Zhang Wen: With the weather gradually warming up, the annual graduation season is approaching. Many college graduates will step out of the ivory tower and formally enter the society. According to the official data from the Ministry of Education, the number of domestic college graduates in 2024 is 11.79 million, an increase of 210,000 compared with 2023. Also see the data released by a recruitment platform, the culture/media/entertainment/sports industry ranked third in the employment industry expectation of fresh graduates in 2024, accounting for about 8.9%. Is it a good choice for fresh graduates to enter the sports industry? Are there any challenges and difficulties? What is the best way to enter the industry successfully? The guests invited by this issue of Community are quite special, with two graduating students giving their views on the industry. Let us know what they think about the sports industry. Of course, there is also an "old graduate". The resident guest of the program, Tan Liwen from Sports Business, is also with us.
Would you two students first introduce your majors and job search interests?
Yuxin Li: I am studying for a Master's Degree in Journalism and Communication at Beijing Sport University, and I mainly hope to develop my career in the field of media in the sports industry in the future. I won't stick to the so-called "stable" platforms, because the sports industry is always changing, and my personal development should follow the development of the sports industry. Therefore, I think it's worthwhile to try some positions in new media operation and event operation, but the main thing is that I hope to stay in the sports industry.
Yan Yufei: I studied in Guangzhou Sports Institute, majoring in broadcasting and hosting. I also hope to stay in the field of sports media after graduation, because it is more compatible with my major and also meets my interest. My current internship is of the same type, focusing on hosting, interviewing and other media-related work.
Zhang Wen: Li Wen, Sports Big Business also releases job information related to the sports industry every Thursday. According to your compilation, what types of positions are currently available in the sports industry?
Tan Liwen: We first categorize the nature of the employer. One is the positions of government departments, for example, the positions of local sports bureaus or sports-related department photos, the main direction of the position is publicity, competition organization or industrial economic research. The other is the positions provided by enterprises, which accounts for the majority of sports positions in the market, and the direction is more. For example, training organizations mainly recruit teaching personnel, a relatively large proportion of coaches; some sports companies will have tournament operations, venue operations positions; some sports companies have a certain public relations attributes, then the need for media publicity, brand publicity and other direction of the talent.
There are new venues in many places, with a corresponding increase in the number of jobs in venue operations
Zhang Wen: As more major events return to the Chinese market, there may be a shortage of professionals to run these events. In addition, it seems that sports brokerage has also become a career choice for many in the sports industry, as the industry needs more professionals to do professional things.
Tan Liwen: Yes, with the gradual maturation of the domestic sports industry, the role of sports brokers is more important and more standardized. To engage in long-term sports brokerage business requires sports agent qualification. Now the Human Resources Development Center of the State General Administration of Sports is establishing a sports agent registration and training system, and has launched the three-level certification of sports agent level training and competency assessment, and the second and first level certification will gradually land in the future. If you need to get certified, you can mainly enroll in the sports agent training courses set up by several enterprises certified by the General Administration of Sport, which are covered in the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Interested students can pay attention to the relevant registration channels, to take a brick to become a sports agent.
Zhang Wen: Nowadays, there are still many professional sports clubs, and their operation also needs professional talents. Just now two students mentioned the direction of media, the public relations department and media department of these clubs belong to a more appropriate direction. If you have good language skills, you can also look for jobs related to sports translation. Students majoring in sports may have an advantage over those majoring in translation in terms of their ability to accurately translate specialized sports terms.
Tan Liwen: I think there is another direction that deserves attention in the sports community. Now that various provinces and cities are popularizing the concept of sports parks, the construction of venues is in full swing. The construction and subsequent operation of the venues need to be managed by professional companies, behind which are more opportunities for sports jobs.
Competition year creates more opportunities for entry into the industry
ZHANG Wen: Can Li Wen add further information on the employment opportunities for athletic students?
Tan Liwen: I feel very strongly about this because when I was a student, my dormitory roommates were all sports students, except for me who was a cultural student. Their main career path was as physical education teachers, who studied high-level physical education courses in sports colleges and universities, and then went to primary and secondary schools to coach their students after graduation.
Wen Zhang: Teaching and coaching can be a natural fit. There are a number of new jobs in the popular fitness sector, as more and more sports - including rugby, Frisbee and skiing, which have been dubbed the so-called "Netflix sports" - are coming into everyone's life. coming into everyone's life. In the past, these sports were relatively niche, and there should not be a particularly large number of teaching talents. When we were talking about skiing on the Community program, we heard a guest share that ski instructors earn a substantial monthly income during the peak season. Is it also a future direction for sports students to enter the training market?
TANLIVAN: Yes. This is the sports industry and the public sports demand more diversified after the generation of more employment opportunities. The host mentioned skiing is the case, more and more consumers exposure to skiing, the need for professional coaches to guide the introduction. In addition, surfing and diving have just entered the Olympic Games.
The development of skateboarding and street dance, all of which are emerging sports, requires the support of teaching talent and become potential career paths for physical education students.
Zhang Wen: Li Wen mentioned the Olympics
Personally, I believe that major sports events are important for the growth of physical education majors, and when I graduated from my undergraduate program in 2008, the Beijing Olympics were a great opportunity for me to learn more about the sport.
The two of you have also experienced the Beijing Winter Olympics and the Hangzhou Asian Games during your studies, and have found some internship opportunities related to the Olympics. The two students also experienced the Beijing Winter Olympics and Hangzhou Asian Games during their studies, did they find some related practice opportunities to increase their job search?
Volunteers at the Women's Basketball Stadium at the Hangzhou Asian Games (in green in the background)
Ruixin Li: When I enrolled in the program, the Beijing Winter Olympics had just passed. However, some of my classmates became volunteers in the press team of the event, and they were able to get in touch with the press release process of the event and other knowledge of media management of the event. We also had some internship opportunities at the Hangzhou Asian Games, for example, some big factories recruited interns, almost all from the same class. Students had the opportunity to participate in the platform to push the flow, reporting hotspots and so on. I also learned more skills to meet the demands of new media on the Internet besides news writing.
YAN Yufei: As a student in Guangzhou, the natural geographic distance limited our opportunities to participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics. However, I participated in an e-sports commentary competition during the Hangzhou Asian Games. It's a pity that the content of the competition wasn't aired publicly in the end, but the experience during that time has helped me, including adding some color to my resume.
Gaming and other verticals to watch
Zhang Wen: In view of the practical experience of students around you, do you have any feeling about what indicators employers will pay more attention to when you work in the sports industry? Is it the background of the institution, major, or internship experience, certificates, etc.?
Li Yu Xin: I think many employers still look at the institution and the degree of professional matching. Nowadays, there are more cases of China's sports connecting with foreign countries, and employers have certain requirements for foreign language ability. If I were to rank them, I would say that I would first consider the institution, the specialty, and then the personal ability and practical experience.
YAN Yufei: I think no matter what position you are interested in or what position you are interviewing for, language skills are very important because language is the basic medium of communication. If you also have a variety of foreign language skills, then the range of options will be even wider. Next, I think there are also some skills that match the development of the times, such as video editing, copywriting and so on, which will be the icing on the cake.
Tan Liwen: Compared to when I graduated, I think the biggest change is the direction of recruitment. During the past competition year, many big factories would look for talents from both regular employees and interns at the same time. Like I was in a period of rapid development of sports Internet video media, so I continued to serve this platform even after an internship in a related organization. But nowadays, it seems that the big Internet companies are only hiring interns, and not many of them. The demand for sports coverage is not as great as it used to be, because they don't need to send a large number of staff to the front of the field and edit and organize the content at the back of the field.
Zhang Wen: This seems to be the idea that the big players have adjusted how they deploy their resources. I've been covering some big matches in the past two years, and it's obvious that the percentage of self-published media to the site is increasing. For example, last year's women's soccer
World Cup
About half of Chinese journalists come from professional or institutional media, and the remaining half are self-published media. Many of these self-publishers are actually employed by Internet platforms, and the content they produce is sent back to the platforms. The equivalent of this type of media is hired on a project basis, where the platform only hires the right person to complete the project at the time of the big game, rather than keeping a number of sports journalists throughout the year, as was the case in the past.
Does this mean that self-publishing is becoming a flexible employment direction? But the problem with that is that it may require me to have built up a certain amount of self-publishing influence, in other words have the resources, before I can trade that in for hiring opportunities at organizations. Have either of you ever thought about doing sports self-publishing?
Li Yu Xin: I don't have a strong idea in this area. On the one hand, it's a matter of matching my strengths. I may be able to write well and do some video editing, but I'm not necessarily good at new media operation. However, with the changes in the media industry, sports media is not an important breakthrough into the industry, so I will keep an eye out for such opportunities in the future.
YAN Yufei: I have run my own personal self media number, and the actual experience is more challenging. From the pre-script, to filming, editing, to the final release, if a person alone to do it, it will take a lot of energy. And the rhythm of content output on the Internet itself is about effectiveness and continuity, which is even more stressful for personal operation. There is also the problem of resources, if there are no good resources to support you to find a continuous output of selected topics, personal media is also difficult to update for a long time.
Photographers at the Asian Games, many of them freelancers
Zhang Wen: I found a structural problem. When we discussed sports in the past, very often the first association was soccer and basketball, where people crowded in to express their views. But I think from the Tokyo Olympics
Cycle to the present Paris Olympics
More other sports need commentators. Like gymnastics, shooting, and table tennis in the last seven or eight years is very hot, in fact, there are some important events need to have a professional to explain clearly, but the number of this type of talent now seems not much. Some of the project fans simply "self-produced food", become more niche project point of view of the exporter, which is also a self-media selection of the way out, is to do fine in niche areas.
There is a program that may be considered "niche" in the eyes of the general public, but actually has a wide reach and great influence - eSports. Not only is it self-publishing, but eSports is now a major in colleges and universities. Are eSports majors getting ready to graduate? What are their destinations?
Tan Liwen: 2022, 2023 has begun to have e-sports graduates into society, but the number of students is far less than the number of sports students, because it is still a relatively new profession, the enrollment scale is not too high. The relevance of esports graduates is still prominent at this point in time. The e-sports major is not specialized in letting students learn to play games, but has set up courses such as Introduction to e-sports, e-sports commentary, e-sports marketing, etc. Graduates will enter relevant companies mainly in the upstream and downstream of the e-sports industry, and continue to be engaged in e-sports work. Some students who have ideas about game design may enter game companies. However, the number of e-sports graduates is still small, and the impact on the entire e-sports industry remains to be seen.
Zhang Wen: After the two students and Li Wen's sharing, my experience is that the more precise your position or ability in the industry, the heavier the weight for your employment. Discussing the employment of graduates is essentially discussing the opportunities for the development of the sports industry, so this discussion is also linked to many topics in previous issues, such as self-media, sports brokerage, sports training, e-sports, and netroots sports, etc. I hope that all of you who are interested in entering the sports industry will join us. We hope that all the fresh graduates who are interested in entering the sports industry will be able to find the job of their choice, find a place to start a new future in life, and grow together with the growing Chinese sports industry. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Li, and we will see you again in the next issue.
