Category Archives: General

The future direction of China’s sports policy

Politics trumps everything in China, so when all the top leaders gather in Beijing for their annual meetings, it’s worth paying attention. Sports is not – it must be stressed – a top priority at the “Two Sessions” or Lianghui, but it does get a mention every now and then. Below are the relevant moments from the week’s major speeches, plus some attempts to read the tea leaves. 

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Big trouble in China: how to manage a crisis

The UCLA incident last week was not the first time visiting teams have had problems while on tour in China. Here’s a look at what can happen when things go south and how teams should respond when trying to manage a crisis.

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10 questions on the Chinese sports industry

US-based sports marketing guru Joe Favorito reached out and asked me to do a Q&A for his site on various aspects of the Chinese sports industry. Given that his weekly industry newsletter is distributed to well over 30,000 people, I was more than happy to oblige. Joe published the results in two parts – here and here – which are reprinted below. 

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Welcome to China Sports Insider

New Year, new site.

Welcome to the new incarnation of The Li-Ning Tower, which will soon automatically redirect here. A relaunch and rebrand has been a long time coming, but the main points are that the blog will no longer:

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Please bear with us as some older features are reintroduced and some new ones are phased in, but rest assured that the content will follow on from 2013’s success, during which the blog was quoted or linked to by Bloomberg, USA Today, Huffington Post, CNBC, Quartz, New York Daily News, NBA.com, Al Jazeera, China Daily and others.

Off we go

Just write it (with apologies to a global sportswear giant, but despite the name of the blog, I won’t be favouring any one of them over another). This blog has been in the works for a while now, so, as we start a new year, what better time to kick it off?

I’ll be covering anything that could be construed as sports business, as long as there is some sort of China/Asia angle: international sports or leagues trying to crack the China market, Chinese companies trying to make it overseas, sports events in Asia, sponsorship matters, and likely a bunch more besides.

Comments welcome.