The Chinese National Games: Olympic deja vu
Friday, 30th October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Even the smog looks familiar. Jinan Olympic Stadium, October 2009
White elephants
A perfectly fine stadium sat mostly unused in a downtown location, while much of the competition took place in an Olympic Green-style setting on the outskirts. There a brand new tennis stadium, gymnasium, natatorium and the Games' showpiece—the 60,000-seat Jinan Olympic Stadium (pictured below)—played host to competition.
Considering that the Bird's Nest has hosted three events in the 14 months since the games (a martial arts show, an Italian soccer/football game, and a production of the Italian opera Turandot), odds are not good that Jinan's stadium will be pulling in revenue any time soon. Also facing a bleak future is the 445-room Sheraton Jinan Hotel, which opened across the street in September. It's a great location if you're in town for an unlikely sports event at Jinan Olympic Center—terrible if you have business downtown.
Empty seats
The National Games dominated the national sports television channel, CCTV5, for the duration of the competition. And if you watched track and field events on TV, you would have heard a roaring crowd in the stadium. But the stadium was actually only 10 percent full when I was there, and the crowd noise was played over the loudspeakers. Filling seats was a problem at the Olympics, too, even though everything was officially sold out.
Beijing 2008:
China vs. Angola, Beijing Olympics, August 2008 (basketball, Wukesong Arena)
Jinan 2009:
Jinan Olympic Stadium, October 2009
Ticket design: Where have I seen that before?
Beijing 2008 athletics ticket:
Shandong 2009 athletics ticket:
Awesome volunteers
Beijing set a new standard for Olympic volunteers, in terms of both numbers and attitude. Jinan's volunteers were just as patient and enthusiastic, whether helping spectators find the right entrance or raking the sand between innings at the baseball games. And I didn't do a study, but ran into a surprising number who spoke English well.
Paranoia
In Beijing, it was protests and terrorism. But in Jinan organizers focused on another threat—they weren't taking any chances that the 50 spectators inside the stadium would set off a swine flu outbreak. Health workers checked the temperature of everyone who entered the stadium.
Exploding lunch boxes
The concessions lacked that undisputed highlight of the Olympics—5 RMB cans of Tsing Tao beer. But they did have the self-heating lunch boxes that were available at some Beijing venues (watch Wall Street Journal China correspondent Sky Canaves' demo here).
Familiar Font
Signage at the 2008 Olympics, Beijing:
Signage at the 2009 Chinese National Games, Jinan:
Tags: 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jinan, National games, Olympics, Shandong, ticketing, venues
2009 National Games smashes sponsorship revenue record
Thursday, 29th October 2009 ~ Sam ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
A runner from Inner Mongolia wearing a bib sponsored by petroleum company Sinopec
The last National Games in 2005 (the event is organized once every four years by the State General Administration of Sports) managed to attract deals worth more than 360 million RMB ($52 million USD) from a number of domestic and foreign companies. However at this year's Games in Jinan, Shandong province, the Organizing Committee has come close to doubling that amount. They successfully signed 18 official partners, six official sponsors, eight exclusive suppliers and 27 suppliers, combining for the event's largest sponsorship revenue in history of 700 million RMB ($102 million USD).
The combination of the participation of many Olympic champions from the Beijing Games, the promise of improved government goodwill as well as guaranteed extensive coverage on CCTV5 (the major Chinese sports channel) meant that sponsors were clamoring to have their brands associated with the event known as the Chinese Olympic Games. This is all consistent with a trend in the sponsorship market in China, whereby sponsors tend to flock to big events and favor TV exposure compared to other countries.
Close to 11,000 athletes participated in this year's Games, the most in the event's history, meaning that the Organizing Committee certainly needed the financial support. They even accepted money from the tobacco industry but had to return it following an official complaint which cited the fact that China is committed to a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship at domestic and international events since 2006 due to China's membership in the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Money was given as donations by at least nine domestic tobacco companies, some with links to the Shandong Tobacco Group which reportedly donated 20 million RMB ($2.93 million USD), all of which had to be returned.
Additionally, the record sponsorship revenue haul of 700 million RMB does not include corporate sponsorships given to individual provincial teams such as Mizuno China's sponsorship of the Tianjin and Shanghai teams estimated at around 32 million RMB ($475,000 USD) per team.
Sports sponsorship in China continues to grow strongly despite the financial crisis and it will come as no surprise if the next National Games in 2013 breaks the sponsorship revenue record again--hopefully without having to resort to calling themselves the "Lenovo National Games."
Image of sponsored athlete: Sports.sdnews.com
Tags: marketing, National Games, revenue record, sponsorship, tobacco
Council for a Legit National Games
Tuesday, 27th October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Guo Linna, a rower from Henan, was the first to fail a drug test at the games. Her positive result led to the withdrawal of her team from competition. (Reuters: Chinese rower fails doping test at National Games)
Wang Jing, a sprinter from Fujian province, was stripped of her 100 meter gold after a positive drug test. She's also been banned from the sport for life.
Li Jie, a pistol shooter from Inner Mongolia, tested positive for propranolol, a beta blocker used to prevent trembling (China Daily: Inner Mongolia stay despite positive test in National Games)
The diving allegations may be false, and the testing may have caught all the cheats (both unlikely, though), but there's another element that skews the results of the national games. Two teams--the host province and the People's Liberation Army team--get a leg up on the competition because they are free to recruit athletes nationally, instead of being limited to one province. With all but a few medals awarded, Shandong is on top in both golds (63) and overall medals (148). The PLA is in second place, with 49 golds and 120 overall. I'm not sure how long the host cities have enjoyed this privilege, but hosts have now topped the final gold medal count four times in a row.
China.org.cn: Doping, match fixing challenge China's efforts to ensure clean National Games
Tags: cheating, doping, national games, PLA, Zhou Jihong
Comings and Goings: Rugby and Baseball
Tuesday, 27th October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
But Americans have not given up on bringing their national pastime to the masses here—Major League Baseball recently launched a new site for the mainland (MLB.cn), opened a baseball academy in Wuxi, and still has staff in Beijing.
Guangdong's Liu Kai, no longer a Yankee minor leaguer, pitched his team to a victory over Beijing Saturday.
In the meantime, though, there are a whole bunch of out-of-work guys who can swing a bat or throw a baseball 60 or 70 miles per hour--maybe some of the heavy hitters can get absorbed by the now-Olympic-happy Chinese golf world somehow, a la Happy Gilmore.
And the women who play softball are even worse off, as no one's likely to come to the rescue soon with a softball academy or professional league.
Tags: baseball, Liu Kai, National games, rugby, 刘凯
Giants of Chinese basketball play tonight
Wednesday, 21st October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Quick, who was the first Chinese guy to play in the NBA?A. Yao Ming
B. Wang Zhizhi
C. Ma Jian
D. Mengke Bateer
B. Wang Zhizhi
C. Ma Jian
D. Mengke Bateer
If you guessed Yao Ming, I can't blame you, but you're wrong. Wang Zhizhi was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in 1999, and suited up two years later. He didn't join the team until the professional season in China was over in the spring of 2001. He went on to play five seasons in the league, with a career average of 9 minutes and 4 points per game.
Okay, I'll give you another chance. Who was the first Chinese player to win an NBA championship?
A. Sun Yue
B. Wang Zhizhi
C. Mengke Bateer
D. Kobe Bryant
B. Wang Zhizhi
C. Mengke Bateer
D. Kobe Bryant
Sun Yue got a ring as a Los Angeles Laker last season, despite being relegated to the D-League before the playoffs. But he wasn't the first Chinese player on a championship team. That honor goes to Mengke Bateer, a 6'11" Mongolian who was traded to the San Antonio Spurs in his second season, in time to share in their 2003 championship.
Now that you know who they are, if you're in China, you can watch them play tonight. Wang and Bateer, two aging giants of Chinese basketball, will face each other in the preliminaries of the Chinese National Games tournament. The game comes on at 7 p.m. on CCTV-5.
Wang Zhizhi (left) and Mengke Bateer pose together in 2002.
Wang/Bateer image: Sohu.com
Tags: basketball, Mengke Bateer, national games, NBA, Sun Yue, Wang Zhizhi, Yao Ming
Corruption scandal hits Chinese diving
Tuesday, 13th October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Quotes below are all translated from Chinese by a China Sports Today editor. The original Chinese source for this story is at Ce.cn (ChinaEconomic.net).China's national games haven't even officially started yet, but they are already the backdrop for an ugly scandal in one of the country's most treasured sports. According to domestic media reports, a diving judge resigned in the middle of competition, saying she could no longer take part in a competition that she asserts is a complete sham.
The official reason for her departure was illness, particularly a cardiovascular ailment, but the referee told Jiebao Lianmeng she was quitting because the competitions are fixed.
"I am leaving early, not only because I am sick, but also because I'm fed up with the shadiness in diving this year," said the referee, given the pseudonym of Ma Ming by the media. "To my surprise, all of the gold medals are decided internally ahead of time."
Did a corrupt system give Zhou Luxin one gold medal and rob him of another?
According to ChinaEconomic.net, on October 10 "Ma" told a reporter who she believed would win the next four gold medals in the national games. All of her picks turned out to be correct--He Chong in the men's 3 meters; Wang Hao and Hong Lai in the women's 10-meter synchro; Wu Xia and Chen Qinqin in the women's 3-meter synchro; Zhou Luxin in the men's 10 meters.
The woman behind the fixed results, according to "Ma," is Zhou Jihong, the head of the diving federation and deputy director for Chinese aquatics. According to "Ma," she has enough power to subtly let her wishes be known and then sit back and watch the results play out the way she designed.
In a national games press conference, Zhou insisted that the judge quit only because of illness and was quick to dismiss the allegations:
"Whether it's international competition, or Olympics, world championships, whatever, before the competition there are always predictions. It is normal for some of these predictions to come true."
In addition to the four results listed above, "Ma" also pointed to the men's 10-meter synchro event as an example of competition fixing:
"The men's 10-meter synchro final is an obvious example. Lin Yue [林跃] and Cao Yuan's [曹缘] performance was clearly inferior to Zhou Luxin [周吕鑫] and Wang Jiankai [王建凯], but the victory was awarded to Lin and his partner, because this competition was already decided, and it couldn't be changed. Lin Yue had a pulled abdominal muscle, so throughout the competition his performance was mediocre. In the preliminaries, he and Cao Yuan were only in sixth place. But on the day of the finals, Lin and Cao did a dive that was obviously not good, but they still got a score that was good enough for a win over Zhou and his partner."
Though "Ma" asserts that Zhou Jihong has the final say in meet results now, apparently she hasn't always gotten her way. In 2005, "diving prince" Tian Liang mounted a comeback of sorts at the National Games. After the 2004 Olympics in Athens, in which he won a gold and a bronze medal, Tian Liang—then the boyfriend of "diving princess" Guo Jingjing--was kicked off the national team for putting too much energy into commercial projects. The disgraced Tian Liang won a gold medal at the games, and according to "Ma," a 55-year-old veteran who worked that event, his win went against the wishes of Zhou Jihong.
Zhou Jihong
At the same meet, "Ma" also says that she and the other judges defied Zhou Jihong's orders in awarding the women's 10-meter synchro gold to a pair from Hunan, "Ma's" home province. "She said it was because of my officiating."
Asked for concrete evidence of the corruption, "Ma" replied:
"I don't have any concrete evidence. Because if she did this kind of thing, she'd have to talk to all of the judges, which would give the impression that she actually doesn't have too much influence. The scary thing is how if she so much as slightly reveals her intentions, someone will take care of everything for her. As an official at these national games, I have more than once heard another referee say: 'This gold medal the leader already decided must be given to so-and-so.' Currently in the Chinese diving world, only Zhou Jihong can make these decisions."
Zhou Luxin image: Xinhua
Zhou Jihong image: News.QQ
Tags: corruption, diving, National Games