As Beijing prepares to become the first city in history to host both a Summer and a Winter Olympics, the eyes of the sporting world—and beyond—will be on China come February 2022. Despite international calls for a boycott due to human rights violations, Beijing is determined to show that it has conquered COVID-19 and can host another spectacular Olympics. But behind all the politics and the soft power, China’s sports industry has changed dramatically since those first Games in 2008:
• A drive to promote soccer with the ultimate goal of winning the World Cup has already gone through both boom and bust.
• International leagues such as the NBA, the WTA and the English Premier League now must tread through a minefield of nationalistic fervor.
• Sportswear companies like Li-Ning and Anta have ridden a wave of domestic support in an ongoing bid to topple Nike and Adidas in the world’s largest consumer market.
• Ski resorts have sprung up across the country as the winter sports market takes off.
Weaving together the parallel threads of sports, business and politics, internationally-renowned China-based sports journalist Mark Dreyer—the China Sports Insider—who first moved to Beijing to cover the 2008 Olympics, takes us on the rollercoaster ride of China’s burgeoning sports industry. Through a series of tales from industry insiders, Dreyer not only paints a picture of China’s quest for dominance in yet another sector, but also sheds light on the growing pains and global implications of China’s modernization.
About the author: Formerly a football reporter with Sky Sports in the UK, Mark Dreyer has been covering sports around the world for close to 20 years. A veteran of three Olympic and Paralympic Games (Beijing, Vancouver, London 2008-12), where he was an accredited journalist, he has also been a reporter and producer for both Fox Sports and AP Sports in the US. A multi-sports specialist who has reported on sports events in five different continents, his first love is football and he has previously interviewed stars including Pele and David Beckham. He has worked with a number of media outlets in China and is regularly asked to comment on the Chinese sports industry for BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times and many others. He runs the China Sports Insider website and co-hosts the China Sports Insider Podcast on the Sinica Network. Mark has been based in China since 2007.