Tips for success in the Asian sports market
Considering fan behaviours when designing digital products
Asia is seen as a fast growing regional market for European and north American sports media, leagues, and clubs, many of which are doing ever more to try to extend their reach here. There are already many fans in Asia who are keen followers of western leagues.
Asia’s booming technology and high internet penetration rates are significant forces in this growth, the result of which has been more competition in the ‘sports market’ than ever before.
In order to succeed here, and given the strong competition, it is important that organisations and companies first acknowledge the differences between Asian audiences; this also entails taking a wide view of each culture and its history within sports, as well as each place’s digital landscape. This may seem an obvious stance but is often overlooked.
In the past few years at Ostmodern, our research team has studied various sports fan bases in Asia. We’ve decided to share some of our learnings, as a window into how we’ve used insights to help our clients.
We are often asked by western sports-media clients about how to approach Asia. We always advise avoiding a common mistake: underestimating the significant diversity in any one country (China is a clear example) and attempting to build a one-size-fits-all product for a number of countries, overlooking the cultural differences between them. It’s a number of markets, not just one.
China’s sizeable differences
With its position at the forefront of innovation in several fields of technology and with the world’s largest population and extensive geography, it is nearly a truism that there is a large disparity in digital habits in China.
There are several basic facts to keep in mind when developing digital sports products for China. This includes remembering that:
- Digital sport consumption is often determined by ease of access to urban areas. This is because of wealth being concentrated in the cities, with reduced internet access and slower speeds in rural areas. China’s 613 cities are even divided into four tiers — although these tiers are disputed and not officially sanctioned. There is a huge variance between urban and rural China, as well as between the cities themselves.
- Social media has become central in connecting different Chinese regions. Younger generations across China use social platforms such as WeChat every day. For sports fans specifically, this provides access to short video content (eg highlights, behind the scenes). Communities also benefit from international connections, engaging with content that would generally only exist in English. This is why NBA’s partnership with Tencent (owners of WeChat) has been very successful: besides enabling nation-wide communication and content translation, this partnership also had an impact on Chinese digital habits such as the use of QR codes to make contactless payments and discover more content.
- Many young people often want to participate in sport, yet don’t always have the means or facilities available to them. According to Nielsen, China’s under-30-year-olds are more likely to be interested in international sports brands and are more accepting of sports advertising. China’s shifting media landscape and changes in consumer habits — notably a huge focus on social media communication — are crucial in understanding the Chinese sports fan and thriving in this complicated and increasingly competitive market.
- Despite the pitfall I mentioned above, the behaviours of Chinese audiences are very influential to their neighbours, for example Singapore, which has this decade been voted ‘the world’s best sports city’ due to its investment in sports infrastructure. China’s enthusiasm for the NBA is spreading to other South East Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, as the league now has greater distribution in the area than ever before and even works with local governments in running basketball workshops for children.
Japan’s sporting hospitality
Japan has a history of hosting large sporting events. In the next three years, it will host three of the biggest world competitions in sport: the 2019 Rugby World Cup, The 2020 Summer Olympics, and the 2021 World Masters Games.
This has made sportswear companies such as ASICS and Mizuno look at opportunities to drive further growth and become more active in developing sports facilities to lower participation barriers. Here are a few points to be aware of when trying to appeal to a Japanese audience:
- Japan has a disparate use of devices partly due to an ageing population, which greatly influences adoption patterns. 87% of people in their 20s prefer internet access via smartphone, yet only 37.2% of over-60s use smartphones.
- Overall, Japanese people aren’t as active on social media networks when compared to the populations of other Asian countries, even though internet penetration rates in Japan are among the highest. Compared to Taiwan, for example, whose share of social media users has reached 89%, Japan’s user percentage is at 61%. There is reason to believe this will change in the near future: the number of active users on Instagram has seen exponential growth and has recently surpassed Facebook. LINE remains the dominant communication and messaging app with over 60% of the total population using it.
- Unlike in China, QR codes are not really used for payment. Cashless payments are actually quite rare and most transactions involve cash, thanks to the prevalence of ATMs. This is a particular issue that’s being addressed in preparation for the 2021 Olympics, in order to accommodate people from around the world. An increasing number of Chinese tourists in the past few years have reported on problems with not being able to pay with cards — China is making strides to become the first cashless society, but the trend is only just beginning in Japan.
- Watching sports is a consistently popular activity in Japan, with baseball and figure skating being the most watched on TV, and baseball and football the favourites to watch live at a venue. Recently, Japanese professional tennis player Naomi Osaka achieved worldwide popularity, after having won the US Open and defeating 23-time major champion Serena Williams in the final. As the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam singles tournament, Osaka has become a symbol of pride in the country, and features in many brand advertisements. Tennis is also among Japan’s favourite sports, and has a prominent place in Japanese culture since its arrival in 1878.
Singapore’s online savviness
South East Asian (SEA) countries are reporting considerably higher rates of smartphone video viewing than any other country. For example, 67% of people in Singapore watch video on their mobile whereas that number falls to 40% in the UK.
The reason behind this is that the widespread growth of internet use in South East Asia took place with the launch of smartphones. When many people in these countries started going online in large numbers in 2007, the first smartphone and Facebook had already emerged. With only limited desktop internet use before 2007 in South East Asia, many people’s regular use of the internet took place on mobile — their behaviours on smartphones are more sophisticated than any other user base in the world.
As part of a recent project, we researched fans’ behaviours in Singapore. Here are five facts on how they consume sports within their digital landscape:
- Widespread coverage of football and other sports, as well as access to UK sources for information and viewing, have set very high standards for live sports broadcasts in Singapore. Fans watch live content through UK sources, and expect broadcasts and feeds to be fast at delivering information, without detracting from their viewing experience.
- Singaporeans are proud of how their economy compares to their geographical neighbours, but are sensitive to the disparities in pricing in their digital ecosystem. We interviewed fans that had no problem paying more for sports media services than their neighbours (Malaysia, Indonesia); however, they referred to certain companies taking advantage of their economic monopoly in South East Asia by making Malaysians and Singaporeans pay more and more for the same level of services each year. People’s awareness of this cost variation has made them apprehensive, and a change in current business models is expected.
- Sharing meals with friends is the Singaporean equivalent of going to a pub for a pint in the UK before or after a match, or even to watch a match. McDonald’s, for example, has learned from this and allows for popular sports to be broadcast 24/7 in their restaurants. This is even true for small food stalls across the city-state, which usually need to attract more customers.
“It’s all about the food here rather than the drinking, you can see people gathering around food stalls while watching live sports” — Interviewee from Singapore
- Time-zone differences heavily impact sports viewing, especially when fans follow multiple sports or competitions happening in countries across the world. Singaporeans often miss the competitions that happen overnight; for this reason, mobile apps and sources with instant updates on competitions are prevalent. The first thing fans do in the morning is check results from the previous night.
- Lastly, sports betting hasn’t yet attracted mass interest in Singapore. It is highly regulated by the government and generally isn’t encouraged. As a result, online games which do not include betting real money have gained more popularity amongst Singaporean fans.
Transcending borders in Asia’s sports landscape
Sports fans show different behaviours and experience diverse journeys depending on a number of factors, such as location, pricing and access to technology.
We always recommend trying to investigate user behaviours honestly in any market before designing or building a digital product for that market. Even more so if the geographic target in mind is booming, as in the case of some Asian countries, where there is a combination of often overlooked, simple factors as well as hidden complexities.
The insights we’ve shared in this article are only a snapshot of the work we prepare in order to guide our clients. By advising them to ask important questions about the market they’re approaching, we’re able to help them develop a proper strategy for the product they want to build.
A lot of people assume, for example, that basketball became prolific in China thanks to Yao Ming playing as the first Chinese NBA player. Although his career has had an impact on younger generations today, the game was actually introduced in China just five years after it was invented, and Chinese people have followed it closely since then.
In Japan, basketball became popular due to a very famous manga titled Slam Dunk, published in the early 90s. This graphic novel has since then reached other Asian countries, including basketball-crazed China and SEA countries, and businesses are still taking advantage of it today, for example via mobile games dedicated to it.
These sorts of connections are important, yet often underestimated. Countries influence their neighbours culturally and socially by sharing their knowledge. To neglect this dynamic is to miss out on useful information. That said, it is important always to remember that there are significant variances between, and even within, countries.
A deep understanding of both these facts will put you on a path to innovation, and inspire successful sports products even in the most competitive markets.
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