Can Sneaker Culture Activate China's Sports Consumption?

In May of this year, the Sneaker Con, the carnival of sports shoes, will land in Shanghai, China.

This is another IP of Endeavor Wei Mei's bringing UFC to China, and again attracted the attention of the industry.

Since it was first held in New York in 2009, Sneaker Con has attracted wide attention from all over the world. The exhibition has been in Hongkong for the first time in August 2017. The organizers invited former NBA famous star Ray Allen, and Qias Omar, Bull1trac and other well-known KOL players to come to the scene. The move was considered to be a test for the Chinese mainland market by the organizers while exploring the Asian market.

Since the resale in 2011, the two level market of China's sports shoes has been expanding rapidly over the past few years. The consumption pattern has also undergone tremendous changes because of the Internet. More and more ordinary people are involved in it. The original niche market is forming a large-scale market, and capital and brand have also poured into this most commercial value field.

Then the question arises. What is the market judgement for the Endeavor Wei Mei introducing the Sneaker Con to Shanghai?

And how will it respond to the market risks of overseas IP localization?

What is the key to the successful operation of sports IP?

With a series of questions, we interviewed Ma Xiaofei, Endeavor Wei Mei CEO.

Beijing Oriental Plaza, which has many top 500 companies in the world and various industries, has many well-known law firms and financial companies, and three of the top four companies are also here.

The latest business information from all over the world is delivered here to guide the market economy.

When we met Ma Xiaofei, we went straight to the theme after a simple greeting.

"The business mode of Sneaker Con is small and light, and it is essentially a second-hand paction between people. The user stickiness is very high."

In his words, this is the new generation of flea market, which is a trading platform for shoes collectors and a platform for the exchange of trend culture.

We are familiar with the business models of traditional offline exhibitions, which are mainly composed of rents, sponsors and ticket receipts.

But if the exhibition scale is small and the participants are few, the investment will be very difficult, so the market value is very limited.

Large scale exhibitions, which cost a lot of money and are replicated in a short time, will become more difficult to form normalization.

Ma Xiaofei evaluated the number of fans of Sneaker Con in terms of quantity, stickiness and participation.

Organizers do not need to worry about inventory problems, they bring their own goods, the exhibition rentals are guaranteed, and the brands of big manufacturers are naturally attracted.

These fans are mainly:

* young children will follow their parents to participate in the fashion culture event.

* heavy fans with purchasing power above 3K-5K;

* middle-aged people with relatively strong economic strength;

Even with the participation of high viscosity fans with purchasing power, the commercial benefits brought by a line are extremely limited. Ma Xiaofei is very clear about expanding the online scale and developing the derivative business of Sneaker Con.

He also wants to influence the online and ultimately drive the paction.

They have made corresponding plans accordingly.

* cooperate with barley, Alipay, Tmall and other platforms to provide a wealth of e-commerce products, including Sneaker Con own products, manufacturers cooperative products, products provided by Sneakerhead, etc.

* invite celebrities who really like the same trend culture and values to participate in the event.

* the development of content involves many dimensions, such as exhibitions, fans, brands, stars, etc.

The reason why Shanghai is chosen again is that the Shanghai municipal government attaches great importance to the top-level design of the sports industry. After the introduction of a series of policy documents on accelerating the development of sports industry and promoting sports consumption, sports culture has become an indispensable cultural symbol and urban imprint in this international metropolis. The two is the market efficiency gained after UFC landing in Shanghai, and it also fully demonstrates the market demand and consumption strength of Shanghai's local people to high-quality overseas IP.

Although early preparations are adequate, but whether Sneaker Con can achieve the expected market results, Ma Xiaofei is also frank about the fact that this exhibition does not have high profit demanding requirements. The key is to test the real value and potential of China's shoes resale market, so as to prepare for the next domestic promotion.

"At most, we earn 200 thousand in one month!"

"It's crazy to spend so much money on a pair of shoes."

"How much is the most expensive pair?

More than 20000, which pair?

Chicago AJ1 OFF WHITE! "

...

NOWRE recently released a sneaker culture documentary, we can see fans' fascination with sneakers collection, and also understand the strong purchasing power of this crowd from the side.

In 2017, Matt Powell, an analyst at NPD Group sports shoes industry, pointed out that the circulation value of the two class market of shoes sales has reached 2 to 500 million US dollars, while the market value of the global sports shoes has exceeded 6 billion US dollars, of which the United States accounts for about 1/5, which is no less than a luxury market.

Over the past year or so, the American shoe resale platform Stadium Goods, StockX and GOAT have been financed:

In September 2018, StockX completed the $44 million B round of financing.

In December 2018, Stadium Goods was bought by Farfetch, a luxury electronic business platform in the UK for $250 million.

In February 2019, Foot Locker invested $100 million in the online shoe trading platform GOAT group.

Not just from capital attention, but also in the field of high-end luxury brands as new growth drivers.

Because the cost of collecting sneakers is not low, there is a partial overlap between the crowd and luxury brand users.

As the basic form of young people's daily wear, sneakers are also an important fashion match, so competing for young consumers around the world is becoming more and more important.

Sports are also a combination of young people and fashion culture. The seemingly small market can also become a key player in the global sports shoes retail market.

More importantly, no region is more capable of displaying the exuberant trading demand than China.

"At present, the main problem in the domestic market is market demand, but there is also a problem of counterfeit goods without sufficient support."

In Ma Xiaofei's view, China's sports shoes resale market is probably 1/4 of the United States, but China's Internet is developed. In the future, there will be much room for growth in the two class market of China's sports shoes.

The "high quality" standard of sports IP

At the end of 2018, UFC announced that it will operate its elite training centre in Shanghai. It will become the world's largest comprehensive combat training and Development Centre, and its Asian headquarters will also be stationed here.

It is worth mentioning that this is also the second elite training center established by UFC after the Las Vegas center, the only one outside the United States.

In addition, it also works with today's headlines, interest headlines and other platforms to achieve content communication, and find fans through various means to connect fans.

Two years after entering China, UFC began to fight for deep fighting industry and achieved a good market effect.

"IP, like UFC and Sneaker Con, is very mature in overseas user groups and business models.

Our position is to directly introduce these foreign advanced and cutting-edge IP to China, reduce the intermediate value of IP value, and make a one-stop service.

Opportunities will also promote China's good IP overseas. "

For what sports IP is high quality or commercial value, Ma Xiaofei, based on years of experience, thinks that there are two factors to refer to: first, the competitive level and the most excellent viewing; second, even if the level is not the most first-class, it has cohesion to local fans.

"Sports IP should at least meet one element, otherwise it will be difficult to make profits."

Just in the past 2018, sports and even the entire entertainment industry were entering the stage of going to foam and deep farming.

The market of capital and advertisers has been tightened, and "pformation" and "taking goods" have also become the high-frequency words of each customer manager's PPT program.

If you want to seek the advertisers' budget simply by IP influence, such a good day is long gone.

"The business of To B will be difficult, but the daily purchase of consumers will certainly continue. From the business logic of to C, the key to sports services is to provide consumers with better product experience."

The high publicity cost and how to enhance the user's participation experience are the difficulties of sports IP operation in Ma Xiaofei's view.

At the same time, we should compete with other competitions, movies, TV dramas, games and other products to compete for users' time.

Compared with entertainment products, sports pay more attention to offline user experience, and provide detailed and omnidirectional service in the process of user watching for several hours. This is the core element to retain users.

It is understood that Sneaker Con is also a strategic cooperation IP of Endeavor Wei Mei. For this reason, Ma Xiaofei further explained: "what we have introduced to China is a fairly long cycle of IP, which will not be a short-term commercial activity.

Our goal is to serve products well and do fine products on the basis of ramming products.

"This opportunity is very rare. IMG's brand history and influence often make me feel like walking on thin ice."

How to make the business of the international sports entertainment giant "Chinese characteristics" is a question Ma Xiaofei has been considering.

In 2016, Endeavor Wei Mei was invested in Sequoia Capital, Tencent, Focus Media and Fangyuan capital, and began to undertake the global resources of the group, and actively introduced into China to promote the all-round development of sports and entertainment in the Chinese market.

At present, domestic sports vertical field, Internet platform type companies are all outstanding, but cross boundary types of excellent companies are few.

"When our sports, entertainment, lifestyle three pieces of business can work together to feed each other, this will be of great market value."

Although the characteristics of China's sports users and entertainment users are different, the trend of future development will surely develop towards a market environment where sports and entertainment are integrated.

"Sports entertainment is not" entertainment to death ", but positive, very upward.

Ma Xiaofei also said that the introduction of these best overseas IP is also hoped that all employees can learn and communicate with the most professional professionals overseas in the actual implementation of these projects, broaden their horizons, improve their professional capabilities and find more market opportunities in China.

"I think this kind of communication can really develop and improve the level of the sports industry. I hope every member of our staff can become a leader in the industry."

After the interview, Ma Xiaofei quickly entered the next job. He also said that he was busy at work and had no chance to play golf until now. After all, in the eyes of the industry, this is a sports company started with golf.

Before leaving, the staff did not forget to tell us that three thousand tickets for the exhibition were sold out quickly. It seems that the first Sneaker Con coming to China is coming to a perfect appearance.

Nowadays, the opening and rapid development of China's sports industry, the strength of business is gradually integrating sports culture from the competitive level into people's daily life. The successful experience of European and American sports market also tells us that the success of sports business can not be separated from the accumulation of time and the accumulation of culture.

With the development of the culture of sneakers, Tom Chung, a senior "shoe toe", said: "it doesn't mean that you wear tide cards or tide shoes. It's just a way of life. It's just a way of life, which tells you to learn to live your life well instead of just buying it back."