In the past, "burning oil" and today's "chilling" silence, the Chinese Super League team experienced a "consumer downgrade" at a glance.
01 A horse that loses its hooves is not a blessing.
"Consumption relegation" is not just a team, but the collective experience of the entire Premier League.
The 2024 Premier League season officially kicked off on March 1, as spring was in full swing.
Although the stadiums were crowded, with the first match at Chengdu Rongcheng's Phoenix Hill Stadium attracting 40,088 spectators, the commercial value of the Chinese Super League has declined significantly compared to the "Golden Dollar Era". In short, the sponsorship market for Chinese Super League teams is cold.
The most direct manifestation is the decrease in the number of sponsors. Compared to last season, three years of gold masters such as Ping An of China, Hutu Auto Repair and Tencent Sports have withdrawn. And compared to the 2022 season, Mengniu, Laoshan Beer and other powerful sponsors have also left.
The list of sponsors of this season's Chinese Super League
The title sponsor has also changed from Ping An of China to China Resources Yibao. It is reported that the title sponsorship amount of CR Yeebo is about 100 million yuan per season, which is the same as Ping An's sponsorship in the previous season. However, compared with the 1 billion yuan for five years in 2022 when Ping An renewed its contract with the Chinese Super League, the amount of title sponsorship for the Chinese Super League has been halved.
At the beginning of last year, the person in charge of the Chinese Super League admitted that the Chinese Super League should not blindly pursue big sponsors, but also welcome small sponsorships. This indicates that the brand influence of the Chinese Super League is not as strong as before, and the range of available sponsors has narrowed.
The entire Chinese Super League market is difficult to sell high prices, the teams have to further "consumer downgrade" to pull sponsorship.
However, I think this "consumption downgrade" is not all bad. In the "Golden Dollar Era", the commercial value of the Chinese Super League (CSL) and its teams is high, but there are a lot of bubbles in the Chinese soccer market. For example, in 2015, Olympic Power won the broadcasting rights of the Chinese Super League at a high price of 8 billion yuan for five years. Now it seems that the quality of products exported by the Chinese Super League does not match this price. In addition, players are traded at inflated prices. at the end of 2016, Zhang Chenglin, who is inexperienced in the national team, joined Guangzhou Evergrande at a sky-high price of more than 100 million yuan. In retrospect, the deal was shocking and even felt like a magic trick.
Therefore, I think the "consumption downgrade" of the Chinese Super League is to return to rationality, so that the overall level of the league matches the investment of businessmen. As much "water" as possible is put in the bowl. The "real estate league" game has proved to be unsustainable. The clubs themselves have no ability to generate blood, and are completely dependent on blood transfusions from their parent companies. Instead of a professional league, it is more like a corporate league. At the same time, with the development of the times and changes in the situation, the hidden dangers will always erupt.
From the experience of low-level European leagues (after all, the Chinese Super League can't match the size and capacity of the Big Five), surviving on one's own efforts is the normal state of professional soccer. However, we always envy the teams of the European giants and our eyes are always focused on the tall sponsors. When we turn our attention to the bottom, we will find that the sponsors of small teams are often local small businesses and small shopkeepers.
However, it is important to realize that these small businesses and small shopkeepers full of local characteristics are the bridge between the team and the fans, and the economic foundation of the team's local roots. As the person in charge of "Moonlight in the Lotus Pond" said, "Several of the founders of our store are from Cangzhou. Everyone has loved soccer since they were young. Now they can contribute to their hometown's soccer team. We are very proud."
02 If the foundation is not strong, the ground will shake
In the league, the national team always resonates with the club.
In the Chinese Super League "consumer downgrade" at the same time, the Chinese team's sponsors are also few and far between. In the game in Singapore, the national football team's sponsors or the old four: Nike, Ping An, Mengniu, Yibao, the lack of top sponsors.
According to past experience, the preliminaries should be a good opportunity for enterprises to hype their brands with the help of the national football team, but this year the competition for the national football team's "advertising space" is unusually cold and unexpected. Of course, according to the disclosure of the CFA official website, there are three other national football partners, but they are too small to be "on the board" degree. Even so, the Chinese team has only seven sponsors, let alone compared to the strongest teams in Asia. Thailand has three more sponsors than us.
The reason for this is that I think the National Football League sign is a bit of a "wild card" for businesses. The traffic of the national soccer team is like the sea breaking the dike, but the positive or negative impact on the business depends entirely on their lives. Xiaoqin Sea Cucumber was one of the sponsors signed by "Team China". Unfortunately, the business suffered a traffic backlash. As a result, the company was despised by the whole Internet and was directly knocked into the public opinion pits...
Of course, the national soccer team sometimes gives back to its sponsors, too: in 2001, the national soccer team reached the World Cup. At that time, the main sponsor Philips gained a lot of attention. They also took advantage of the heat to organize a celebration party for the national soccer team's success, which was broadcast on many TV stations across the country, further enhancing brand awareness.
But there are so few opportunities for the national soccer team to be proud, and sponsors are unlikely to be as lucky as Philips. The most important thing for the national soccer team to attract new sponsors and retain existing ones is to maintain its own bottom line of performance, so that the businessmen's huge investment is expected to have a relatively stable return.
With clubs fighting for sponsorships all over the world, it's no surprise that the national team, the endpoint of China's soccer problem, is facing a decline in sponsors. If the national team wants to return to the old days when sponsors flocked to them, they must wait for the Chinese professional soccer league system to be truly healthy, blood-producing and independent. Without quality soil, sweet fruit will never bear fruit.
After the clubs start to cooperate with "small but solid" sponsors, we may find a new way to professionalize Chinese soccer. By that time, the strength of the national team will be improved, and perhaps the national soccer team will have the opportunity to give back to the sponsors with a lot of positive traffic.
03 The way forward, back to the masses
In fact, the sponsorship of the Cangzhou Lions is not an isolated case. Many professional teams have already reached a cooperation intention with local enterprises. As mentioned earlier, the 4s store that sponsors Tianjin Jinmen Tiger is a local store, and Jinan's local milk tea "Granting Tea to People" has also entered Shandong Taishan's sponsor list this season. The famous wine of the Central Plains, "Dukang, the Ancestor of Wine", has directly purchased the naming rights of the Henan team...
Super League teams are heavily sponsored by local businesses. In fact, this is a demonstration of the qualitative changes that have occurred as a result of the entry of regional corporate sponsors into soccer. At lower levels of the league, the sponsorship of soccer by local liquor, agricultural and sideline products, restaurant chains and other industries is nothing new.
The linkage between local enterprises and local teams can make local fans have a stronger sense of belonging, thus improving the fit between the teams and local fans, and really making a team become the local "image spokesman" and "defender of honor". From an economic point of view, with soccer as a link, sponsors are more likely to expand their influence on local fans, promote the business to build a good image, improve the quality of service, and truly realize the win-win situation of the soccer economy.
In my opinion, the object of study for Chinese professional soccer should not be the giants of European soccer. After all, they are in the upper reaches of the soccer industry. Because their strength determines their status, we certainly can't envy them and their tall international brand sponsors.
On the contrary, the target of Chinese professional soccer should be the low-level teams in European countries. After all, low-level teams in Europe, like their overseas counterparts, are a "downstream industry" that provides high-quality players for the big teams. We have successfully exported talents to European soccer like the low level teams in Europe or the K-League and J-League. Being able to send players to the top five leagues is a success!
After finding a place in the soccer industry chain, we should adopt a corresponding way of survival. Rooted in the local community, and deeply tied to the fans is the most correct way. After all, soccer is fundamentally "from the masses", to develop well, we must "go to the masses".
As the British anthropologist Morris wrote, "Why soccer?" He said that humans have lived through millions of years of tribal life and that tribe is ingrained in our genes. Awakening it requires a key. That key is soccer. Foremost among the characteristics of the soccer tribe is the fans' identification with the clique and their extreme loyalty to the supporting team.
This discussion also explains the deeper reasons for the popularity of the village game, which is a localized manifestation of the fact that team sports such as soccer are rooted in the society and the cultural identity of the community. This "soil-grown activity" has also become a local social symbol and cultural identity, which is both differentiated and unified from village to village.
According to the arguments of anthropologists and the actual situation of Chinese soccer, in order to do well in soccer, it is really necessary to return to the masses, provide emotional value to the audience, and allow more and more local people and enterprises to integrate into the local team, so that the team can take root here and grow into a pillar of strength in the soil of their hometown.
A $500,000 sponsorship for a foot spa really isn't much, and I can only hope that this spark is one of the sources of the wildfire that will start a prairie fire in the future.
