SPORTS Sports System
Wild Olympians China’s new generation of elite athletes are more willing to fight for the right to their own commercial income By Sun Zhe
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hen Sun Yang found his image on the bottle of a three-yuan (US$0.45) beverage, the Olympic swimmer chose to break his silence, just after breaking the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle world record at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai this July. At the end of August on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter where Sun has 760,000 followers, the 20-year-old world champion voiced his resentment at the national swimming team’s management, which had sold his image to a sponsor behind his back. Earlier, team officials coaxed him to Beijing from his training camp in Hangzhou, on the pretence that he would be met by top government leaders, which Sun later found to be a lie. The event turned out to be a contract-inking ceremony with the beverage producer, where he was met only by soft drink bottles featuring his own image, according to his post on Weibo. To his great frustration, Sun had previously been banned by the team management from signing any commercial contracts with sponsors on his own, on the grounds that too many commercial commitments would distract him from his training in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. The Beijing trip arranged by the team, however, had cost him two days of training, or 30 kilometers in the pool. Without a nod from the team’s management, Sun could not even talk to the media. (They may now regret not having also banned him from microblogging websites.) “I just want to fight for the right not to be treated like a fool,” said Sun in his Weibo post. While the management would struggle
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to justify the Beijing ruse, they hold fast to their assertion that Sun holds no claim over the use of his own image. “The athletes’ intangible assets belong to the State,” said Shang Xiutang, deputy director of the national swimming team, as quoted by the Xinhua news agency in response to Sun Yang’s outburst. “The training of athletes is funded by the State, so they have a responsibility to repay the country when they become successful, and the team alone knows what is best for them,” Shang said. While participating in State-funded sports teams at the provincial level or below, all athletes must sign a contract to transfer their image rights to their team. Despite a lack of any official regulations, many of the national teams, including the swimming team, take it for granted that they have the same power over the images of the athletes under their supervision. China’s national sports system, consisting of government bureaus, academies and teams at various levels and with mountainous resources at its disposal, oversees the training of about 370,000 juniors and more than 46,000 full-time athletes in State-funded sports teams at the provincial level and above. Atop this pyramid are the national teams, whose goal is to snatch as many medals as possible at international sports events. Shang’s tone is not unfamiliar among the country’s sports officials, who tend to be of the opinion that State-trained athletes owe themselves, body and soul, to the country.
Country First
Last year, a deputy director of the General Administration of Sport, China’s highest sports authority, criticized Zhou Yang, a
“The training of athletes is funded by the State, so they have a responsibility to repay the country when they become successful, and the team alone knows what is best for them.”
20-year-old female speed skater, for thanking her parents first before expressing gratitude to the country after she won gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics. However, mere verbal gratitude is by no means sufficient to repay the country’s benevolence, and athletes are regularly used as moneymaking tools for the national teams, as Sun Yang’s ordeal shows. It is loathsome that the national swimming team should try to make money by exploiting Sun Yang’s fame, said Yan Qiang, a sports commentator, in an article for NewsChina. In 2001, the country’s sports administration laid down the rule that athletes had to hand over half of their commercial income (mostly derived from advertising deals) to their respective national teams and sports federations. Tian Liang, a former diving star, was kicked out of the national diving team and forced to retire after he challenged the system and refused to hand over the required percentage of his commercial income. In reality, few athletes ever see even their half of their commercial income – national team management personnel, who, acNEWSCHINA I November 2011
9/23/11 4:20 PM