Not yet mobilized all resources to develop sports

The sports economy in many developed countries is a massive machine, linked to many other service production industries, creating jobs, profits, income, contributing significant taxes to the national budget and creating positive social values. This is also the trend that Vietnamese sports managers are researching and learning.

Developing the sports industry and sports economy in Vietnam is the main topic of the Vietnam Sports Economic Forum 2023 organized by the General Department of Sports and Physical Training, the Central Economic Committee, the Vietnam Olympic Committee and Vietcontent Company. Three discussion sessions were conducted by prestigious managers and speakers at home and abroad. Slices of issues in sports economics were suggested and discussed based on sports policy mechanisms, the current state of Vietnamese sports and experiences and successful lessons from sports economic models in countries around the world.

Need mechanisms and policies for sports economic development

"Vietnamese sports have developed strongly in recent times, but have not yet mobilized all resources for sustainable sports development, especially towards major arenas such as ASIAD and the Olympics," said Mr. Dang Ha Viet, Director General of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training.

Mr. Dang Ha Viet and speakers at the Vietnam Sports Economic Forum 2023

Difficulties in infrastructure are a common problem in the development of Vietnamese sports. This is not only a professional barrier but also has an impact on the economic aspect. One typical example is football, when most of Vietnam's professional football teams do not have their own stadiums, so they cannot fully exploit their sources of income.

"The biggest bottleneck is the policy mechanisms related to infrastructure. In developed countries, when planning residential areas, there is always sports land, to be used for sports business activities, and there is a place for people to practice sports.

Professional clubs without stadiums and facilities will never be able to develop sports business, because the revenue from stadiums is huge. The problem of developing sports facilities is currently very complicated, this is the biggest bottleneck, " Mr. Dang Ha Viet analyzed.

For the sports economy, especially the revenue from selling products is the tournaments. Television copyright, advertising, sponsorship... are the numbers that create the value of the tournament. In Vietnam, only a few tournaments are "saleable". The main reason lies in the low attractiveness of the tournaments.

"The issue of entertainment and attracting viewers is currently not invested in and lacks the attention of the organizers themselves, so the revenue from tournaments is almost non-existent. We can see that the issue of tournaments and television copyrights is very valuable. Therefore, tournaments in Vietnam must discuss what we need to sell from the tournament ," said the General Director of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training.

Audience engagement is key

Participating in the Vietnam Sports Economics Forum, Mr. Tran Chu Sa - Executive Director of the Vietnam Professional Basketball League (VBA) expressed his views from the perspective of the organizer. VBA is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in Vietnam at present.

"If we talk about sports economics, we cannot fail to mention the audience because they are the main consumers of sports content and activities," Mr. Tran Chu Sa emphasized.

Mr. Tran Chu Sa - Executive Director of Vietnam Professional Basketball League (VBA)

According to this expert, organizers must always pay attention to the issue of expanding their customer base and retaining them - which is to build and maintain the tournament's appeal to fans. For VBA, Mr. Tran Chu Sa and his colleagues outlined a 5-step roadmap with the ultimate goal of making fans love and stick with basketball in general and the tournament in particular.

"Each step has its own difficulties. Four to five years ago, the conversion rate was about 25% compared to the market. Up to now, this rate has increased from 0.5 to 2%. The goal in the next few years is to increase this conversion rate to 6 to 7%, so the potential is still very large. However, there are many obstacles that we need to overcome," said Mr. Tran Chu Sa.

The challenge of building a general audience is the first step that sports organizers need to overcome. Sports target young audiences, and these customers will always change their behavior and the platforms they use to consume sports content as well as entertainment in general. Therefore, organizers must also constantly grasp the trends and make appropriate adjustments.

The third barrier is basic knowledge. Although professional basketball has been present in Vietnam for more than 10 years, the popularity and complexity of the regulations for playing and watching this sport are still limited. Therefore, the organizing units must continuously build new content, increase the entertainment in this content to make it easier to reach the audience.

"In general, tournaments not only compete with each other in terms of expertise, audience and popularity, competing with international tournaments, but we also have to compete with other very good entertainment content, easily accessible to young people such as music, movies, cuisine, shopping as well as e-sports games," Mr. Tran Chu Sa concluded.

Minh Anh

Useful
Emotion
Creative
Unique

Source: https://vtc.vn/ong-dang-ha-viet-chua-huy-dong-duoc-het-nguon-luc-de-phat-trien-the-thao-ar797928.html