For China's sports industry, which lags behind the overall development level, it is a valuable asset.

For the Chinese network promotion company general Manager Zhang Junhui, this year's net is almost perfect.

Men's singles ranked the world's top two Djokovic and Nadal successfully joined the final, singles ranked the world's first young Williams defeated the world's first Yang Jankovic Smooth Cup, the only regret is that Li Na stop eight strong, so that the game behind the lack of some Chinese elements.

In business terms, this year's network also reaped a bumper harvest, with revenues rising 14% from last year, to a record 150 million yuan, the first to make ends meet after the 2009 event, when viewers ' flow was the first to break 300,000.

The same changes also occur in the network's operations team. The time to return to 10 years ago, then Zhang Junhui responsible for the construction of the network's operating team. A general manager, a PR manager, and a finance manager, the "shabby" team of only 3 people, was the first in the 10 years when the network started.

10 years later, the network has been not the same, the company moved to the National Tennis Center in the style of the office area, the team also has 60 people of scale. And every year during the network competition, coupled with temporary staff, security and other external forces, Zhang Junhui need to mobilize more than thousands of people, in his own words, "every day at noon to eat the lunch card will brush off more than 3,000." ”

However, compared to the level of competition and the number of viewers this intuitive change, these outside can not see the details may be more reflected in the network 10 years of growth.

Compared with most of the domestic commercial competitions, the 10-year-old China NET is a "heterogeneous", from a profit point of view, just to achieve a balance of the net is not the most profitable, but if the quality of the competition, influence and business of the comprehensive considerations, the network is definitely a unique example. In the past 10 years, China's rapid rise in the experience of the overall development level lags behind the Chinese sports industry, is a valuable asset.

A layman's "aggravating"

In many people's view, the success of the network today depends on the luck, can not be denied that the net can achieve today's achievements, it is because of catching up with a good time.

2005 years later, International tennis began brewing competition structure reform, due to the rise of Asia's economy, the two major tennis organization WTA (International Women's Professional Tennis Federation) and ATP (International Professional Tennis Federation) are interested in cultivating the Chinese market, coupled with the Olympic Games brought by Beijing Olympic effect and many other factors, The network has a chance to upgrade after only 3 years of launch.

2007, WTA and ATP successively announced the upgrading of the level of the China-Net competition, since 2009, the women's events upgraded to the second only to the Grand slam crown, men's events were upgraded to the ATP500 series, ranked second only to the Grand Slam and the ATP1000 tournament. The adjustment laid the groundwork for the 5-year boom in the network.

However, the event upgrade is only an opportunity, ultimately can prove in business to see the competition operator's ability.

Although today's network has been in the sun, but to return to its starting point, it is difficult to imagine, the first network team is actually formed by a group of amateur sports Circle, then led by Zhang Junhui just from the Beijing Daily left, there is no sporting events operating experience.

In fact, the company behind the promotion of the network competition is the northern Green media. In 2003, the Northern Youth media began planning to go public listing in Hong Kong, in order to optimize the structure of revenue, the ambitious northern Green media has identified the future development of the 3 direction: culture, education and sports. and the choice of tennis, it was entirely accidental, when the "Hong Kong Cup tennis Tournament" operated by the Hong Kong Tom Company met the bottleneck of development, hoping to expand the mainland market, and the Northern Youth media was also interested in opening up the situation in sporting events, so the two sides hit set up a joint venture, and the network was born.

It is difficult to imagine a team that does not have the slightest background in sports industry. The first 3 years, the network's specific operations by the team of Tom is responsible for, but the Hong Kong team on how to operate in the mainland is obviously not acclimatized, the network also in 2004 turned out after a low, quickly into trouble.

2007, after a series of equity transfer, China Network company officially become a wholly owned subsidiary of the North Green, the local team fully take over the operation of the network. Zhang Junhui told "business value", the lack of experience is undoubtedly the biggest challenge the team faced, "do not know how to start, all is blank, all unfamiliar, all to learn." ”

However, it is precisely because of the lack of relevant experience that the network has the opportunity to come out of its own way.

"I was not bound by the traditional concept of sports, because I had no idea at the time. When I came in, I was doing it according to a social activity, which is not the same as the other people in the industry. Zhang Junhui.

For the Zhang Junhui of that year, the identity of outsiders has become an advantage. "When someone enters this circle, everyone will see who you are, what you have achieved, and then give you a label." From the point of view of the harm, you do not have a label, no blood relationship, with these people when they will put you outside the circle to see, but the benefit is also in this, that is he also does not give you stickers, also does not give you row team, this is also very good. ”

Without rules and regulations and the intricate relationship between the traditional sports circle, the 牵掣 team was able to explore a little bit in their own way. The best embodiment of this "layman" team is an example of the failure of the 2007 event, when both Beijing and Shanghai competed for the right to host the top events. Zhang Junhui and the team are even proposing a joint program with Shanghai to tie the ATP Masters series to the WTA's Crown event, in order to realize the dream of a super event in the country, with two cities in Beijing and Shanghai taking turns. Unfortunately, this bold proposal has not been endorsed by Shanghai.

Although this magnificent plan failed to achieve, but the network team in the concept of bold has been evident. In the years that followed, the media-led operations team took advantage of their strengths to bring the network to a new level.

Media gene

This year, before the official opening of the network, an interesting game attracted a lot of media attention, even CCTV broadcast it, this is "China's tennis one sister" Li Na and the world's first Djokovic between the "gender war." Finally, with the help of the rules, Li Na won the charity exhibition with a 4:3 score.

This game is full of entertainment elements in fact, the network team deliberately for the network preheating and planning, all the proceeds of the tournament were donated to the Soong Ching Ling Foundation.

The network can achieve today's impact in just a few years, even with a more profound history of the Shanghai Masters on the same footing, which owes much to the media-born team's topic-making ability. 10 years, the combination of entertainment and sports, has been a major feature of the network, each year in the network will find out all kinds of new ideas to attract the external eye. In order to increase the exposure of the media, the network has even developed a special star program, inviting the popular star to watch the game or to pick the edge, and this has become a major feature of the network. This year, Li Na's second-round match against Javanovsky invited the recently popular singer Hu Haiquan to pick the edge.

In some professional tennis media, compared with the Shanghai Masters, the network is more like a "show", but from a commercial point of view, the network's "show" is precisely the key to its success.

For all professional sporting events facing the public, the business model is based on the attention of the audience, and if no audience is willing to watch the game, then the sale of advertising sponsorship and broadcasting rights will be impossible. Although today, Li Na's name is known, but tennis in the country is still a minority movement. Most people know little about it, in the face of such a barren soil, how quickly to let more people understand that the sport is the urgent matter, the entertainment of the network is in fact the most effective way to popularize tennis.

Of course, the development of the tournament today, the network to create the topic of the way to the need to upgrade the time. "Always surprise is very difficult thing, in China, the most representative is the Spring Festival gala." "Zhang Junhui said," solve the problem of surprise finally to guide the audience into the tennis world, always innovative difficult, we are not cultural activities, we are not the Spring Festival Gala, we will use the surprise plan and star plan to let the audience have a better experience, but will not be out of the competition itself, and finally with a good game to retain people ”

In addition to good at manufacturing topics, the network team is also very understanding of the media needs, a very noteworthy and learn from the details is that every year after the end of the network, the organizers will announce the operation of the game data, so far has formed a practice. These real operational data are precisely what the media is most interested and willing to report. In contrast, not only as the "Big Brother" Shanghai Masters not such a mechanism for information dissemination, look around the domestic commercial sporting events, also can not find the 2nd to dare to make operational data so transparent to the public.

From the player's point of view, the Shanghai Masters, who have been rated "the most popular Masters Series" for 4 consecutive years, seem to be better than one, but if the impact on ordinary people in the country, then the network is undoubtedly a well-deserved champion.

Next 5 years

The network will develop a 5-year plan every five years, the 2nd 5-Year Plan has been successfully completed, the network is about to open a new journey.

From the perspective of commercial development, the three major income components of professional sporting events are commercial sponsorship, broadcasting rights, and sales of tickets and surrounding products. For the Chinese network, business sponsorship has become more mature, with the fulfilment of sponsorship since last year, with 1 lead sponsors, 3 Diamond sponsors and 5 Platinum sponsors. Zhang Junhui introduced that the Chinese network will not adjust such a sponsorship structure, "this number is not changed, only such a brand exposure and the value of the sponsors can fully reflect, like the newspaper, the newspaper more and more thick, the arrival rate of information transmission will certainly be reduced." ”

But in the broadcasting right aspect, because of the system reason, the network's broadcasting right income mainly originates from the international copyright and the new Media copyright sale, the broadcasting right income will not have the fundamental change in the short term. However, in ticketing, the network still has a small room for improvement. This year, the China Net box office revenue reached 25 million yuan, compared to last year's 18 million yuan significantly increased, but this also has not reached the limit of the network. Because not all of the tickets are sold through the retail channels to the public, although the network officially approved "free tickets" accounted for only 8%, but in addition, the distribution of equity tickets to the sponsors and partner tickets also accounted for a considerable proportion.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that this year, China net borrowed from the Australian Open to establish its own membership mechanism, the audience through the net's official website will automatically become a member of the network, thus enjoying many concessions and value-added services. The network says the next step is to further refine the mechanism and make it more sophisticated.

Finally, the derivative products around the network is also a gold mine worth digging, such as the development of souvenirs, franchise products, the right to operate and so on.

In addition to focusing on the value of the tournament itself, in the future, the network may also develop a new way to make a profit--replication of the competition in the network operation experience.

At present, China's competition structure is not perfect, although already has the High level league such as the Net and the Shanghai Masters competition, but is very scarce in the low grade competition, the ATP executive deputy main cut Alison Lee has recently made clear that China's race structure problem needs to be solved. Between rhetoric, the hidden implication is that more low-level tournaments will be put into China in the future, which in fact means business opportunities for the network's team, such as the possibility of capital cooperation or outsourcing to bring the experience of the network team into play.

Next September, the Wuhan Tennis Open will be officially kicked off, it is after the Chinese and Shanghai Masters competition, the highest domestic level tennis tournament. It is reported that the Chinese team has been helping Wuhan to plan for next year's competition, but is still out of moral help, rather than formal cooperation at the commercial level.

"Wuhan is now proposing to make a tender system, in the future when the time and manpower can be deployed to open the time we will participate." "Zhang Junhui said," Like the network of the team mature, can form a commissioned management, the tournament is good, their dependents than the cost of hiring people, professional management should be a direction of industry development. ”

In addition to commercial expansion, the network will also carry out a series of activities to expand its influence, such as the organization of amateur in the CRT network-level league, and the French Open, Wimbledon caddie exchange programs.

"These are the internal strength, it will not be like those star plans to take out the whole society will pay attention to, but these things will be very solid, very grounded gas." "Zhang Junhui said.

In the 2004 years of the year, the organizers had proposed that the network should be the same as the four Grand slam, the 5th Slam. This goal was once ridiculed by outsiders because of the low net level. Although today's network has long ceased to use such a reference, but that year's "rhetoric" is still the media, from time to time will be taken out to move quizzically. Today's Zhang Junhui, however, has been able to easily face outside cynicism because he has a clear understanding of the goal of the network. "The Grand slam is not what you call it, it is done, we will work for it, but it is not a generation, we are just making a foundation today." ”