In early March, the 2017 IBF (International Boxing Federation) Silk Road Champions League finals ended in Macau, and the 8 IBF BR gold belts of their respective levels were decided.
The two-day event was arranged in two Macau landmark hotels - Wynn Palace Cotai and the Venetian. However, compared with the gorgeous and lively environment, the results of the game seem to be inadequate, especially in the two finale intercontinental title matches. The highly anticipated Chinese mid-zoo players Jin Yangcheng and Begzati Sosel Khan were both TKOed by young Russian boxers within 6 rounds. Compared with high-level European countries, the gap in talent reserves in China's boxing is undoubtedly revealed.
Perhaps this is a microcosm of the Chinese boxing market today. The blooming of all kinds of boxing competitions has brought temporary prosperity, but behind the craze, such as the lack of basic talents and the single business model, still exist.
Many events gathered in
. When talking about the IBF China Championship in 2017, Lu Hailang, senior vice president of event operator Ruiyi International, said that the IBF's competition level is constantly improving, and the competition is transitioning from China's regional competition to international high-end events.
"In the five-month season, we have held 30 games in total, spanning three competition areas: Beijing, Xuzhou and Macau. From the overall data, the number of games accounts for 47.2% of the total games since 2015, the number of Chinese and foreign confrontations accounts for 88%, the total number of rounds accounts for 48.2%, the total number of boxers accounts for 79%, and the number of gold belt title games accounts for 66.7%. "
has landed in China in 2013, and started holding the China Professional Boxing League in 2015, and then to the establishment of the "Belt and Road" Regional Organization (IBF BR) and launching the "Silk Road Champions League" in 2017, IBF has regarded China as one of the most important overseas markets.
In fact, as professional boxing continues to heat up in China, the four major professional boxing organizations in the world, including IBF, have accelerated their pace of expanding territory. In 2017 just passed, the official events of the other three boxing organizations were also blooming everywhere:
7 Jiangsu Wuxi , 2017 China WBC (World Boxing Council) World Professional Boxing Championship started, and the two world-class boxing champions who "Bit the Ears" that year, Mike Tyson and Ivande Holyfield were invited to stand side by side for the competition;
10 Shanxi Datong, Xu Can and Xiong Chaozhong both won the WBA (World Boxing Association) World Boxing Champion battle, and the latter also obtained the qualification to challenge the third time to attack the world professional boxing champion;
11 Chongqing Wansheng, the peak boxing strength WBO (World Boxing Organization) Asia-Pacific Finals kicked off, and 3 intercontinental gold belts and two Greater China gold belts were decided in 9 games.
In addition to the four major international organizations, China's amateur boxing system (Olympic system) has also ushered in its first professional event - China Boxing King Competition . At the end of October, the men's 64kg final was held. The new National Games champion Wang Gang defeated Qi Shengze and was crowned the first gold belt of the Chinese boxing champion competition. As a "system" event, this gold belt can be said to have broken the barriers between Olympic boxing and professional boxing. In the past, professional boxing and amateur boxing represented by Olympic boxing have always been clearly distinguished and incompatible. It was not until the 2016 Rio Olympics that professional players were the first to switch to the Olympics.
However, this is also a true portrayal of boxing in China. Industry insiders seem to be very popular, while outsiders seem to be more like self-entertainment: the four major boxing organizations attach great importance to the Chinese market, but for ordinary people, boxing may not be clear whether it is professional or amateur.
Star effect is no longer there. Novice cannot emerge.
The prosperity of Chinese professional boxing is inseparable from the star effect of Zou Shiming .
In his nearly 20 years of amateur boxing career, Zou Shiming has won awards including the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games, National Games and National Championships. After moving to the professional boxing world in January 2013, he won the WBO flyweight World boxing champion gold belt , achieving a rare Grand Slam in boxing history. Even looking at the entire history of modern boxing, Zou Shiming is the only player to win three Olympic medals and win the professional boxing champion gold belt.
But outside the arena, Zou Shiming's real "popularity" is related to his transition to the entertainment industry while moving to the career. In the variety show, two cute sons have attracted countless fans for him. At this point, his commercial value has also reached the envy of domestic comprehensive sports athletes - in addition to the sports brand Anta, he also maintains commercial cooperation relationships with Beats wireless headphones, Pepsi, Sharp, Carabao, KEEP, Land Rover, etc. In the 2017 major wealth list, Zou Shiming ranked among the top ten sports in China, and was on par with Lang Ping, Sun Yang, Yao Ming, Zhu Ting and others.
Zou Shiming almost changed the cold experience of boxing in China for many years. You should know that the traditional culture of advocating mean and cautious restraint has made the Chinese people's impression of Kung Fu contain the philosophy of "using softness to overcome hardness", which also destined that fierce or even violent boxing cannot be rapidly popular in China. Even after the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's boxing career has stagnated for 30 years due to several boxer casualties. It was not until the emergence of Zou Shiming that this niche movement with poor reputation and lack of background returned to its dawn.
However, a series of events in 2017 almost destroyed the reputation of Zou Shiming and even the entire boxing sport.
7 WBO Flyweight World Gold Belt Competition, Zou Shiming was defeated by the unknown Japanese boxer Sho Kimura , and unexpectedly lost the title of "World Boxing King". Subsequently, he was involved in the "appeal gate" with the WBO, the "contract gate" with the brokerage company Shenglishijia , as well as public opinion storms such as hyping national heroes and hyping his own eye disease. For a moment, Zou Shiming immediately fell from the altar and his reputation became polarized.
While Zou Shiming was deeply trapped in Rashomon, Chinese boxing also failed to emerge with new banner figures in 2017. Although China's first world boxing champion Xiong Chaozhong is still full of ambitions, the age of 35 means that his career is in his twilight years; the Mesozoic Yang Lianhui is also actively making a comeback, but because of his overweight, he can only return in the form of an exhibition match; although the three hope stars, Xu Can, Bai Shanbo and Zuli Picarl, are full of energy, they still need to be baptized by the competition when they are just starting out. After the
craze, China's boxing career fell into embarrassment. People eagerly look forward to the emergence of the next world boxing champion, but the lack of talent reserves in China's boxing left the boxing champion unsuccessfully.
data shows that Asian neighbors Philippines have 8,000 registered professional boxers, Japan is twice that of the Philippines, while China has only 900 registered professional boxers. For ordinary people, if they want to say the third Chinese professional boxer besides Zou Shiming and Xiong Chaozhong, they will be speechless for a moment.
single business model "blood-making" is imminent
If the successful development of a sports project requires stars, platforms and mature business models, then Chinese professional boxing once gave birth to stars, and now there are many types of event platforms, and what is lacking is a sustainable industrialization model. The most intuitive manifestation is that most boxing parties in China lose money and make a lot of money.
In the mature sports event business model, the revenue sources of sports events mainly include four parts: event copyright, tickets, sponsorship and peripheral derivatives. In addition, there is a huge hidden market from gambling. As the largest source of income, copyright can account for more than 50% of total revenue.
Due to China's special national conditions, TV copyrights and gambling cannot be implemented in China, let alone peripheral derivatives. In addition to heavyweight events participated by stars such as Zou Shiming and Xiong Chaozhong, the ticket prices and popularity of domestic boxing competitions are also relatively low, and there are also many free tickets. In this way, the only main revenue channels for Chinese boxing events are sponsorship. The problem is that the primary consideration for sponsors is the exposure of the event in media such as TV. In order to achieve the purpose of publicity, many domestic promoters even have to pay for live broadcasting the competition...
Because of this, the mature business model of professional boxing in the United States does not have reference value.In the century war between Mayweather and Pacquiao , HD paid TV alone earned $400 million, and ticket revenue was $71 million, and the affiliated consumption driven by boxing was $69 million, and even the small-scale commercial sponsorship reached $35 million.
Put aside the background issues caused by culture and history, and the copyright issues caused by the national system, changing the single business model should still focus on the sponsorship and tickets of boxing competitions. There is only one specific solution, that is, to occupy the market with high-quality event IP, so that professional boxing can truly become a sport with profound heritage, thereby driving surrounding consumption and forming stable returns.
to improve the quality of the event is inseparable from the training and creation of high-level athletes. In this way, the problem returns to the construction of talent reserves. If we want the Chinese boxing market to truly prosper, laying a solid foundation is the top priority of major organizations.
Fortunately, after recent years of hard work, three basic professional boxing events have gradually formed in China, namely Shengli Shijia Boxing League, which focuses on the WBO Chinese gold belt, the boxing power of the WBA Chinese gold belt, and Ruiyi International, which focuses on the IBF Chinese professional boxing league and the IBF Silk Road Champions League. While discovering boxing talents and improving talent reserves, they also trained and trained a group of new generation coaches and referees.
Take IBF as an example. They have registered more than 300 boxers through basic events, and have trained more than 150 coaches and referee teams. In 2018, IBF will continue to strengthen its game layout in China, with the number of levels, competition areas and total games increasing. In the short term, IBF will continue to promote boxing events and select boxing talents in China through basic events; in the long term, they hope to use the higher level of Silk Road Champions League to train potential Chinese boxers and strive to create China's next world boxing champion as soon as possible.
