On October 8, the Information Office of the State Council held a press conference to introduce the “systematic implementation of a package of incremental policies to steadily promote an improved economic structure and a continued positive development trend”.
Zheng Zhajie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the meeting that in response to the new situation and problems in the current economic operation, the Party Central Committee and the State Council made scientific decisions and took decisive action. While effectively implementing the stock policy, they will step up the introduction of a package of incremental policies around five aspects, including increasing countercyclical adjustment of macroeconomic policies and expanding effective domestic demand, to push the economy to continue to improve.
According to the author, the sports industry, as an important gripper in boosting domestic demand and promoting cultural tourism development, has ushered in a wider development space under the impetus of a package of incremental policies. Focusing on the digital sports entertainment market, it is also easy to predict that the leading digital sports entertainment company, Crazy Sports (0082.HK), may still benefit significantly from it. At this time, there are also more reasons to be optimistic about the acceleration of medium- to long-term growth, which will usher in a return in value as the market environment improves.
“Sports+” continues to spark the economy and is expected to continue to be promoted by policies
This time, Zheng Zhajie emphasized in his speech that the policy of expanding domestic demand and increasing focus more on benefiting people's livelihood and promoting consumption. So, how can we promote consumption?
Looking at market performance during the National Day holiday that has just ended, sports consumption is becoming a new potential to activate the economy.
On the evening of October 6, the 2024 China Open and the World Table Tennis Professional League China Grand Slam came to an end in Beijing. The two international tournaments combined with the 11th Golden Week collided with impressive economic energy. According to the data, the total box office of the China Open reached a record high of 80 million yuan this year; the World Table Tennis Federation China Grand Slam box office was nearly 60 million yuan, driving comprehensive spending over 50 million yuan. As of October 5, about 0.14 million foreign fans and over 0.013 million overseas spectators had watched the game.
The two major tournaments started one after another, which had a clear spillover effect on cultural tourism consumption in Beijing, where they were held. According to data from the China Railway Beijing Administration, during the “Eleventh” Golden Week, the Beijing Bureau expects the total number of passengers to arrive at 26.853 million, an increase of 0.073 million over the previous year, an increase of 2.8%. According to Ctrip data, during the National Day holiday, Beijing travel orders increased 7% year over year, and ticket orders increased 11% year over year.
As can be seen, through the popularity and traffic of major events, the tournament economy can become a new driving force for urban development, thereby stimulating economic vitality. Other than that, there is one more thing worth paying attention to. As the aging of China's population continues to deepen, the “silver hair economy” has become an important driving force for future macroeconomic growth.
According to the “White Paper on China's Industrial Development Trends in the Next 50 Years” published by Sullivan, at the end of 2023, China's population aged 60 and above is nearly 0.3 billion, and this figure is expected to reach 0.4 billion by 2035. Households with silver hair will gradually become the main consumer group in China in the future. Hu Zuquan, director and researcher of the Population Development Research Office of the Economic Forecasting Department of the National Information Center, said earlier that it is expected that by 2035, China's silver economy will reach about 30 trillion yuan, accounting for about 10% of GDP during the same period.
Specifically, the industrial chain of the Yinfa economy is quite extensive, including many segments such as medical care, pension, tourism, and entertainment. As a key part of maintaining health and anti-aging for middle-aged and elderly people, sports are also an important part of the silver hair economy.
Dr. Zhang Lijun, chairman of the board of Mad Sports, once said that people are eager to learn about the latest medical science and technology achievements and want guidance for a healthy lifestyle. According to information, while working as a researcher at Stanford University Medical School in the US, Dr. Zhang Lijun was invited to participate in a Health Matters health community event organized by Stanford University Medical School. At the event, a group of world-class medical professors and experts from Stanford University discussed many key topics related to health and old-age care. Dr. Zhang Lijun discovered during this event that there is a high degree of consensus between China and abroad on the aspects of treating diseases, fighting aging, and aging gracefully.
According to “Seeking Knowledge, Well-being, Seeking Happiness, Seeking Friends, and Seeking Success: Yinfa's Economic Development Trends and Potential Opportunities” issued by Shanghai Securities, it is estimated that by 2050, China's geriatric education market will exceed 100 billion yuan. Geriatric learning includes different types of interest learning, such as health and happiness studies, physical exercise studies, etc.
Overall, the ability of sports to have a multiplier effect on economic development is becoming more and more prominent. Therefore, it is expected to become an important part of the country's expansion of domestic demand growth, which in turn will enjoy more policy support.
The scale of the sports industry continues to grow, and Crazy Sports is expected to become one of the significant beneficiaries
Deriving from this logic, the value of crazy sports, which has the ability to host and operate events in the relevant industry chain, uses artificial intelligence technology to empower businesses, and create a new “Sports+” diversified integrated consumption scenario is worth re-evaluating.
Specifically, through the continuous creation of new sports+new scenarios, Crazy Sports can better withstand the growth of the sports market by gradually increasing its appeal to both To-C and To-B.
In terms of tournament operation, Crazy Sports used its unique “digital+sports” and “sports+entertainment” resources to plan and successfully host significant sports IP events, such as the WBC Professional Boxing Championship. According to information, the tournament not only created unprecedented popularity in the Chinese professional boxing industry, but also significantly boosted the development of the local tourism economy and promoted traditional culture such as Kung Fu in Foshan.
As mentioned earlier, as the tournament economy continues to become a new driving force for urban development, Crazy Sports's continued deepening tournament operation capabilities in this field may have an opportunity to attract more opportunities to host events and continue to promote the company's development.
From another perspective, in the face of the current digital economy, the company uses big data and artificial intelligence technology to build a more complete AI ecosystem, which is expected to more fully share the dividends of the digital sports market. For example, “Ruyi” is the first large-scale AI assistant in the domestic “sports+lottery” vertical field, which was launched during the 2024 European Cup. The assistant provides personalized services to users, successfully seizes opportunities in the field of sports knowledge payment, and increases the willingness and consumption level of private domain users.
It is worth noting that in China's 30 trillion dollar economic market, no giant with absolute dominance has been born in China. As a pioneer in cultivating “sports+”, Crazy Sports is expected to expand more businesses in “sports+health,” “sports+pension,” “sports+entertainment,” and “sports+tourism” in the future, thereby reaping more dividends from industrial growth.
Dr. Zhang Lijun's “Elegant Life” theory emphasizes the importance of eating well, sleeping well, having a clear mind, and being energetic, and points out that anti-oxidation, anti-glycation, and anti-inflammatory are key anti-aging measures to achieve a high quality of life. And physical exercise, physical fitness is unquestionably an important way to “grow old gracefully.”
It can be seen from this that Crazy Sports's ability, whether in terms of event operation or sports technology, has laid a solid foundation for it to create a new “Sports+” diversified and integrated consumption scenario. This not only brings strong impetus to the company's development, but is also highly in line with national development trends, and is expected to continue to benefit from policy promotion and rapid development of the industry.
epilogue
With its unique charm and limitless potential, “Sports+” is leading a new wave in the Chinese consumer market and continuously creating a new development situation of “sports setting the stage, economy singing”. Enterprises such as Crazy Sports, whose business model is in line with the overall social and economic development trend, have also won more attention from the market.
According to the data, by the close of trading on October 9, the company's stock price had risen by more than 30% in that month. Subsequently, based on the company's own stable basic market and diversified growth points that have continued to expand, its future performance in the capital market is also worthy of more investors' attention.
