tennis, has It has exceeded the expectations of many fans, and once they truly establish a mature domestic professional league, what impact will it have on the national table tennis?
The question is here:
In the future of national table tennis, is it going to be conservative and rely on the huge domestic market to continue to implement the current commercialization route, or is it going to apply what it has learned and return its focus to the management of table tennis events again?
This will be a very difficult test for the national table tennis team.
