The popularity of "Honghuang Girl" is a microcosm of the era of sports fission

This Olympics was a bit dull, and the audience who left the TV screens were no longer as concerned about the gold medal list as in previous years. Fortunately, the surprise of Fu Yuanhui's emoji package brought everyone back to the Rio Olympics. On the evening of August 10, Fu Yuanhui did her first personal live broadcast on Inke. It is said that she earned 100,000 yuan per show, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the total endorsement fees of Olympic stars in previous years, which easily exceeded 100 million yuan a year.

A live broadcast cannot reflect its commercial value at all. In fact, Fu Yuanhui, who constantly asks viewers not to send gifts, has no intention of making money from this live broadcast. Fu Yuanhui's high popularity and topicality mean that she will become the new darling of brands in the future. The former top Internet celebrity Papi Jiang sold a sky-high price of 20 million for her first advertisement. Fu Yuanhui, who is much more popular than her, must have a higher brand value.

Fu Yuanhui unexpectedly became popular because she caught up with a good era: being a celebrity is not as good as being an Internet celebrity. The Olympics are still the same Olympics, but the users, culture and environment have changed, and all of these are closely related to the Internet.

Bronze medalists are extremely popular, just because they are in the era of Internet celebrities

Fu Yuanhui has become famous, but she is not a gold medalist.

She won the bronze medal in the women's 100m backstroke final of this Olympics with a time of 58.76 seconds, tied for third place. After the competition, she became an instant hit with her "supernatural power" and rich emoticons. Her popularity far exceeded that of the gold medalists, and even overshadowed young athletes with both strength and beauty such as Ning Zetao. This has never happened in previous Olympics.

In the past, the appearance and personality of Olympic stars were just icing on the cake. The key was to have achievements to prove it, preferably with a gold medal. If a star didn't win a gold medal, even a famous star might go back to the days before liberation, like Liu Xiang. Now the situation has reversed: as long as you have personality, you can still gain a large number of fans even if you don't win a gold medal or even have no hope of winning a gold medal.

Why is this happening? We can find many reasons, such as the fact that young people born in the 1990s and 2000s advocate personalized cultural and entertainment consumption; Internet users prefer to interact with idols and are increasingly disgusted with superstars who deliberately keep a distance and are mysterious and high above them; and the fueling of social networks, such as Weibo and WeChat, which have powerful topic-generating capabilities...

In the final analysis, this is the era of internet celebrities. As I summarized in one of my previous articles, internet celebrities are stars and stars are internet celebrities. Internet celebrities are reshaping the star economy.

In the past, stars were stars because the media gave them a lot of space. The media's support is indispensable to the development of a star. The media is more willing to pay attention to the players who won the gold medal. Of course, the gold medal alone is not enough, they also need to have certain qualities. For example, the popularity of Sun Yang, Ning Zetao, Guo Jingjing, and Tian Liang is inseparable from their good looks. As for what qualities to focus on, the media has the final say.

Nowadays, athletes can completely rely on their own strength to occupy the new media pages and then become Internet celebrities. Super Internet celebrities can be called stars. For example, Fu Yuanhui successfully became famous with her smiling emoticons.

What qualities a person needs to become famous is decided by the users: some users will choose to make shocking remarks, such as Mi Meng's fans; others will choose to have an interesting and fun personality, such as Fu Yuanhui's fans. Users can choose who to make famous, making "star creation" completely decentralized.

The choice of live streaming for the first time shows that live streaming is becoming mainstream

After past Olympic Games, information about the gold medal winners' family life, growth stories, and so on would be disclosed by television stations and other media at the first opportunity. Before some "quasi-gold medal" athletes competed, a large number of media reporters would wait at their homes. If the athlete won a gold medal, relevant content would be produced at the first opportunity. This was an indispensable step in "making stars" in past Olympic Games.

This time, Fu Yuanhui chose an online live broadcast platform, which indirectly reflects that online live broadcast is taking on new tasks of creating stars, while also enjoying the dividends of creating stars. According to official data from Inke, the number of viewers of Fu Yuanhui's live broadcast exceeded 10 million, which is not inferior to the live broadcast programs on TV. It is hard to say whether there is any water in it, but it at least shows that star athletes have attached great importance to online live broadcast platforms.

Live streaming is considered a TV station on the Internet, but it is interactive. Users can send gifts to Fu Yuanhui, leave comments and ask her questions while watching the live streaming. Fu Yuanhui said that she came to the live streaming to chat, not to receive gifts.

It can be seen that both the audience and the stars realize that interaction is the value of live broadcasting. Fans do not come to admire their idols, but to communicate and interact with them; stars do not perform on the stage, but to have an equal dialogue with fans.

Future stars, whether they are sports stars or entertainment stars, must first be Internet celebrities. A star who is not popular on the Internet is not a real star. To gain popularity on the Internet, in addition to hard conditions such as appearance, they must have personality and express their true self, and be humble and interact with fans through Weibo, live broadcasts, etc.

In addition to the fact that live streaming has replaced traditional media in terms of celebrity interaction, it has also penetrated into many fields such as information, e-commerce, activities, entertainment, and sports. Giants such as NetEase, Tencent, and Alibaba are making great efforts in the field of online live streaming. In this Olympics, Tencent, LeTV, and Sina also regard video live streaming as the focus of content competition. This year's Olympics is regarded as the "year of online live streaming."

The Fu Yuanhui phenomenon is a microcosm of the upgrading of the sports industry

Fu Yuanhui became a "phenomenon" at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and this phenomenon shows that the sports industry is undergoing many changes.

1. From competition-oriented to national sports.

China is a country of gold medals, and the "gold medal" strategy reflects the Olympic spirit of competition-oriented and transcending breakthroughs. However, most gold medal events do not directly help the people of the country to strengthen their bodies and promote the popularization of sports. In recent years, the country has been promoting the popularization of sports, and sports have become a very popular public activity. Whether it is the popularity of city marathons or the proliferation of gyms, it shows that the sports industry is rising rapidly and has become an indispensable part of people's lives.

This year, the public is no longer just looking at medals at the Olympics, but is paying attention to and discussing the Olympics from all angles. Some people in the circle of friends are discussing the watchability of different events, while others are discussing the rules of the Olympics. All this shows that sports have evolved from being competition-oriented to being an activity for the whole people, and has truly achieved the "sense of participation" that emphasizes participation.

2. The entertainment of sports has become a general trend.

Some people lamented that Ning Zetao failed to win the award because of the media. How can an athlete concentrate on training under the spotlight? In fact, it is not the case. In the new media era, it is difficult for athletes not to be paid attention to by the media. Sports competition itself is a comprehensive competition of mentality, physical fitness and quality. Athletes need to adjust their mentality to face the media environment that is different from the past.

From the Fu Yuanhui phenomenon, we can see that sports are becoming entertainment. Lu Han watching Fu Yuanhui's live broadcast has become a hot topic, which is a crossover between entertainment stars and sports. Tencent Sports has previously invited many entertainment stars to participate in the production of sports programs; in addition, sports stars themselves have a tendency to become entertainment stars, such as Fu Yuanhui. People pay attention to her not because of her swimming skills, but because her emoticons are fun and her speeches are entertaining. The sports industry itself is becoming entertainment, and sports has become an important category of entertainment spiritual consumption.

3. Sports stars will be fully IP-ized.

The sports industry will embrace the trend of entertainment. In the future, sports delegations will not only simply seek brand sponsorship, but may also package athletes for entertainment and tap into the pan-entertainment value of athletes through cooperation with Internet platforms and entertainment agencies.

Every star athlete is an IP. In addition to being endorsed by a large number of advertisements, IP will have more value. Emoticons surrounding Fu Yuanhui have appeared intensively, and the same clothes and customized mobile phone cases of Fu Yuanhui and other peripheral products are sold on Taobao. This is the value of sports star IP.

The IPization of sports stars is not the first idea of ​​Fu Yuanhui. Super sports stars such as Kobe, Yao Ming, Jordan, and Li Ning have already taken the IP route many years ago, and Li Ning has even created a sports product empire.

However, the value of the Internet lies in making the IPization of sports stars more popular. Not only superstars like Jordan and Li Ning can be IPs, but also Fu Yuanhui who won the bronze medal. There is no need to go to great lengths to build a brand, peripheral products can also be made. There is no need to invest huge costs in the research and development of sports products, cultural content such as emoticons can also be made.

The Internet is redefining sports stars and everything about sports. The emergence of the Fu Yuanhui phenomenon is not accidental, but a microcosm of Internet sports and the internet celebrity economy.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.