Frisbee, flag rugby, paddle tennis accelerated "breaking the circle" ——
Niche sports, stand on the new "window" of consumption?
□ Our reporter Shen Jiaxuan
Since last year, Frisbee, which has frequently appeared in various variety shows, has been successfully "out of the circle".
No one would have thought that this sport, which was born in the 1940s, has "turned" a market size of more than 85 million yuan in China, and is still booming at a considerable growth rate.
Represented by Frisbee, a series of niche sports such as flag rugby, paddle tennis, and paddle board are rapidly becoming a new force in outdoor consumption.
However, under the lively arena, is the still deserted industrial "track".
People in the industry generally believe that the "small but beautiful" business of niche sports has only taken the first step of exploration.
Young people fall in love with the green field
"Look at me, look at me, pass here!" "Don't worry, be careful to the right!" "Good game! Pass beautifully!" At 9:30 p.m. on June 30, on the football field of Nanjing Tiilibo Sports Park, a fierce game The frisbee game is being played.
Under the dazzling searchlight, the two teams of men and horses in blue and orange uniforms quickly organized offense and defense, running, jumping, and flying, just to accurately fly the Frisbee in their hands to their teammates, and finally to the score line.
After nearly an hour of the game, Qiu Xin was soaked with sweat and gulps water on the sidelines.
In April of this year, she got her first exposure to Frisbee and has since become an "enthusiast" of the sport.
"I watched others play when I was studying abroad before, and after returning to China, I was recommended by a friend to 'get into the pit'. To be honest, it was really tiring to play, but it was really addicting." Qiu Xin told reporters that now she has at least "flying" every week. "Last time.
The Mobius Nanjing Frisbee Club, which was established on March 30 this year, attracted 2,500 members in just three months. The growth rate made the club founder Chen Zixiang say "I didn't expect it".
"Now there are 6 WeChat groups alone, and there are 3 to 4 events per week. It is often hard to get a ticket, and almost every venue is full. The one with the most people came to nearly 150 people, and the three venues we contracted were almost full. not enough."
The excitement on the green field is not just for Frisbee.
Hang two colored flags around the waist, and use the flag of the other side to replace the collision and confrontation. The game is similar to the flag football of American football; the paddle tennis is replaced by a hard racket; the net pocket on the club is used to catch and dribble the ball , Lacrosse with a goal... The unheard of sports consumption in the past now occupies half of the sports field.
On the Xiaohongshu platform, which can better reflect the consumption trends of young people, the "Top Ten Life Trends for 2022" released this year shows that the search volume for "frisbee" has increased by about 24 times compared with the same period last year.
Searching with the keyword "Flag Rugby", you can see more than 20,000 shared notes, and the number of notes released in March this year ushered in an explosive growth.
Not only that, young people are no longer satisfied with activities only on land, and their enthusiasm for sports is extending to the water: stepping on a board and holding a paddle, they can not only chase the speed, but also float on the water without moving. Board sports are quietly becoming the "new favorite" of summer.
Data consulting firm Technavio predicts that from 2021 to 2025, the global stand-up paddle board market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 6% to reach US$108 million, while the domestic paddle board market has an average annual compound growth rate of 11.9%. .
Community economy makes the minority not "small"
"Low technical threshold", "low equipment requirements", "experience price close to the people" and "good exercise effect" are the evaluations of the majority of participants in the interview on niche sports.
What cannot be ignored is that the sudden popularity of this type of movement is behind the social fission created by the platform, which is a kind of social economy created by users with common interests, cognition, and values. Intangible relationship groups.
Mr. Bian, who has played American football for eight years, is one of the founders of the Nanjing Bulldogs football team, which now has 1,300 members.
"In April this year, the NFL, the world's largest professional rugby league, entered Chinese social media for the first time and cooperated with Xiaohongshu to promote flag football. Since then, our club has also received traffic support from the platform." Mr. Bian told reporters , the proportion of members joining the community through online channels is now very high.
"The main reason for the popularity of emerging trend sports is that these activities can not only meet the offline entertainment needs of urban youth, but also have social attributes." In the words of Feng Rao, president of the Mafengwo Tourism Research Institute, the activities are small and cool. It also greatly satisfies young people's desire to share, and their shared content on social platforms can attract more users to pay attention to these niche sports and participate in them.
The successful creation of the community enables participants to find companions with the same life philosophy and attitude, and enables them to voluntarily pay for experiential consumption with a strong "sense of belonging".
Therefore, the labels of "dare to try new things" and "young and cool", these labels of most members of the outdoor sports community, also attracted the attention of brands with high matching degree.
After the frisbee sports came out of the circle, the frisbee, as the main equipment of this sport, attracted many sellers to put it into production.
At present, the common Frisbee with the top sales on the Internet is generally priced at 40 yuan to 100 yuan, and the highest monthly sales volume is 4,000 pieces.
At the same time, multi-brand co-branded Frisbees and digital collections of Frisbees are also extremely popular. For example, luxury brand Chanel has launched a "senior Frisbee" with its brand logo, which sells for tens of thousands of yuan.
With the increase in popularity, many well-known brands have also entered the game.
For example, Decathlon, the leading sports brand, has set up a special Frisbee display area in many stores, and emerging sports brands such as Salomon, lululemon, and Hoka have also heard the news, and items that cost thousands of yuan have become the standard outfit for sports people.
The reporter noticed that in order to improve consumers' sense of ritual and participation, many niche sports clubs have also introduced proxy shooting business, and "production" has become a major selling point of the club.
When "sports + beautiful photos" becomes a new trend, it conveys the concept of healthy and beautiful life, which not only attracts more people to join niche sports, but also promotes the development of the industrial chain of clothing shopping and sports photography.
In the blue ocean of the market, how do you read "Business Economics"?
Although it has become popular and the popularity of the public is increasing day by day, from the current point of view, there is still an embarrassing reality in the niche movement - it does not make money.
It is a common consensus problem in the industry to applaud or not.
Taking the most popular Frisbee as an example, Chen Zixiang calculated an account for the reporter: in the first month of the club's establishment, it adopted the method of evenly sharing the venue fee, and the club and the coach did not charge additional fees.
After the curriculum is systematized, a Frisbee game with a scale of about 50 people costs 45 yuan per person, including the venue reservation, novice training, free drinking of mineral water, photography, etc., and then the cost of class hours for the coach and the loss of equipment. Now the club It is basically able to break even, and the profit margin is minimal.
In his words, running a club is still "generating electricity with love", and this statement has also been confirmed by other niche sports clubs.
From the manufacturing point of view, the imbalance between supply and demand is very prominent.
Taking flag rugby as an example, players need to wear gloves and professional rugby shoes during the game. However, on mainstream e-commerce platforms, there are very few brands of rugby equipment, mainly foreign brands such as Nike and Under Armour. The price of shoes is about 800-1000 yuan, and the price of a pair of gloves is also as high as 400 yuan.
"Imported equipment is expensive because there are few domestic corporate brands involved in rugby equipment, and everyone is still waiting to see the market size." Mr. Bian revealed to reporters that he once proposed to cooperate with a sports goods manufacturer to produce rugby crash pants, and the other party Euphemistically refused: "I spent a lot of money to invest in a production line. It is estimated that the output produced in one week will not be sold nationwide for a year."
Compared with rugby equipment, although the manufacturing threshold of Frisbee is low, it still has not jumped out of the stage of small profits but quick turnover, and the profit point is too single.
Some professionals said that although the number of participants in Frisbee sports has skyrocketed, the market has not given birth to more new brands of Frisbee equipment, unless Frisbee can "fly" a new profit model.
"Although the popularity of niche sports is high, the industry-driven value is too small, and it is still a long way to develop into an industrial and national sports." Zhang Yi, chief analyst of iiMedia Research, believes.
Standing at the crossroads of commercialization, how does the niche movement do a "small but beautiful" business in the boom?
Enthusiasts believe that further normalizing sports and maximizing the professionalism of sports are the core of making this sport go further.
"The club should strive to make the popular players interested and normalized, make the senior players professional and professional, and finally form a competition, and promote the diversification of the niche sports and sports business." Chen Zixiang said that in addition to entertainment promotion, the club is currently working hard Build the Mobius Skyline Ultimate Frisbee Team, focus on professional competitive training, improve the team's qualifications for playing games and training, and allow more capable participants to enter the niche sports competition field.