Source: Xinhuanet
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 2 nd: Building culture and cultivating the future
-thinking behind baseball’s "out of the circle"
Xinhua News Agency reporter Wu Junkuan
At the end of 2020, a documentary film with baseball as the theme "Great! Teenager has made this slightly "niche" sport in China a success.
A juvenile baseball team composed of left-behind children has realized the change of life situation through sports. Their inspirational stories of swinging against the wind and challenging their fate not only won the film the Best Documentary Feature Film Award at the FIRST Youth Film Exhibition, but also made many people really know baseball for the first time through the big screen, and then became interested in it.
Behind this successful "out-of-the-loop" case is the accumulation of countless China baseball players who have devoted themselves to popularizing popular projects. The title of the film represents the "great" and "juvenile" of the project culture, and also outlines the key words for the future development of baseball in China.
You may not know the rules of the baseball game, but you have seen the scene of this sport in Japanese comics or film and television works. At worst, I have seen baseball caps and players struggling to swing their bats. Baseball caps and bats can be said to be the most basic cultural labels of this sport.
Culture comes first and popularization lags behind, which is the present situation of baseball in most parts of China. It may seem awkward to many people, but in the eyes of Qi Dong, managing director of Major League Baseball (MLB) in China, this "upside down" is just an opportunity for baseball development.
"It is true that baseball is not as popular as some other sports now, but I don’t think it is a minority project. Because many people know baseball, but the sport itself has not been popularized. What we have to do is to unite all the forces that can be United and constantly transmit the content and culture of baseball. " Qi Dong said in an interview recently.
According to Qi Dong, in recent years, one of MLB’s main tasks in China is to continuously build project culture and influence through "going out of the circle" and "breaking the wall". In addition to participating as a strategic partner in the movie "Great! In addition to Teenagers, MLB China also successfully tried to break the wall last year, and cooperated with the popular IP "Under One Man" to form a "alien baseball team" in the second yuan and released a publicity video. It is precisely because of these attempts that I have tasted the sweetness. MLB China’s copyright cooperation, which began in the 2021 season, moved from Tencent Sports to Tencent Video, and joined hands with Oriental Pearl New Media under Shanghai Wenguang, which took a fancy to the entertainment attributes of the two partners.
In 2020, MLB China launched the original studio, and the total broadcast volume of original content exceeded 100 million. More original content authors will be supported in 2021. Children like baseball short video player and Xu Jiacheng, who has nearly 50,000 fans, have been shortlisted for the Creative Talent Camp and will receive support from content materials and funds.
Attracting the attention of teenagers as much as possible is the meaning of this series of questions of "going out of the circle" and "breaking the wall"
Coincidentally, the Chinese Baseball Association also saw the importance of building a project culture. Last year, the China Baseball Association, as a guiding unit, joined hands with People’s Baseball to launch a large-scale documentary "Baseball in China-A Guide to Faith" to tell the baseball story of China people.
In addition, the China Baseball Association also held an online interactive activity of "Baseball Network Talent Show" during the epidemic period, which showed the technical charm and cultural connotation of baseball in the form of social media challenges that young people loved. Not long ago, the China Baseball Association set up a committee for elite athletes to give full play to the power of role models and attract more young people’s attention.
It has become the consensus of China baseball people from all walks of life to create a baseball culture and help popularize the project.
The development of sports cannot be separated from the support of the participants. Two years ago, MLB released the White Paper on Baseball Population in China in 2019, which showed that by 2019, the overall size of baseball population in China was about 41 million, with 21 million active people. Among the active people, people who participate in sports account for 40.0%.
Whether a sport can enter the campus and approach teenagers determines whether there will be more and more participants. After the project temporarily left the Olympic Games in 2008, the China Baseball Association began to devote more energy to popularization and promotion, focusing on strengthening youth training and promoting the project into the campus, and achieved remarkable results.
In recent years, youth baseball has developed rapidly. With the construction of U-series tournament system as a lever, the youth competitions of U10, U12, U15, U18 and other age groups have expanded from the national championship to the national championship and the national open, and the scale of participation has tripled, with nearly 700 teams participating each year.
According to the plan of China Baseball Association, the development of youth baseball in the next five years will build a multi-channel and multi-form baseball talent training mechanism based on campus, build more traditional schools and youth sports clubs, let more young students participate in baseball, and consolidate the talent base for baseball development. In the Medium-and Long-Term Development Plan of China Baseball Industry (Draft for Comment), a specific goal is set-to strive to reach 3,000 schools to carry out baseball by 2025.
In November, 2020, the China Baseball Association also reached a cooperation with MLB on the project of baseball public welfare class entering the campus. At present, the project has landed in primary and secondary schools in Wuxi, Shanghai, Beijing and other places. The two sides will work together to bring baseball public welfare classes to more parts of the country, jointly promote the popularization of baseball campuses, and organize a wealth of event exchange activities on this basis, so that children can enhance their fun through competitions and continue to grow and progress.
Qi Dong said that four to six cities have been arranged for baseball public welfare classes to enter the campus this year. "Our goal is to hope that more and more children will feel the fun and charm of baseball at the physical education class."
"The main purpose of this project is to let more children know at least what baseball is, how to run, jump and throw it, how to know that it is a team sport, how to use their brains, how to be resourceful and so on through physical education class. These all allow children to exercise, both physically and mentally. " Qi Dong said, "If all primary schools in the country have baseball in physical education class, then baseball will be really popular in China, and the development of baseball in the future will be very broad."
