By Carl Zhang Edith Mao
It was not quite the American Super Bowl but it was a big moment nonetheless.
In the middle of last month, as two amateur football teams from two small cities in eastern China took to the field, a fleet of light aircraft flew over the stadium.
The fly-past at the Yangzhou Sports Park Stadium was testament to the popularity of the competition the two teams were playing in, the Jiangsu City Football League – also known as the Su Super League.
The league, which is in its first season, pits 13 teams of amateurs from various cities in Jiangsu province against each other in six home and six away matches, with the top eight teams on points entering the knockout stage starting in October.
The players on the teams are diverse, with everyone from teens to farmers and middle-aged weekend warriors lining up for the matches.
Since the league’s first game in May, millions of viewers have tuned in online and tens of thousands of fans have gone to stadiums, attracted by the local nature of the event.
So much so that fans petitioned the military’s Eastern Theatre Command to send fighter jets over the stadium for the final in November.
However, the defence ministry does not seem to be entertaining the idea.
“The ‘Su League’ is very popular these days, and the fans are very patriotic,” ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said last month when asked about the possibility.
As it enters its sixth round this weekend, the league is attracting an average of 25,000 spectators to each game, with many travelling from other parts of the country to attend, according to provincial authorities.
The league is organised as a commercial event by Jiangsu’s sports bureau as well as the governments of the cities represented in the competition.
The local rivalries and enthusiasm of the players have made the league a sensation in a country where the men’s national squad has been a continued disappointment. Despite massive government investment, the men’s team has fallen from 81 in the world rankings in 2016 to 94 this year.
“This is our game, our men,” said Wang Haotao, 34, a Su League fan from Suzhou in Jiangsu. “They try their best in every round. That’s what the national men’s team cannot compare to.”
“The players, students, deliverymen and programmers … they are all brave, which gives me hope that China can have good athletes and quality games.”
Wang said that part of the appeal of the league was the chance to share a common local culture.
“We make fun of each other with rival cities in the game. We exchange quips and jokes, as we are familiar with the local culture. It’s great entertainment and an escape from the stress of real life, from the poor job prospects to the tariff war with the US.”
Similar scenes played out in the southwestern province of Guizhou, where players and fans turned out in force for the third Village Super League tournament in the small city of Rongjiang in January.
The tournament attracted more than a hundred teams to see amateurs put in some remarkable performances.
The Rongjiang county government said in May that the village tournament had generated billions of yuan in tourism revenue over the past two years.
Meanwhile in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the small city of Zhuji is home to “Village BA”, a hugely popular community tournament that brought more than 320 teams together for about 820 matches over a number of months.
Liao Yansong, a student studying new media at Neijiang Normal University in Sichuan province, is a big fan of the league and has helped to organise live broadcasts of the Village BA games in the township of Chaoyang.
He said he became involved in broadcasting the games to other platforms so fans could watch online.
“Grass-roots sports leagues can bring the public closer to sports,” Liao said. “The emergence of grass-roots basketball and football shows the effectiveness of the national fitness drive.”
China has issued national fitness guidelines every five years since the 1990s in a bid to improve public health and expand the base for competitive sport. Under the 2021-2025 guideline, more than 2,000 public sports venues were added or expanded around the nation, official data showed.
Liao said the popularity of the local leagues was also a result of greater access to online broadcast technology.
“The current online live broadcast and short video transmission speed is fast, and the operation threshold is low, giving these leagues the perfect conditions to gain popularity,” he said.
Migu is one online platform in the game, distributing Su League matches to the growing fan base.
Fred Ren, from Migu’s marketing department, said that in some cases, the local matches were more popular than established global competitions.
“Recently, the Su League traffic on Migu even exceeded that of the Fifa Club World Cup being held at the same time,” Ren said. “It’s quite impressive for an amateur league.”
“The audiences are not mainly enjoying football, but actually enjoying the emotional value provided by entertainment. Many people regard it as a fresh way to entertain on weekends,” he said.
Yonghui Yu, associate professor at the school of physical education and sports science at South China Normal University, said the local leagues gave fans a connection to their immediate communities.
“The fans are pursuing some quality time after work, and the grass-roots games make them feel more relevant compared with those formal games,” Yu said.
The matches were also a welcome lift for local economies.
“Sport drives growth across most service industries. Take the matches themselves – they involve live broadcasting, online ticket platforms, and spin-off benefits from branding. When fans travel here for games, they boost local transport, restaurants, accommodation, and tourism,” Yu added.
Qi Zhang, associate professor of economics at Shanghai University of Sport, said the low ticket prices for the matches contributed to the popularity of local leagues but it was not always certain who would take to the field.
“There’s no guarantee in China that the amateur players can have the time to play regularly,” Zhang said, adding that it was common for employees to have to work on the weekend.
Liu Dongfeng, another professor from Shanghai University of Sport, said that hopefully the popularity of the smaller leagues would encourage the government to let non-government organisers play a bigger role in sport.
“The resources for sport, such as … the screening of players and use of venues, is mainly controlled by the government. Hopefully the government can allow society and the market to play a bigger role to unleash the magic of sports,” Liu said.