Why is ＂Su Chao＂ on fire？
Beijing News Media Research
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Wen | Hu Wei (Beijing News Media Research Institute)
During the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, when the whole country was immersed in the traditional atmosphere of dragon boat race, a football match from Jiangsu unexpectedly seized the center of online topic.
Jiangsu City Football League, a provincial-level tournament affectionately called "Su Chao" by netizens, has swept the national public opinion field with the potential of starting a prairie fire since it started on May 10th, 2025.
Screenshot of CCTV and People’s Daily related reports
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Phenomenon-level whole network carnival
The popularity of "Su Chao" has gone beyond the scope of an ordinary sports event and evolved into a cultural phenomenon in which all people participate, and its popularity is reflected in many dimensions.
Social media dominated the list: "No match-fixing is all a feud", a hot search word, continued to dominate the social platform and became the most accurate footnote of Su Chao. On the Tik Tok platform, the number of # Jiangsu City League # topics played exceeded 910 million times, creating a rare topic fever in provincial competitions. In order to meet the needs of users, Hupu App urgently added the "Jiangsu Lian" channel, and the number of visitors on the first day of its launch exceeded one million … All these data show that "Su Chao" became an instant hit and became a phenomenal explosive sports IP.
On-the-spot watching craze: The average number of spectators in the second round of "Su Chao" League reached 9,852, exceeding the number of spectators in League A in the same period. The third round of the competition was even hotter: the "Chu-Han dispute" held by Xuzhou Olympic Sports Center, that is, the audience of Xuzhou and Suqian reached 22,198; In the focus battle between Nanjing and Wuxi at Wutaishan Stadium in Nanjing, 13,000 seats were invoiced every second, and 15,669 people actually showed up, setting a record for the stadium’s attendance for many years. A senior Nanjing fan said frankly: "Tickets for the Jay Chou concert are not so hard to grab!" .
It is worth noting that the amazing spread speed of "Su Chao"-from the silent start to the hot discussion on the whole network, "Su Chao" only took less than 20 days, and its popularity even surpassed that of the Champions League final held in the same period. The netizen joked: "This is the top five leagues in the world this year, and the Bundesliga has a corresponding population of 84 million, while Jiangsu has a population of 85.26 million."
On the Internet, around "Su Chao", it has evolved into a unique "Stalk-making Competition": "Competition first, friendship fourteenth" replaces the traditional slogan of sports spirit; The ridicule mapping of "Changzhou changed from hanging state to towel state" Changzhou team lost in a row; The contest between Nantong and Nanjing was dubbed the "Battle of South Colombia"; The competition between Xuzhou and Suqian is a "Chu-Han hegemony" that spans thousands of years; "salted duck VS peach" describes the battle of Wuxi, Nanjing; "Winning the morning tea, losing the test paper" teased Taizhou Nantong confrontation.
Jiangsu’s unique geographical, economic and cultural characteristics have created a "race against each other" between cities, which is now projected into a series of football matches. This emotional resonance not only strengthens the city’s sense of identity, but also enhances the city’s cohesion. These stalks quickly broke through the football circle and turned into a "stalk-making movement" for the whole people to participate in, forming a decentralized content ecology, and even the official participated.
Official Whole Work from Nanjing Publishing and People’s Daily
Not only online, but also offline, the "Stalk-making Competition" was launched enthusiastically:
This phenomenal spread indicates that "Su Chao" has evolved from a simple sports event to a cultural symbol and social phenomenon.
02
Why is "Su Chao" on fire?
The success of "Su Chao" is not accidental. It is not only a successful communication example, but more importantly, the innovative competition design and operation mode behind it. "Su Chao" is not only a sports event, but also a carrier and media of urban interaction, bringing new ideas and methods to urban marketing.
Bundle design of literature and travel
"Su Chao" is not only a football match, but also a three-dimensional display of the city image. Cities skillfully use the competition platform to connect culture, tourism, consumption and other fields in series, forming an innovative "competition+cultural tourism" integration model, turning the arena into a cultural performance stage.
According to Wang Xiaowan, vice chairman of Jiangsu Football Association and secretary of the Party branch, "The propaganda resources and cultural tourism resources in various places have also been fully mobilized. Sports events set up a stage and sang in the economy, and consumption was driven by the economy of the event. "
Various places have launched cultural travel packages, which has formed a differentiated attraction and transformed the "gunpowder smell" on the stadium into the "fireworks smell" of the consumption scene. For example, Changzhou launched the "9.9 yuan Ball Ticket+Dried Radish Fried Rice" package, and thousands of tickets on the line were robbed in 3 minutes, driving the sales of specialty products to double; Yangzhou’s home midfield turned into an "intangible exhibition", and the number of night tours in Xijindu, Zhenjiang increased by three times; The live broadcast of "Yunyou Yuantouzhu" by Wuxi team realized the closed loop of watching the game, tourism and consumption drainage, which provided new kinetic energy for urban development.
Break the threshold of national party
Another major innovation of "Su Chao" is to completely break the boundaries between professional and amateur, emphasizing the participation of the whole people, and the teams of each city are composed of multiple forces. According to statistics, a total of 516 people qualified for the competition, including 29 professional players (including 3 college students and 1 senior high school student) and 337 amateur players from all walks of life, the oldest being 40 and the youngest being 16.
In order to ensure fairness, the tournament innovatively regards professional players as "foreign aid", and each team is limited to three people, or it is necessary to meet the localization requirement of "studying in the local area for more than five years". This design of the competition not only ensures the competition level, but also maintains the grassroots attribute, and truly achieves the national party.
Sense of participation in public life
In addition to economic benefits, the phenomenon of "Su Chao" also has rich social value. In the era of material abundance but spiritual needs trapped in the "information cocoon room", people are eager for a real and sensible sense of participation in public life, and such activities are becoming an important carrier to resolve social anxiety and rebuild interpersonal connections.
Niu Fengrui, an urban research expert and president of the Small and Medium-sized Cities Research Institute, said in an interview with the media that with the development of economy and the improvement of people’s living standards, people’s demand for leisure life, including recreation, sports, tourism and leisure, is increasing, and the demand is becoming more and more diversified. The holding of "Su Chao" not only enriched people’s needs, but also greatly increased people’s participation in sports.
03
How to "grow red"
With the deepening of the Games and the unprecedented popularity, "Su Chao" is also facing the challenge from phenomenal level to sustainable development. The heat will eventually fall back. In order to avoid "a flash in the pan", the event needs to build long-term value.
Avoid homogenization of cultural symbols
At present, most of the stem cultures focus on food or historical labels, such as Huaiyang cuisine and hegemony between Chu and Han, etc., and regional cultures can be further explored, especially minority non-heritages, such as Suzhou silk reeling and Nantong blue printed cloth, in order to enhance differentiation.
Balancing Business and Grassroots Nature
At present, the ticket prices of sports events are generally maintained at the position of "5-10 yuan", but we should also be wary of scalping. Excessive premium of second-hand tickets will damage the whole people, so it is necessary to establish a more perfect ticketing mechanism to protect the rights and interests of real fans.
Extend IP life cycle
We can consider linking the "Su Chao" League with the development of professional football,Help the construction of local football echelon, such as Wang Xiaowan’s expectation, and build the event into a platform with "access on the top and entrance on the bottom".
In addition, we can try the modes of IP authorization and city endorsement, such as developing the peripheral products of "Thirteen Pacific Insurance" to turn traffic into sustainable consumption power. During the competition, the "City Football Cloud Exhibition Hall" can also be developed to maintain the heat; Promote the linkage with the Yangtze River Delta Cultural Tourism Festival and expand the scope of radiation.
Although it still faces challenges, the pioneering exploration of "Su Chao", which makes football return to football and sports connect with life, is precious enough. It proves that the real sports culture will always grow in real, fresh and full of vitality.
Proofreading | Liu Baoqing
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