Due to the lack of experience in the operation of sports events by the organizers, all kinds of chaos and pitfalls appeared before the match between Australia and Australia, such as the high ticket price, Messi being overprotected, the offline fan meeting being cancelled, and the right to broadcast the event Waiting for a long time.
In a few hours, the Argentine national team led by Messi will appear in Beijing Workers Stadium, and they will usher in a friendly match with the Australian team. This is the first time the Argentine team has played abroad since winning the World Cup last year.
After winning the World Cup, the Argentine Football Association received more than a dozen invitations and offers, but they finally chose Beijing for their first overseas competition. According to public information, it was China Hongqiao International Investment Co., Ltd., a state-owned enterprise with a background in the Overseas Chinese Federation and Shaanxi, that persuaded the Argentine national team to visit China.
Fans also love and hate this company that can invite the “ball king” Messi.
Due to the lack of experience in the operation of sports events by the organizers, all kinds of chaos and pitfalls appeared before the match between Australia and Australia, such as the ticket price was too high, the security guards pulled the curtain to block the view, Messi was overprotected, and offline fan meetings It was cancelled, and the broadcast rights of the event have not yet been determined, which has caused many doubts about the organizers from the outside world.
The Argentine team’s trip to China this time is also the first giant team to visit China after the epidemic control was released. It is undoubtedly a blessing for fans who have not witnessed top stars like Messi at home for a long time. At the same time, this is also a long-lost test for the operators, sponsors, media platforms, sports associations, security parties and other roles behind the event. It will not be easy to revive the former vitality of China’s sports industry.
“It feels like the organizers underestimated Messi’s influence”
Beijing Four Seasons Hotel, this is where the Argentine national team stayed.
At 4 pm on June 13th, under the high temperature of more than 30 degrees, fans stood on both sides of the road on the side of the back door of the hotel. They waited hard for the sole purpose of meeting the “ball king” Messi.
In the atmosphere of anxious waiting, any slight disturbance can cause a “turmoil”, such as fans who come to voluntarily deliver water, teenagers riding scooters wearing Messi and Barcelona jerseys, and even pet dogs in the arms of female fans— — A teddy in a mini Messi jersey.
Fans know that Messi usually sits in the last right seat of the second bus, and they excitedly discuss where to stand to see the true face of the “King of the Ball”.
At 5:30 p.m., police cars cleared the way, and two buses finally drove out of the hotel. Fans raised their jerseys, posters and cameras, and shouted “Messi” and “Argentina” in English. Through the glass of the bus, the coaches and players in the car waved in response. A minute later, the bus merged into the traffic flow of the main road and drove to the training ground of the Olympic Sports Center, where there were equally enthusiastic fans waiting for Messi.
Fans wait for the Argentina team bus, photo by the author
“I squatted three times with my child.” Fan Lin Hai (pseudonym) is a doctor at a public hospital in Beijing, and his 7-year-old son is a Messi fan.
On June 10, the day Messi landed in Beijing, they went to the hotel to watch. However, there were too many fans at the scene, their schoolbags were squeezed open, and a jersey was lost. It was not until after 9 o’clock in the evening of the second day that they finally saw Messi who returned to the hotel from the Olympic Sports. Lin Hai told the author that this is the first time the 36-year-old Messi has come to China after 6 years, and it may be the last time he will come to China to play football.
“It feels like the organizers underestimated the influence of Messi and the fans of the Argentine team.” Lin Hai lamented.
From Messi bringing the wrong passport, being stranded at the airport for a while, to sky-high ticket prices, to the cancellation of various offline activities, under the dizziness of Messi’s huge aura, fans pointed their finger at the organizer who has no experience in hosting games.
On June 12, Li Shuangfu, a well-known sports media person, wrote on Weibo that all Messi’s offline activities other than football games, including commercial activities for endorsement brands, event welcome dinners, and media interviews, have been cancelled. The reason is security issues.
In desperation, Messi and his teammates spent more time living in the hotel, between the hotel and the training ground at two o’clock and one line every day, and did not have the opportunity to experience Chinese culture such as climbing the Great Wall, visiting the Forbidden City, visiting alleys, and doing as the Romans do. . The only opportunity to interact with fans is the online Taobao live broadcast room.
In the online live broadcast on June 14, Messi himself said helplessly, “I feel that Chinese fans are very enthusiastic, but in fact we don’t know much about China. Most of the time we still learn about Beijing in hotels and venues, basically. Rarely left the hotel.”
Argentina played national football, the plan finally fell through
There are indications that against the background of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Argentina, China Hongqiao International Investment Co., Ltd. successfully persuaded the Argentine team to visit China by virtue of its deep business and network resources in the local area, coupled with the temptation of huge appearance fees.
According to the data from Tianyancha, Hongqiao International, formerly known as China Hongqiao Travel Agency, was established in 1991. The major shareholder is the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, which was later changed to its Chinese enterprise management consulting company, which still holds 51% of the shares. The other two shareholders are two companies in Shaanxi.
Hongqiao International has no previous experience in sports business. From the perspective of its business scope, the company is mainly engaged in industrial investment, engineering project design contracting and supervision.
However, just 10 days before the official announcement of the A-Australia competition, on May 11, their business scope added sports business, including sports competition planning and organization, sports intermediary agents, brokers, sports goods retail, etc.
According to public information, as the legal person and chairman of Hongqiao International, Li Dacan was a member of the Shaanxi CPPCC. In 1991, he took over the Overseas Chinese Economic and Technological Corporation, which had a debt of more than 600,000 yuan, which enabled the company to embark on a road of rapid development, and was awarded the title of Shaanxi Model Worker. At present, he also serves as the legal person and senior management of Shaanxi Changyou Chemical and other companies.
Li Dacan’s relationship with Argentina dates back to at least 2009. He was in charge of the 800,000-ton urea project of Tierra del Fuego Electric Chemical Co., Ltd., which belongs to Shaanxi Nonferrous Metals Group.
On August 2, 2022, Niu Wangdao, the Argentine ambassador to China, also went to Xixian New District to inspect the Xi’an International Football Center project, and had a discussion with the deputy director of the management committee. Li Dacan also participated in the event.
The Argentine team’s China trip plan has been brewing for several months. On March 21, 2023, a press release of Shaanxi Hongqiao International Investment Holdings Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Hongqiao International, revealed that the company held a football industry project seminar, and one of the major topics was to discuss the details of the China-Arab football friendly match.
“The China-Arab Football Invitational Tournament is tentatively scheduled to be held in China in September. At present, it has signed a contract with the Argentine Football Association. The specific plan for coming to China has been released. China Hongqiao, the Chinese Football Association and the Argentine Football Association will hold a press conference in Beijing in April. Preparatory activities for the Arab Football Invitational Tournament. The venue of the competition will be held in Xi’an, Beijing and other places.” The press release reads.
At the end of March, a letter “Request for Instructions on Coordinating the Friendly Match between the Chinese National Football Team and the Argentine National Team” was also circulated on the Internet, and it was Hongqiao International who stamped it.
But at that time, the anti-corruption storm in football was in full swing. Starting from January 2023, after the national football coach Li Tie was investigated, a group of Football Association officials such as Chen Xuyuan and Liu Yi were sacked. On April 1, after Du Zhaocai, the vice chairman in charge of the daily work of the Football Association, was investigated, the General Administration of Sports organized an emergency “working group” to enter the Football Association to preside over related work.
A sports industry insider told the author that the Argentine team originally came to China to play a friendly match with the national football team. In the end, after many efforts, the approval of the event was obtained, but it also caused a series of actions such as ticketing and investment promotion to be very hasty.
As the organizer of the event, Chen Zhongkai, the deputy general manager of Hongqiao International, also admitted in an interview with Top News that “the preparation time is tight and the event experience is insufficient.”
The investment promotion plan for the Argentina-Australia football game obtained by the author stated that 2022 is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Argentina. Niu Wangdao, the Argentine ambassador to China, proposed the concept of “making friends with football” and hoped to invite the Argentine national team to China for a friendship For the game, the Chinese and Arab embassies sent invitations to Australia.
The boots finally landed on May 22, and Hongqiao International announced that the friendly match between Afghanistan and Australia will officially start on June 15. The Chinese Football Association is not included in the announced supporting units, only the Beijing Football Association, Beijing Yiyang Gengyun Sports Culture Co., Ltd., Shaanxi Provincial Sports Industry Group, and Merton Corporation of Australia.
500Thousands of appearance fees, it is difficult for the organizer to make money
“Football Emperor” Beckenbauer has a famous saying: “It is not football that rolls on the green field, but gold.”
From a business point of view, the cost of inviting the Argentine team led by Messi to play in such a commercial friendly match is naturally high.
Foreign media reported that after winning the World Cup, the Argentine Football Association has received more than a dozen offers to invite them to play friendly matches. These offers mainly come from the United States, China, Australia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. Each offer promises to get a share of tickets, broadcast rights and commercial revenue, and the base price of a single appearance fee has climbed to US$5 million.
“5 million US dollars is considered a relatively expensive price, and the appearance fee before the epidemic was only 2 million US dollars.” A person in charge of a sports marketing company familiar with overseas events told the author. He learned from the Japanese Football Association that the Japanese Football Association had offered $3.5 million to invite the Argentine team, but failed.
The person in charge said that in addition to appearance fees and commercial sharing, expenses such as travel, training, security, and competition venues also need to be borne by the organizer.
Chen Zhongkai also gave an example and said that in order to present the event perfectly, “we have invested more than 1 million yuan to prepare the turf for the venue.” It is worth mentioning that the friendly match between Manchester City and Manchester United 7 years ago was due to the quality of the turf in the Bird’s Nest. was temporarily canceled.
Under the pressure of huge operating costs, it is not easy to make a profit. Generally speaking, the commercial return of a sports event mainly includes copyright, sponsorship, tickets and peripheral products.
Gu Tong, the former commercial director of Arsenal Asia, told the author that when overseas clubs or national teams come to China for competitions, they usually set up projects for filing, preparation, investment promotion and publicity about half a year in advance. The longer the preparation time, the better the effect. If there is not enough time and there are many uncertain factors, based on the fact that the epidemic control has just been released, there are not many teams visiting China this summer, and there should be more next year.
“Compared with league matches and cup matches, the commercial value of such a single friendly match is relatively low.” An executive of a company that has undertaken many football commercial events told the author that the operation time of a large-scale game is at least 8 months. Get the CCTV live broadcast, and then sell sponsorships. Sponsors also need to have enough time to expose their commercial rights.
“I haven’t seen a top-level title sponsor yet, and I feel that one or two million ‘small money’ is mostly.” The executive said.
According to an investment promotion plan obtained by the author, according to different rights and interests, the sponsors of this China competition are divided into top partners (1), official partners (5) and official sponsors (unlimited). They are 10 million yuan, 4 million yuan and 2 million yuan respectively.
As of June 13, in the list of sponsors announced by the organizer, there are no sponsors of the first two levels, only 23 “official sponsors”.
Among them, in addition to JD.com, Adidas, Yili, and Xiaomi, there are also local companies in Shaanxi, including Xi’an Guobin Liquor Industry, and Xi’an International Football Center (a subsidiary of the Shaanxi Xixian New Area Management Committee). In addition, it is worth noting that a company called “Hainan Zhonghongqiao” is also on the list of sponsors, and Hongqiao International, the organizer, holds 70% of the company’s shares.
Copyright depends on resource replacement, but tickets are expensive
From the official announcement on May 22 to the start of the game on June 15, due to the rush of time, the sale of the live copyright of this friendly match is not optimistic.
“It’s too late.” An executive of the company who obtained the copyright of the event said bluntly to the author that the copyright of the live broadcast is in the hands of Hongqiao International and its joint-stock company Hongqiao Jingwei. It is generally concentrated in the hands of one company to facilitate negotiations.
According to him, copyright is in the hands of the two companies. There will be some chaos. The rights and interests of buyers and sellers are not aligned. The actual copyright fee is about 500,000 to 600,000 yuan.
Another person in charge of the event live broadcast platform directly told the author that buying a copyright itself is not scientific, and such accidental events are of little value to the platform and are not sustainable.
In the case of limited commercial returns from investment promotion and copyright alone, taking advantage of Messi’s huge influence among Chinese fans to sell more and more expensive tickets is undoubtedly the hope of the organizers to pay back. The Argentine team has 30 million fans in China, and Messi has more than 8.05 million fans on Weibo.
For this friendly match, the ticket prices for ordinary spectators are divided into 6 levels, namely 580 yuan, 1380 yuan, 2800 yuan, 3200 yuan, 3800 yuan and 4800 yuan, but the lowest ticket prices are only in two areas, and the number is not large. This price has clearly exceeded the average ticket price of 286 pounds (about 2,500 yuan) for the World Cup in Qatar. The highest ticket price for Argentina’s next game against Indonesia is only about 2,000 yuan.
Even with such a sky-high price, the purchasing power of Messi fans is still full. The tickets for the two rounds were sold out, and the official ticketing applet “Ticket Planet” even crashed and stalled for a while. The author learned that the organizer handed over the ticket sales of the game to Sports Window, which is an old-fashioned event operator that started out selling tickets.
The Beijing Traffic Police predicts that 51,000 fans will watch the game. The organizer coordinated and arranged a security team of more than 10,000 people for this purpose.
The above-mentioned executives of the sports company that hosted the football match believed that Xingongti has 68,000 seats. Excluding the tickets for sponsors, security parties, etc., the revenue from tickets alone may be tens of millions of yuan. Of course, the Argentine team and Sports Window will also participate in the sharing, “Whether the organizer can recover the cost is still hard to estimate.”
The author of this article: Guo Yifei, source: Prism, original title: “Messi is trapped in the hotel, and the organizer makes money with sky-high ticket prices | Prism”
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