---

Mark Dreyer is a journalist and founder of China Sports Insider, a news website that covers China’s sports industry. Based in China since 2007, his book, Sporting Superpower: An Insider’s View of China’s Quest to Be the Best, follows developments in China’s burgeoning sports industry since the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He was formerly a soccer reporter with Sky Sports in the UK, and has been a reporter and producer for Fox Sports and AP Sports in the United States.

Q: In your book, Sporting Superpower, you wrote about how China’s bid to host the coming Winter Olympics hung by a thread at one point. Could you talk about how China beat the odds to win the bid to host the Olympics for a second time? 

A: If we go back to the 2008 Olympics, China had initially bid for the 2000 Games, which ended up going to Sydney, and it was quite common in the Olympic bidding process back then that cities would bid once, twice, or three times before they actually won. It was seen as “[if] you’re persistent and maybe honed your bid, then you earned it and deserved it.” 

So China got the Summer Games in 2008 and then when it decided to start thinking about winter sports, the sense was that the 2022 bid would be a setup for either 2026 or 2030. But then — as is well documented — everyone kept dropping out. It started off with six official bids and it went down to three, and Oslo [Norway’s capital] was the leading contender by far. The IOC did scouting reports, and scored Oslo as the clear leader. But then, when Oslo pulled out after political pressure domestically, at that point, Beijing realized it had a real chance. 

Almaty [the other contender and Kazakhstan’s capital] is a real winter sports town, and they’d hosted the Winter Asian Games in the past, whereas Beijing had not. Of course, given what’s happening in Kazakhstan now, the IOC is breathing a massive sigh of relief, despite all the challenges they’ve had with the conversation around China. China had a recent reputation for being a capable pair of hands. The IOC knew that China would get it done. If China said “We will build this,” they knew that they would build it, and there wouldn’t be a problem with infrastructure. They would put on a great event. The X-factor was this number that dates back to before they got the bid, claiming that they would have 300 million people involved in winter sports.

The definition of this 300 million seems to change week to week, and if you believe the headlines, they achieved it already — it’s 346 million! But that definition is kind of meaningless. If I was being charitable, I would say the 300 million is more symbolic. We have seen dramatic growth in winter sports since, not just on the infrastructure side, which China is very good at, but every time you go to a ski resort, it’s full. Most people are on the beginner slopes, taking up a sport for the first time, and people seem to like it. 

So it was really this 300 million number that they threw out in the bid that was so attractive?

That’s right. The IOC voting delegates thought “Well, this is amazing, this is going to revolutionize winter sports for the whole world; even if it’s just a tenth of that number, it’s going to be incredible.” For me, if your starting premise is false, then a tenth of that premise is still false. But China is used to these big numbers — 300 million pops up here and there. We’ve heard there’s 300 million middle class consumers. You’ll also find the claim that 300 million people play basketball in China, which is another huge exaggeration.

Should we expect to see China become an Olympics host on a regular basis? Does it see itself as a natural host, like the United States?

l don’t see why not. In most spheres China sees itself as an equal to the United States. Certainly it is in summer sports: at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they beat the U.S. in the medal table. They’ve clearly forged a very strong relationship with the IOC — we’ve seen that from getting the 2015 bid, and again most of the IOC members would have been here in 2008. 

In 2015, recency bias certainly helped. The 2008 Games were fresh in the memories of [IOC members] whereas they weren’t able to visit Kazakhstan, because of the bidding rules.[Footnote: IOC bidding rules forbid members from visiting prospective host countries prior to the host city election.] They didn’t need to go to Beijing because they’d already come here. So it would have been even more of a risk to effectively give a blind vote of confidence [to Almaty]. But with all of these advantages that China had, the final vote was still only 44 to 40.

What do you think it’ll take for China to deem this Olympics a success?

No major mishaps, Covid largely controlled, and a decent showing in the medal table. It’s those three things. No protests, or if there is any embarrassment that it’s quickly covered up and not really reported. The Covid cases have to be isolated, making sure that it doesn’t spread and derail the Games. Ideally they have their best ever showing in the medal table. Is that enough to get them in the top 10? Possibly not, but that’s okay.

So, as long as there’s progress? 

I think so. They know they’re not going to win, right? They know they’re not going to be in the top five. So it’s about that future potential. Maybe in our lifetimes, there might be 300 million people in China who will try skiing — perhaps not as regular participants, but the growth potential is still there. There will be a larger base and one that’s grown from a younger age. What we’ve seen in the past is a lot of these athletes being recruited from other sports; they don’t have any kind of history in winter sports, so how can they possibly be competing at the elite level with the Europeans and North Americans?

Stepping back from the Olympics, the sporting landscape in the west has changed a lot since foreign leagues began trying to enter the Chinese market. Today’s top athletes are often more outspoken on politics and social justice. But that seems to conflict with what China wants out of foreign sporting leagues trying to gain a foothold there. Given the problems faced by the NBA and WTA, do you think we’re at an inflection point where for some sports it’s just not worth it to try and build a following in China?

I was thinking about this with regards to the NHL. They had this big announcement that they were investing in China, that they were going to have six years of games and were going to build towards the 2022 Olympics. And then basically every action they’ve taken since then has been the opposite. They currently have zero full-time employees in China. They had one for the longest time — she left at the end of last year. Compare that to the hundreds of employees that the NBA has. The NFL and MLB have a smaller staff, but they have fully-staffed offices and they tour around the country, and do outreach. But [thanks to the Winter Olympics] the NHL had a bigger opportunity than any of these guys — certainly more than the NFL and MLB. 

Now that the NFL isn’t coming because of Covid, and they’re seeing stuff like the NBA struggling — and the NBA was always seen as the gold standard in China — as well as the WTA [Women’s Tennis Association], I’m sure they’re probably thinking, “Wow, we’ve dodged a bullet there.” They’re probably breathing a sigh of relief on several fronts.

Has China evolved in its response to politically outspoken foreign athletes? It seems that after the massive backlash in response to Daryl Morey’s comments on Hong Kong in 2019, China’s taken a more muted approach to dealing with outspoken athletes who criticize China, like Enes Kanter Freedom, who has seemingly drawn a less angry Chinese response. Why do you think that is?

The main thing is that the original Daryl Morey tweet was all over the Chinese internet. With Kanter, people would’ve just been like, “why are the Celtics not on TV anymore?” Probably some people could figure it out. For example, Chinese fans all know that Sixers games aren’t shown because of Morey, and so it probably doesn’t take much explanation to figure out that someone said something sensitive. That’s a fact of life in China. People aren’t going to be up in arms because they can’t watch their team. It’s more like “Here we go again.”

So in Kanter’s case there wasn’t an organic backlash online?

Right, because the stuff he was saying and doing was just way too sensitive to be reported. Compare a quickly deleted tweet about “Free Hong Kong” to Kanter’s comments — you couldn’t even touch that. It was several degrees hotter than the Morey stuff.

Peng Shuai’s sexual assault allegations dominated the headlines last December, and resulted in the WTA fully withdrawing from China. But there hasn’t been a corresponding move by the men’s tennis association, the ATP, to withdraw. Why the discrepancy between the two?

For one, they’re parallel tours and independent leagues. So Peng doesn’t play for the ATP and beyond saying ‘we stand with her’, the ATP wouldn’t have necessarily felt the need to really go to bat in the same way. The consequences [of speaking out against China] are clear. Who knows what kind of pressure they were getting behind the scenes, but everyone has seen the backlash the NBA received. The ATP is also not nearly as embedded in China as the WTA, but they still had a number of tournaments in the fall. 

The corporate people who run these tournaments are likely thinking ‘why do we want to blow up sponsorship deals?’ Some of the top men’s players are really popular in China. It is a complicated equation, and they would weigh out damage, consequences, corporate dollars, backlash and reputational risk, as well as all the ethical and moral considerations. It was actually quite unusual that the WTA threw that all out the window and said, ‘we’re just going to go with what we believe to be right,’ and it was refreshing in many ways — but they were the exception.

It was actually quite unusual that the WTA threw that all out the window and said, ‘we’re just going to go with what we believe to be right,’ and it was refreshing in many ways — but they were the exception.

I do think — and this is not being critical of [WTA chief] Steve Simon, and it’s not second-guessing why he did what he did — but the fact that the WTA had basically already moved on from China because of Covid, and they knew they weren’t going to get back in for at least a year, did make it easier [to take a firm stance]. It definitely lessens the financial repercussions. They’re not faced with waking up the next day and being $200 million short. They’ve already got tournaments for this year, and instead of Shenzhen, they’re in Mexico. It’s also different: the WTA was founded by Billie Jean King and was basically built on activism and women’s rights. If they hadn’t withdrawn, they could have faced a mutiny from their own players. 

What I will say is [the ATP men’s tour] is going to find it very, very hard to go back into China. If the WTA is still out, it’s going to be a very bad look to return. Then, when you have those two leagues out, it’s going to make it conversely harder for other sports teams and leagues to go back in. 

What should the attitude of sports organizations be in future: should they tell athletes and officials to keep quiet on issues such as Xinjiang or Hong Kong, or should they allow people to say what they like and try to ride out any consequences?

I would preface this by saying [my answer is] as if I was giving advice from a communications or Chinese PR point of view. I’m not taking a stance on what people should or shouldn’t do.

There’s no one single right answer. It’s going to be different for different people and leagues. Even the question of should [league officials] tell athletes and officials to keep quiet is going to be very hard to do, because that’s going to get out publicly and make people look really bad from a reputational point of view. Ideally, from a corporate perspective, they don’t really want people speaking out. To be more realistic, you could try to get players together in a smaller group and talk about the potential issues, so they’re a little bit more briefed and educated on what is culturally acceptable or not in China, so that maybe you can come to some middle ground where it’s like, “Look, we feel this way, but over there they take things quite differently.”

It’s not as simple as self-censoring or imposing censorship. It’s a really complicated issue. It is going to depend on what’s most important to all the stakeholders involved, and that’s going to be different from league to league, team to team, individual to individual. Is your message primarily trying to educate people on social issues, from a western point of view? Is it to connect with Chinese consumers and have them support your team or endorse you? These are going to require different messages and targets. 

The best-laid plans can be instantly derailed by a rogue tweet or a comment out of place or a misinterpretation or misunderstanding. That’s quite apart from deliberate sabotage. If you look at Kanter’s strategy, he’s gone for the jugular, but he’s not really having any effect because he’s just not making any impact whatsoever in China. Again, I’m not saying that’s the wrong thing to do, but his strategy is very extreme. You’d have to ask him what his goal is, but he’s not really speaking to Chinese people because they’re not hearing that message, it’s not getting through. 

I want to turn to the fortunes of other sports leagues that have tried to expand into China. Some leagues like the NBA have succeeded — you call them the gold standard — while many have failed. What do you see as the reasons why some have succeeded while others haven’t?

It’s not a massive mystery. Succeeding in China isn’t that different to succeeding anywhere else. You’ve got to localize and certain campaigns will play better than others but essentially engaging properly with the market from the ground up is going to pay dividends. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap, and it’s going to take a long time, but it’s doable.

For example, there’s a couple of [soccer] teams like Arsenal. They aren’t the biggest team in Europe, but they’re a well known team with good outreach, and they haven’t tried to sign deals and do a huge money grab in China. Borussia Dortmund is another one, from Germany: they come every chance they get, engage with fans, and they’re not just in and out. 

When the NHL came, the players basically went to visit the Great Wall and stayed in their hotel rooms. What was the point? Fans see you wearing a helmet on the ice for, what, two periods [before they leave early]? It’s about the engagement. People meet an athlete and remember that for the rest of their life. So it takes work. 

In your book, you described how baseball was removed as an Olympic event after the 2008 Olympics, and then funding in China basically collapsed for the sport. Does the centralized nature of sports in China play some role in their fortunes as well?

Yes, the single biggest driver of a sport is going to be government policy and government support. For example, for winter sports, it’s just a green light right now because of the Olympics. Build as many resorts as you want. But there’s not really much you can do about the policymaking. Whether or not your sport is an Olympic sport — that decision is made externally. So you have to play with the cards you’ve been dealt. If baseball’s in the Olympics, they have a much bigger chance of success. Leagues and sports can enter China and do things the right way or the wrong way. But, frankly, the biggest impact is going to come from government support, not what they do. More than anything, that is why the NHL really, really missed a trick here.

Because it was getting that central government support?

Right. For winter sports and hockey, they might not get that kind of support again if they come back in [later], because the Olympics will be over, so they’re not going to have the same green light. 

You can’t control those political drivers. That’s why when China presented its 50-point plan for football [soccer] everyone suddenly piled into the sport from all over, many of them having no previous experience with football. 

How do you see the future for Chinese sports stars like Yao Ming coming to the American market? Will we see more athletes like him, and are they going to get endorsements, or is Yao Ming likely to have been the high tide?

It’s not impossible. The right person could break through and resonate with an American audience, but they’re pretty few and far between. Li Na is someone who resonated globally and was quite popular as a global sports star, but you have to be quite different from the typical Chinese mold. A lot of it is the language. If you don’t speak English, you’re not really going to connect. Yao did: he was a very understated personality, but he was obviously just a towering presence, and so that alone was enough. [Newly signed Formula 1 driver] Zhou Guanyu ticks some boxes in terms of presentability. But he’s very young and who knows how good he’s going to be, and F1 is not a particularly big sport in the U.S. anyway. There are no obvious candidates in basketball, so there’s no one really on the radar.

I’d flip the question around and say potentially someone like Eileen Gu could play both sides to a certain extent. But it’s going to be difficult, and she’s going to have a difficult few weeks ignoring some of the noises that are being made about her switching countries and ‘betraying’ the United States. But there are a lot of other areas where she’ll be embraced and celebrated, certainly in China. But it’s a difficult balancing act; she’s caught in the middle of a geopolitical situation that has nothing to do with her.

I just don’t see too many globalized Chinese athletes, and that’s perhaps because China’s a little more closed than it was. Yao, perhaps more than Li Na because of his American presence, is going to be the high water mark in the U.S. for a while. I’m not predicting anyone’s going to pass him, but it’s not impossible. 

What’s going on with the state of Chinese football [soccer]? It seems like for a while the Chinese league has been tied to the fortunes of massive corporate sponsors like Evergrande and Suning, and now we’re in this period where those companies have collapsed. Like Jiangsu Suning F.C. has gone bust, right?

Yeah. Four months after they won the [Chinese Super League] title, they went out of business. I mean, it’s unthinkable. I was saying earlier you have to ride the wave, and soccer had a big wave. But to belabor the analogy, the bigger the wave, the harder it crashes, right? We’ve definitely gone through a boom and bust cycle in all facets of Chinese football. From the European expansion and buying up clubs — now they’re retreating. Domestically, it’s a farce. The national team has been prioritized at the expense of anything and everything else. The league shut down for a few months. Chinese football fans are treated so, so badly, and yet they still keep coming back, somehow. It’s inspirational in a perverse sort of way. They’ll be like “We’re going to relocate your club” or “We’re going to rename your club,” or, “We’ll shut down the season for months at a time, or not let you enter stadiums for a year at a time,” even though there’s basically no Covid. But fans still somehow find a way to stay loyal to their team.

Is there a way out for the sport or a roadmap for it to improve?

I’m not quite sure what a way out means or what it would look like. Football is still one of the biggest sports here. But there’s a combination of issues, not just Covid, but how China specifically is dealing with Covid. Also the way they prioritize the national team [while shutting down domestic clubs] — anywhere else clubs would just play a man or two short during international windows. But here, players are in training camp for months at a time ahead of a World Cup game, which they’ll then lose. Even if they win it won’t matter, because they’re not going to qualify for the World Cup. So the whole thing is a waste of time. But they can’t just say “okay, we’re not going to qualify, so let’s at least prioritize the domestic league,” because politically you can’t be seen to be doing that. You have to prioritize qualification for the World Cup.

So there’s little hope that they’ll qualify for the World Cup in 2022? 

They’re not going to. But they never were going to — they’re not nearly good enough. They have a chance four years from now when the World Cup is expanded, but even then it’s not a given.

---