Benchmarking against London, UK?, Shanghai steps towards becoming a "globally renowned sports city", F1 China Grand Prix next April Shooting Sports | MBA/MTA | Global
The official Formula One racing team recently released the 2024 season schedule. The Chinese Grand Prix will be held from April 19th to 21st at the Shanghai International Circuit. 2024 also marks the 20th anniversary of the Formula One China Grand Prix, which was last held in 2019.
F1's return to Shanghai has also been interpreted by the outside world as a solid step towards becoming a "globally renowned sports city". After nearly 20 years of development, Shanghai has initially become the capital of Asian sports events and is now continuously moving towards the goal of becoming a globally renowned sports city. What are the evaluation criteria for globally renowned sports cities, and what are the benchmark cities and catch-up goals for Shanghai?
The online promotion conference for the 2024 MBA/MTA program enrollment at the School of Economics and Management of Shanghai Sport University was recently held. Professor Liu Dongfeng from Shanghai Sport University stated in his keynote speech "Sports and Urban Development: Characteristics and Inspiration of Global Famous Sports Cities" that London in the UK, Paris in France, Tokyo in Japan, New York in the United States, and Los Angeles in the United States are the "globally famous sports cities" that Shanghai needs to benchmark against.
The world's three major evaluation agencies
In recent years, with the continuous promotion of the strategy of building a strong sports country and a healthy China, many cities in China have sparked a wave of building sports cities, and have established their own goals and directions based on their own characteristics and positioning: such as Beijing as the international sports center city, Nanjing as the world sports city, Hangzhou as the international sports city, Chengdu as the international sports city, Shenzhen as the international famous sports city, and Shanghai as the global famous sports city.
Professor Liu Dongfeng introduced that there are three major evaluation institutions globally for "sports cities": the UK SPORTCAL GSI Rankings, SportBusiness Rankings, and the US Boya Sports International Sports City Rankings. It is reported that the selected cities on these three lists not only undergo significant changes every year, but also have significant differences in their results.
How to come up with a universally recognized standard? "We used weighted statistics to obtain the weighted average of the three rankings. The smaller the numerical value, the smaller the variable, and the higher the ranking." Professor Liu Dongfeng said that the final five cities were determined: London, Tokyo, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles in 2017; In 2020, these five cities remained the same, but their rankings changed - London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles.
There are significant differences among the three major evaluation agencies and evaluation criteria for world-renowned sports cities. Some evaluation agencies focus on the weight of the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, and as long as they have hosted an Olympic Games, they can dominate the rankings for a long time. Shanghai, which has not hosted an Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup, has average data performance; There are also some evaluation agencies that value professional competitions, such as F1, which have a significant weight. At this time, Shanghai's "score" is good.
China also has its own index
In fact, the history of the establishment of the world's three major evaluation agencies is not long, which is about ten years, and these evaluation agencies are not familiar with the specific situation of Chinese sports. Industry experts believe that there is still room to create a more scientific and comprehensive evaluation index. In 2019, Shanghai Sport University conducted independent research on "globally renowned sports cities" and spent three years proposing the 2022 Global Sports City Index.
It is reported that Shanghai Sport University relies on the International Society of Sports Economics to carry out close international cooperation with world-renowned universities and academic institutions. It has established an expert committee composed of experts and scholars from well-known universities such as Cologne Sport University in Germany, Loughborough University in the UK, University of Paris South in France, and Drexel University in the United States, to provide intellectual support for index research and development.
China's own index consists of four dimensions: sports history and tradition, sports event influence, media dissemination, and professional sports influence. From this list, it can be seen that the ranking of the top five cities in the world in 2022 is basically the same as other comprehensive lists before, but the ranking order has changed, namely Tokyo, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris; There are two Chinese cities in the top 50, namely Beijing ranked 31st and Shanghai ranked 38th.
Seven Characteristics of Sports Cities
Liu Dongfeng stated that globally renowned sports cities have seven major characteristics. Firstly, sports cities are world-renowned cities, showcasing their comprehensive strength through sports; Secondly, these cities all belong to the capital of sports events. Famous sports cities around the world have not only hosted top international individual events such as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and Athletics World Championships, but also generally held top individual events such as the Tennis Grand Slam and Marathon Grand Slam.
Looking back at the history of event hosting in Shanghai, it is evident that top tier individual events are predominant, which is a prominent feature of Shanghai's event hosting. The 2007 Women's Football World Cup, the 2004-2019 F1 China Grand Prix, and the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup were all held in Shanghai. Top domestic events such as the Shanghai Half Marathon, the International Snow Federation Urban Cross country Ski China Tour Shanghai Station, and the Shanghai Rowing Open have become highlights of the 2021 Shanghai event.
Thirdly, globally renowned sports cities have renowned professional sports clubs, such as Premier League teams, NBA clubs, NFL clubs, etc. Taking Shanghai as an example, Shencheng is the only city in China with two top-level league football clubs. Fourthly, it has famous iconic sports facilities such as Wembley Stadium, London Bowl Stadium, Prince's Park Football Stadium, Staples Center, etc. Taking Shanghai as an example, the newly renovated Shanghai Sports Stadium and the newly built SAIC Pudong Football Stadium are all iconic sports facilities of Shanghai.
Fifthly, globally renowned sports cities are often the headquarters of most international sports organizations, international sports associations, and well-known sports brand multinational corporations. Sixth, the socialization and lifestyle of sports are also the overall characteristics of most cities in Europe and America. The reference indicators are the quantity and quality of sports social organizations. In Germany, there are 90000 sports clubs with the highest number of sports social organizations per capita.
Finally, the highly developed sports industry and strong consumption are important evaluation indicators for globally renowned sports cities. Taking England as an example, the added value of sports accounts for 2.6% of GDP; The per capita consumption expenditure is 5129 yuan, with sports service consumption accounting for over 70%. In 2015, the added value of the sports industry in Shanghai accounted for only 1.4% of the city's GDP, and the per capita sports consumption amount was only 1/6 of England's, mainly belonging to physical consumption. From this perspective, there is still a lot of room for improvement in Shanghai.
Professional colleges cultivate talents
Building a globally renowned sports city requires the participation of more high-level and high-quality sports professionals. Two Olympic gold medalists, Zhong Angel, is a graduate student at Shanghai Sport University. At the peak of her sports career, she chose to continue her studies, deepen her knowledge and skills in sports theory and management, and accumulate and improve her skills through long-term learning and accumulation.
Zhong Angel calls on everyone to seize the learning platform provided by Shanghai Sport University MBA/MTA, fully unleash their potential, and bravely pursue their dreams. The MBA/MTA program of the School of Economics and Management at Shanghai Sport University is recognized by the Ministry of Education and the Degree Office of the State Council as a master's degree program in Sports Business Administration and Sports Tourism Management, providing academic and degree education.
The School of Economics and Management of Shanghai Sport University will enroll in the MBA/MTA program in 2024. By integrating first-class teacher resources, sports project resources, alumni resources, and association resources, we aim to cultivate business elites who are familiar with the development laws of China's sports industry and have international sports operation and management capabilities. We aim to cultivate high-level, applied, international, and composite sports tourism management professionals who can meet the needs of social and economic development and sports tourism development. This lecture will be hosted by the School of Economics and Management of Shanghai Sport University and the MBA/MTA Teaching Center of Shanghai Sport University, and will be live streamed simultaneously on the Shanghai Sports MBA MTA video account.
Overall, brand events are the most direct and effective means to reflect the influence and radiation of sports cities. The combination strategy of events is: fixed brand events, top professional clubs, and one-time top events. In addition, the socialization, lifestyle, and industrialization of sports are the fundamental support for the construction of sports cities. In this regard, Shanghai has great room for improvement.
