Heroine's success transforms Chinese sport

Tennis: Profile - Li NaWHEN LI NA overcame defending champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy 6-4, 7-6 (7-0) to win the French Open this month, becoming the first Chinese to win a Grand Slam title, she did so much more than win a tennis match. She transformed Chinese sport and the sponsors behind it.

The success of the famously tattooed tennis star has sparked a huge burst in popularity for the sport and could give the already booming sponsorship business in China a further shot in the arm.

A lot of the debate about Li Na in China has focused on the way she said “Thank you” to her parents and her sponsors first, then the Chinese nation second. This is increasingly read as a sign of her – and the country – embracing modernity.

Commentator Wang Shichuan wrote in the Beijing Youth Daily: “Her thank you message was the truth, common sense and also the right way to do things in terms of the future of professional sports,” he said.

Around 116 million people watched her victory in the Roland Garros, a record for a tennis match that is up there with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, while more than two million people follow her exploits on Weibo, China’s equivalent of the banned social network Twitter.

Before Li’s success, the Chinese sports sponsorship market was worth around €1.4 billion annually. But that is set to climb now industry has found a Chinese star of her status, and gender to sell products ranging from tennis balls to ballroom gowns.

So far, her name is used to sell Nike products, Rolex watches and Häagen-Dazs ice cream as well as specifically sports-related items, but this seems to be only the beginning. And she is already the face of the home-grown business.

“This victory will have a massive impact on both the sports of tennis and Li Na’s personal value. In effect, overnight she has become the China tennis equivalent of Yao Ming,” said Mark Thomas, who runs the sports marketing group S2M in Shanghai.

“I think it’s safe to say she’s already way bigger than Michael Chang (the 1990s American-Chinese tennis star). She is a true national hero,” said Thomas.

“For me, every major victory on the international stage by a China athlete will have some positive impact on the sports marketing industry in China. I think, though, Li Na’s victory will have a much more specific profound effect of the game of tennis here.

“This will be manifested in all aspect of the sport from grass roots participation right through to increased television viewing figures and sponsorship revenue in the sport,” Thomas added.

The biggest impediment to the development of real professional sports in China and the sponsorship deals that go along with them is the management system, which is still very much government focused.

Many athletes train in state-sponsored schools, and for years there has been very little by way of a club system, which hampers the rise of sports like tennis and snooker and golf.

However, rising wealth has seen the rise of what the Communist Party considers middle-class or bourgeois sports such as these and the focus of sporting endeavour is moving away from the areas where China traditionally thrives but which have a lower international profile, such as table tennis or diving or gymnastics.

“China needs sport stars, and Chinese companies want to get into the international market through endorsing Chinese sports stars with global influence,” said a manager of a group called Competition Management Company of China Sports, who gave his surname as Liu.

“The growth and expansion of sport sponsorship, especially in these new sports programme fields in China, will be dramatic in future years, and it has already grown a lot,” said Liu.

Chinese companies are getting involved. Earlier this month, the China Yingli Green Energy Holding Company announced it would become an official sponsor of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The Anta sports product company has a deal with tennis star Jelena Jankovic and is spending €46 million on a four-year sponsorship agreement with the Chinese Olympic Committee to provide equipment for 11 major events, including the 2012 Olympics in London.

But the undisputed champion of sport sponsorship in China is Lenovo, which is the only Chinese company among the “top” sponsors of the Olympics, although the high point for it was the 2008 games in Beijing, and it has been replaced by Taiwan’s Acer as a top sponsor for the London games next year.

The state-sponsored field is dominated by former Olympic gymnast Li Ning’s company, which had revenues of €1 billion last year. The company sponsors China’s national teams in table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, shooting and diving.

Li Ning is also looking abroad, and has deals with the national basketball teams of Argentina and Spain, and the Primera Liga club Espanyol.

The growth of sports sponsorship should translate into more Chinese sports stars coming up through the ranks, and incomes for sportspeople look set to rise.

On the Forbes Chinese Celebrity List, Li Na’s annual income was given at 30.87 million yuan (€3.3 million), which puts her ahead of hurdler Liu Xiang, NBA star Yi Jianlian and badminton player Lin Dan, and means she is behind only Yao Ming in earnings terms.

Typing “Li Na” into China’s Taobao online retail store, and you find a whole new market for tennis dresses, shoes and racquets – one shop sold 40 racquets in two days. And there are all manner of other Li Na memorabilia – branded coffee cups, T-shirts, picture frames. Her success is generating powerful retail buzz.

Her personal story is also a major selling point. She won the French Open after a career with so many ups and downs, including injuries and the fact she fired her husband as coach.

She was introduced to tennis by her parents at the age of nine in Wuhan after playing badminton for two years. Her grit and determination go down well in China.

At the Aibo tennis training school in Hangzhou, the register normally stretches to 100 students a year. In the past weeks they have been getting 100 applications a day.

“Tennis is going to be so popular this summer, and it’s all down to Li Na. We have more on the register for the summer than in the whole year last year,” said Tang Gengguo, the manager.

“The viewership numbers for Li Na’s historic Roland Garros win are a fantastic sign for the continued growth potential of women’s tennis in China,” Stacey Allaster, head of the Women’s Tennis Association, said of her win. The WTA has its Asian headquarters in China and growing interest there would give the sport a major boost.

There is another economic dimension to Li’s victory – the tourism boost. Xinhua in Hunan province and Wuhan in Hubei province are fighting over who has the right to call itself Li’s home town.

The eventual winner can capitalise on billions of tourism dollars from visitors to the home town.

The main focus for sports sponsorship in China is the American National Basketball Association (NBA) and soccer, which have basically been neck-and-neck in terms of attracting sponsorship in recent years, but the disastrous state of Chinese soccer means the NBA has edged ahead.

The big advertisers are the real estate companies, especially of soccer, and Li Na is in many ways a good fit for those kinds of sponsorships, as tennis is a middle-class sport and also advertisers like to back winners.

As one blogger wrote: “Li Na’s thanks gave out a strong signal to a lot of Chinese enterprises, to the government, and also to public opinion – sport marketing has a huge commercial space!”