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Text丨Tang Shuyu Ailuo

The Chinese athlete won the championship but was booed by the Chinese audience. The extent of the fan clubization of sports once again shocked the Chinese people.

Paris Olympics women's singles table tennis finalChen MengVictorySun YingshaThe scene of almost unanimous support for Sun Yingsha aroused doubts among foreign journalists. Chen Meng's "no one cheering" and even the aggressive behavior of giving the middle finger to others puzzled the Chinese people.

Different from the athletes with collectivist background in the past, with the deepening of the marketization of professional table tennis, the national table tennis players with star qualities are now the objects of pursuit by fans.The table tennis fan circle has created a tone similar to the traffic fan circle in the entertainment industry since its formation at the 2016 Rio Olympics; on the one hand, the fans' pursuit has driven the rapid development of the table tennis market, but on the other hand, it has also brought negative impacts caused by extreme circle behavior, bringing new challenges to the development of the table tennis commercial market.

The development of this phenomenon accompanied the emergence of domestic entertainment circle culture, and it coincided with the charm of competitive sports and celebrity athletes. It cannot be summarized and solved by simply saying "keep fan circles away from sports."

Chen Meng was suspected of being given the middle finger by the audience in the venue

[1] Fandom culture collides with the world championships, and the emergence of twin stars kicks off the "fandom" of table tennis

It is no coincidence that table tennis has become the sport with the most rapidly developing fan culture in the domestic sports world.

The "Aolong" twins (referring to the 2016 Rio Olympics)Zhang Jike、Malone), which combines many fan-attracting elements such as passion for honor, youthful spirit, attractive appearance, and CP contrast. In addition, the mainland entertainment industry was in the early stages of the wild growth of fan circles at that time, so fans and sports stars hit it off., making table tennis, which originally had an older audience, become the front line for young people overnight.

The sudden emergence of the twin stars has brought popularity to table tennis, and tickets for the Table Tennis Super League are finally sold out.Zhang Jike, who achieved the fastest Grand Slam in history in 445 days, has won countless fans with his rebellious character, ups and downs, and beautiful and reliable performance despite having passed the peak of his competitive level. His popularity after the Rio Olympics is comparable to that of the top stars. The rapid development of circle culture has led to an unprecedented outbreak of discussion among the entire national table tennis team, and everyone from players to coaches has experienced a surge of love and admiration.

Zhang Jike became the "top streamer" in the eyes of scalpers during his peak popularity

Since then, fans have replaced fans, and Weibo/Douban groups/Jinjiang forums have replaced sports apps. Similarly, similar to all popular CPs in film and television dramas, they will take the step of "mutual tearing and purification". The "Fruit and Butterfly Wars" was comparable to the CPs in popular dramas, which gave the sports circle and even the domestic entertainment industry a little shock (Ma Long's fans were nicknamed "Dragon Fruit" and Zhang Jike's fans were nicknamed "Sister Butterfly").

The "Fruit Butterfly War" once prompted Liu Guoliang to personally write a message to "persuade peace"

Fans' comments on Ma Long and Zhang JikeEmotional ProjectionandCopy the model, compared withThe entertainment industry's empathy for artistsIt is even worse than before. The exposure of Ma Long's personal private life even came from the fact that his mobile phone screen was photographed and then widely spread by "anti-fans". Zhang Jike also successfully entered the entertainment industry with the help of this fan traffic economy, appeared on many variety shows, and also publicly dated the female star Jing Tian, ​​who was at the peak of her career at the time.

Zhang Jike has set up a studio since 2017 and has been a guest on dozens of variety shows

Many years later, Ma Long won the double Grand Slam and became the flag bearer of China in the Olympics, while Zhang Jike faded out of the public eye due to gambling scandals. After the traffic tide receded, the competitive sports arena will ultimately rely on performance, strength and mental will. Looking back at the grand occasion of the "Fruit and Butterfly Wars" now, it is really sad.

Talents emerge in every generation, and the power of fan economy has been passed down with the replacement of old and new players. After the Tokyo Olympics, Sun Yingsha's passionate "revenge" to eliminate Ito Mima made her the focus of national attention and attracted a large number of fans. Her sharp playing style, cheerful and lovely personality, and her getting better and better at playing, as well as her world No. 1 ranking, made her the top player in the table tennis world.Wang ChuqinThe mixed doubles partnership also gave rise to the "Shatou" CP fans, whose activity level even surpassed the CP fans of popular TV series and movies. The prevalence of "sweet points" video collections and CP fan fiction after each game has allowed this circle to completely copy the path of real-life celebrity CPs.

The two-way flow between the sports and entertainment circles continues to play a role. The popular practice of comparing scores among fans of athletes has also "fed back" to the entertainment circle, resulting in the common phenomenon of "actor/singer performance" used by fans of celebrities to control comments. Meanwhile, the trend of comparing scores and popularity in the domestic entertainment industry has also "fed back" to the sports circle, resulting in the ridiculous athlete super-talk sign-in ranking.

A chart showing the performance of review control caused by "friction" in the fan circle

The sports circle is absorbing the popularity of domestic entertainment-style players

In order to protect and support athletes, fans will borrow the methods of the entertainment industry, spending money to support them, and making a lot of noise on social media to collect data, in order to enhance the commercial value of athletes and increase their "voice" in the team.Competitive sports are cruel, and you have to rely on your strength and results to speakSimply reusing the way fans in the entertainment industry "support" artists through data and purchasing power is not really suitable for the competition field.

Unlike the entertainment industry, which has undergone many "clear and bright" cleansings, sports fan circles sometimes get emotional and behave more outrageously than celebrity fan circles: first, the actual win-loss rankings of the games have aggravated the hostility between the fan groups of various athletes, gradually developing into incompatibility; second, "winning glory for the country" is used by some fans as a golden shield to spread the rhetoric, drowning out some questioning voices and discussions.

On the world-renowned stage of the Olympics, many behaviors were exposed and internal disputes among fans were laid bare under the magnifying glass of public opinion.

[2] The Olympics has become a large-scale spillover site for extreme circles, exposing the common characteristics of fan circle culture

After the women's singles table tennis final at the Paris Olympics, the Weibo platform cleaned up more than 12,000 pieces of content containing incitement, malicious attacks and other behaviors in discussions about related events, and punished more than 300 accounts for violations.

The large-scale fan circle culture scene has been completely opened. We can see all the commonalities of the extremist circles in this "foreign war" that should have been a "civil war":

First, serious exclusivity leads to the loss of sportsmanship:

Famous table tennis playersDeng YapingWhen discussing the culture of the Chinese national table tennis fan circle, he said that everyone should just pay attention to the players they like and there is no need to attack others, "because we are all on the Chinese team."

However, the era of the national table tennis team when Deng Yaping created a legend was the 1990s. At that time, the "fan culture" that pursued athletes was integrated with nationalism and statism. In the minds of the public, the overall concept of the country was greater than that of the individual.Today's "fan culture" is an important part of the celebrity economy. They are both consumers of celebrities and producers of content. They consume and admire individuals, and use unified rhetoric to strengthen the sense of belonging and identification with values, which is more exclusive and proprietary.Even if they are fans of the same table tennis player, different fan groups will conflict with each other and even start online wars of words.

At the same time, the highly commercialized competitions and the intuitiveness of on-site popularity in recent years have prompted fans to develop a mentality of "I spend money, I support, and I am justified", and brought this comparative psychology and exclusivity commonly seen in the entertainment industry to the Olympic arena."Where the money is, there is love." Fans who have the concept of exclusivity deeply rooted in their bones rationalize themselves by cheering only for their favorite athletes.This normality was brought to the Olympic arena, and even made them forget that both athletes were fighting for the country, leading to the scene in the final where Chen Meng received "no cheers", creating an extremely harsh and glaring contrast and a loss of sportsmanship.

Explain the one-sided finals by spending money and effort to buy tickets to support your favorite athletes

Secondly, the prevalence of "conspiracy theories" has disrupted the normal ecology of public opinion:

The huge information gap between professional teams and fans, as well as the unwillingness to accept various results, further stimulated the conflict between fan circles and management, causing "conspiracy theories" to become rampant.British sociologist Nephis believes that conspiracy theories are mainly an attempt to expose the "real and hidden" power relations in social groups. In the eyes of fans, the coaching staff is the one in power, and in order to explain why their favorite players are not "re-employed" or lose the game, they take up the weapon of "conspiracy theory" to guess and interpret the intentions and reverse the results - this move further intensifies the contradictions between athletes and fans.

Similar voices have been heard throughout this Olympics, such as the claims that "Chen Meng wore jade to borrow her luck" and "the final was a match-fixing". These conspiracy theories seem ridiculous and undebatable to ordinary passers-by, but they are popular in their respective fan circles and are believed by fans. In the final analysis, it is the high barriers caused by the circle and the need for group stability that lead to the slippery slope fallacy.

Some people use jadeite to borrow luck to explain Chen Meng's victory in the final

In addition, some fans pay attention to the performance of the players who are better than the athletes:

For example, some CP fans pay more attention to the "chemical reaction" formed between athletes. The value of their being in the same frame is even higher than the game itself, so "violent words" often appear, which even affect the athletes themselves.

Some CP fans only care about CP and don't care about table tennis results

As a result, disputes between fans of athletes and coaching staff, between fans of athletes, and between fans of athletes and fans of their CPs continued to arise, gradually turning the national table tennis arena at the Paris Olympics into a battlefield of public opinion. When fans of athlete A and athlete B clash, fans of athlete A may even cry out for injustice: it is not A's fans who are "causing trouble", but A's CP fans who are "causing trouble".

The tangled and tangled relationships and the unbridled hostility have turned the honors won by athletes for the country into weapons for groups to attack each other. These negative effects have greatly reduced the charm of competitive sports.

[3] The Pandora’s box of “fan circles” is difficult to solve. Behind the long-term incurable problem lies the dilemma of embracing marketization

The negative impact of fan culture on the sports world is obvious, but why has it not been cured?

first,Since its inception in Rio in 2016,The ecology of table tennis fans has since established the tone of the "traffic fan circle", which has been explained in the first part of this article.Once a circle is formed from the beginning, it is basically difficult to change. Subsequent development will only gradually iterate on the original version, further imprinted with various attributes similar to the fan clubs of entertainment celebrities.

Secondly,pingpongEmbrace the marketIn the course of its development, the by-product of fan circle has also been promoted.

After the fan circle controversy over the Olympic women's singles final, some people pointed out that all fan circle culture should be restricted, but some commentators also said that fan circleization is based on people's identity projection mechanism, the Internet's aggregation effect, and commercial promotion... Any circle may become fan circleized.

Henhenhong disagrees with criticism of "sports fandom"

In fact, commercial operation is an important means for the development of the sports industry, which can provide athletes with more resources and opportunities and improve the level of the entire sports industry. Table tennis is different from highly commercialized sports such as tennis, football, basketball, etc. It has been restricted by market development for a long time. The rapid development of marketization in recent years, the popularity of the Table Tennis Super League and the WTT series of events, are parallel to the development of the fan economy of table tennis. Fan economy is not a derogatory term, but rather the rhythm of the times. Its advantages are obvious. Athletes breaking the circle will attract more people to pay attention to sports events, which means the possibility of more economic benefits, which is indeed conducive to the overall development of the project.

but,"Fan culture" has become a by-product of this great leap forward, becoming noise outside of commercial operations.

In 2012, the Chinese table tennis team announced the start of its third entrepreneurial journey and included "goals beyond competitive performance" in its development plan. After the 2016 Rio Olympics, with the strong attention brought by the Olympics, the Chinese table tennis team's third entrepreneurial plan began to be implemented. In the plan outline, commercial value and market benefits were repeatedly mentioned, which shows their importance.

Later, with the launch of commercial table tennis IPs (such as WTT), fans had more opportunities to watch the games. The players' participation in social platforms, short videos, and live broadcasts also allowed national table tennis players to appear in the public eye more frequently. Players provide fans with not only game results, but also "emotional value." The development of entertainment "fan circle" culture has been borrowed by sports "fan circles". Athletes will update social media, greet fans at the airport, and receive letters and gifts from fans - just like celebrities in the entertainment industry.

Liu Guoliang, Deng Yaping,Zhang YiningThe outside world knows almost nothing about the life of the national table tennis players, except for their strong competitive strength. Now the life details of every national table tennis player have been accurately grasped by fans.

A strong sense of familiarity brings strong commercial value. The establishment of WTT in 2019 has become a milestone in the professionalization of table tennis. WTT events are frequent and diverse, bringing together Ma Long,Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha,Wang ManyuTickets for top domestic athletes are hard to come by. Ticket prices for national table tennis matches have been rising. The highest ticket price for the 2023 Chengdu ITTF Mixed Team World Cup is 1,099, and the highest ticket price for this year's WTT Chongqing Championship is 1,388, which is comparable to a concert. According to media reports, the ticket prices for some matches can even be hyped up 2 to 3 times in the secondary market.

Note: Fans complain about the high ticket prices

Fan economy is indeed conducive to the commercial development of sports, but the extreme phenomenon of fan circle culture will backfire and cause negative effects. High economic investment will inevitably require fans to have a strong sense of belonging and identity. When daily games and official player interactions cannot meet the needs of fans, bad behaviors in fan circles begin to breed. For example, more frequent follow-up shots and closer videos begin to appear, even affecting the daily lives of players. Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong have both suffered from this.

Figure: Table tennis fans are in chaos offline

The "fan circle" phenomenon has caused great harm to first-line players, and fans have not received real emotional value. Whenever there is controversy in the national table tennis circle, "fan circle culture" will inevitably bear the brunt and become the target. This has caused great dissatisfaction among many table tennis fans, and the fan groups will naturally feel aggrieved by such accusations:"Whenever you have a quarrel, you always blame the fan club. Without the fan club, none of you would earn a penny. You even blame the audience."(Excerpt from social media)

Ultimately, the expansion of the number of groups in any circle and the prominent agglomeration effect may lead to "fan circleization".What should be abandoned is not the fan economy and highly sticky audience groups, but the extremely negative byproducts generated therein, such as invasion of privacy and mutual blackmail.The highly commercialized football and tennis audiences will also have disputes between "Merro" fans, and likes or dislikes between fans of the Big Three, but everything has its limits. Doing harmful things in the name of love and ignoring the fighting spirit and interactive friendship in sports will erase the meaning of loving sports.

Conclusion

Some media have compared fandom and market value to the two sides of a coin. Obviously, it is impossible for the current national table tennis team to quickly make a cut. After a game full of fan controversy, the friendship between teammates has a very limited effect in diluting the discordant voices. The increasingly fierce national table tennis fandom dispute can only be stopped by adding more water to the fire.

After the Paris Women's Singles Final, major media outlets rushed to quote the photo of Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha hugging (Source: Visual China/authorized use)

After all, competitive sports will always be accompanied by the charm of randomness, and no one will always win or lose.

However, collective enthusiasm and support require certainty to achieve stable progress, which has led to a large number of shocking remarks and behaviors. Once the self-operating ecology of the fan circle is exposed on a national stage like the Olympics, it will appear out of place and counterproductive.

Competitive sports should be returned to sports itself. Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha, two excellent athletes, shed their sweat on the field and left no regrets, but suffered different degrees of attacks and surrounded by malicious speculations off the field, which is undoubtedly a pity. In the online and offline public opinion field, whether it is one-sided support for Sun Yingsha during the game, or rebellion after the game and pointing the finger at Sun Yingsha, it is irrational behavior.

Fan Zhendong has repeatedly issued articles to restrain fans and reject fan circle culture

Having opened the Pandora's box of "fan circles", we cannot let them grow recklessly. Whether it is the athletes themselves, such as Fan Zhendong, or the coaches and management, such as Liu Guoliang, they have all provided positive guidance and repeatedly called for keeping the violent fan circles away from sports. Although it is a long journey to inject the spirit of competitive sports into the soul of fan circles. But just like never giving up on the game, the pursuit of rationality and sobriety should never stop.

Some "root causes" are difficult to cure, so curing the "symptoms" is also a good thing. On the road to marketization and commercialization, how to balance the expectations and dissatisfaction of fans, and how to guide the commercialization of table tennis on the right track is a new challenge with urgent time.