Field of Dreams
It is hoped China’s success at the 2008 Olympic Games will provide a springboard for renewed sporting interest in China, paving the way for Australian businesses to benefit. Tom Parker reports.

The success of the Beijing Olympics and opulence of the opening ceremony prior to the global financial crisis have provided an exceptional platform for sport to be part of China’s growing global identity.

In a symbolic measure of its growing strength in this area, China surpassed the United States at last year’s Olympic Games with a gold medal tally of 51 to 36 – a remarkable feat for a nation that only won its first gold at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.The record medal haul is a source of national pride but how will the Olympics boost the participation, profile and profit of sport in China? And can Australian sport benefit from this recent gold rush?

Modern sports and international politics have a strong history in China. It was sport after all, which kick started the normalisation of Sino-America relations through ping pong diplomacy in 1971. In 1917, Mao Zedong used sport as a metaphor in one of his earliest essays published in the reformist New Youth journal, to conclude that to “cultivate inner strength….one must build a strong body”. Sixty years later, he used a gentle paddle in the Yangtze River to prove that he was still politically fit for the unfolding Cultural Revolution. In 2001, the same year China gained accession to the World Trade Organization, it also won the right to host the 2008 Olympics and qualified for the 2002 World Cup.

China’s re-entry onto the world stage has caught the attention of international sporting codes and clubs, who are keen to leverage China’s size, scope and potential fan base. Arsene Wenger, manager of English Premier League club Arsenal made that point clear when launching the club’s Chinese website in 2007 when he said: "You now have the largest population in the world and we would like to make them all Arsenal fans."

Arsenal has a mandarin website, while Sheffield United has Chinese players and Chelsea has toured China to sell their brand and merchandise. However, China is not a level playing field, and like so many foreign companies before them, EPL clubs have suffered from a botched pay TV deal that has reduced their fan base from 20 million on the free to air CCTV network to just 20,000 subscribers. Price sensitive fans unwilling to part with RMB120(A$25) per month have moved their allegiances to other European soccer leagues leaving clubs carrying Chinese players such as Manchester United with diminished opportunities to leverage their local advantage.

China’s potential TV audience is the Holy Grail for all sports codes and clubs with global aspirations – and with good reason. The Yao Ming factor has helped cement basketball through the American NBA as the most watched and best recognised international league in China. The 2.29 metre former Shanghai Sharks player, who transferred to the Houston Rockets in 2002, has become the pin-up boy for the game, and a darling of sponsors such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Visa and McDonalds who use his global credibility to reinforce their presence in China.

In November 2007, an estimated 200 million Chinese fans watched the Houston Rockets take on the Milwaukee Bucks to see Yao Ming do battle with his fellow countryman and rookie NBA star Yi Jianlian. The NBA’s recent success in China was established 30 years ago with an exhibition game between the Washington Bullets and the Chinese national team. By 1991 games were shown live into China, and in 2008 NBA China was formed with over 1,000 employees and a budget of roughly US$250 million. The next phase of development sees the NBA building 12 world class stadiums in China with AEG, a global sport and entertainment company, and the Chinese Sports Ministry. The ultimate aim is to collaborate with the Chinese Basketball Association to create an NBA-branded league in China.

Australian sport is no stranger to China. Lindsay Gaze the godfather of modern Australian basketball took the Australian team to China in 1973. The Melbourne Tigers, during his long reign as coach, regularly visited China, trialled Chinese players, broadcast their games on Chinese cable and boasted a Chinese co-owner and sponsors, including Hai’er. Even in retirement, Lindsay remains connected by agreeing to coach Tianjin, Melbourne’s sister city’s basketball team in 2009.

In 2007, the Melbourne Football Club toured China and selected two promising players to undertake a two-week pre-season scholarship with the AFL’s oldest club. Melbourne’s push into China was aimed at using sport to develop business links and enhance the experience of the city’s 30,000 Chinese international students. The AFL already has a representative based in Tianjin (again through the Melbourne-Tianjin sister city relationship) and has co-ordinated Aussie Rules clinics in both Tianjin and Suzhou.

In August 2008, China fielded its first national team in the AFL International Cup beating fellow debutantes India. Tianjin will also soon become home to China’s first AFL oval. The Tianjin government, through its Binhai Tuanbo New City Development & Investment Holding Co Ltd – the investment arm of the Binhai new area – in partnership with the AFL has agreed to provide land and pay for the construction of the oval at an estimated investment of A$1.5 million.

Australian golf course design firm Thomson Perrett has been appointed by the AFL to deliver the ground in Tianjin which will host AFL matches and training for North Asia Aussie rules teams. Thomson Perrett is not new to Tianjin or China. It already has two golf courses in design phase in the Tianjin area and has several completed courses in Shanghai and Guangzhou. 

Peter Thomson, Thomson Perrett principal and a five-time British Open champion, believes it is an exciting time to be involved in sport in China. “Golf in China is experiencing a phenomenal rise in popularity in both established tourism regions and also the burgeoning urban areas,” says Thomson.

PGA Australia agrees, having signed an agreement with the China Golf Association (CGA) to provide assistance with the development of a professional coaching accreditation program. “PGA provides the program IP and also delivers the training in China,” says Phil Ayres, General Manager, Strategies & Operations for the PGA. Responsibility will eventually be handed over to the CGA following the completion of a four level system. PGA is already in the process of handing over the first level.

Sports Knowledge Australia, set up in 2004 with the assistance of the Federal Government, has also exported Australian sports management expertise to China and has already been appointed as the official education provider of the 2010 Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou. Under the agreement, SKA will run a series of professional development programs in event and facility management for senior sports administrators from the organising committee and Guangzhou municipality. "We take best practice from the Australia system, codify it and develop five-day training programs delivered in China," says SKA chief executive Leighton Wood.

Australian Rugby Union managing director John O’Neil, who oversaw the repositioning of Australian football into Asia during his time with the Football Federation of Australia, is aware of the opportunities in China and Asia for the ARU. "Asia is at our doorstep and we need to forge closer ties across all sports," he says. In November last year, the Wallabies played New Zealand in the Bledisloe Cup in Hong Kong providing a chance for the ARU to expand its “footprint globally and embrace substantially larger commercial markets,” says O’Neill. 

Tennis Australia has also repositioned its links with China, which previously focused on in-bound coach education, recruiting ball boys and girls, training and playing opportunities with wild card entries into the Australian Open. Craig Tiley, Director of Tennis and Tournament Director of the Australian Open says there has been a significant shift from the past. “Tennis Australia has moved to a two-way approach, a two-way relationship that will truly benefit the sport of tennis through the events and links into the communities to help the brand of tennis grow in our region,” says Tiley.

Initially Tennis Australia was focused on bringing Chinese into Australia to attend regional workshops and other events but more recently it has shifted to working with the Chinese Tennis Association to develop training, coaching and other programs around major tennis events in China such as the China Open in Beijing. 

There has also been some discussion in looking at using a shared commercial partnership platform, whereby current Australian Open sponsors could also sponsor the China Open and vice versa. In doing this, Tennis Australia would also share its event expertise IP to make sure that rather than the China Open or other big tennis matches just being seen as an international event in a crowded China market – it would use the event to build community involvement and grow junior participation. "Now our relationship and the development of game will be driven off the back of major events such as the China Open in Beijing and for Tennis Australia to link service and partnering opportunities with sponsors”, says Tiley. 

Australian businesses won key contracts in developing and delivering the Beijing Olympic Games and while the AFL and ARU may not be able build their presence and profile like the NBA has in China just yet, if a number of Australian sporting bodies continue to export their IP in sports science and management expertise, Australia will play a crucial role in expanding China’s sporting horizons.  

*Tom Parker is a Director of Red Tape and is currently advising the AFL on its China strategy.