□Hu Dikai, reporter from Chutian Metropolis Daily Jimu News
From midsummer to early winter, a basketball feast spanning several months came to a successful conclusion. Recently, the 2025 Hubei Province National Top 100 County Basketball League staged the ultimate showdown simultaneously in the four cities of Qianjiang, Xiantao, Hanchuan and Yidu. The Qianjiang team won the championship with a record of 13 wins and 1 loss, bringing an end to this sports event that covered 8 of the top 100 counties in the province and went through 14 rounds and 56 fierce battles. This event, with teachers, doctors, students and other grassroots players as the main body, not only created a sports feast shared by all, but also used “sports +” as a link to inject strong momentum into the high-quality development of the county economy.
A sports feast shared by all
The 2025 Hubei Province National Top 100 Counties Basketball League is hosted by the Hubei Provincial Basketball Association and co-organized by Hubei Sports Industry Group and the sports departments of 8 top 100 counties including Xiantao, Daye, Yidu, Qianjiang, Zaoyang, Zhijiang, Hanchuan and Tianmen. The Hubei Provincial Sports Bureau took the lead in establishing a competition organizing committee, guiding each competition area to form an executive committee, convening multiple special meetings to deploy and promote the event, and dispatching a supervision team and professional and technical personnel to guide the entire process to ensure that the event is strictly organized and operated in an orderly manner. The league innovatively adopts a home and away double round-robin points competition system, allowing the basketball craze to radiate from the central city to the streets of towns and alleys, displaying “one county, one product, one scene, one scene” in a personalized way.
Different from professional competitions, this league adheres to the “grassroots positioning”. The participating players are all amateur players. The player lineup includes teachers who teach and educate people, doctors who save lives and injuries, takeaways who run on the streets, and students who have just stepped out of school. The event runs from August to December, with 14 rounds and 56 home and away matches. Tickets for the event are uniformly priced at 10 yuan. A total of 101,060 tickets have been sold, and the average attendance rate per game is nearly 100%. According to statistics, the cumulative number of spectators of the event exceeded 150,000, and the number of online live broadcasts exceeded 5 million. More than 10,000 event-related videos and reports were released on the entire network, allowing county stories to reach a broader stage through the lens of basketball.
At the same time, the league breaks the geographical boundaries between counties. Through 56 games of competition and exchange among eight top 100 counties, it not only improves the level of competition, but also promotes local culture and builds consensus on coordinated development among counties. Tianmen Luyu tea culture, Zaoyang Han culture, Qianjiang water rhyme culture, Xiantao gymnastics culture, Hanchuan lake food culture, Yidu landscape culture, Zhijiang industrial culture, Daye science and technology culture, etc. are presented through the event scenes, allowing the audience to feel the cultural charm of Jingchu County while watching the game, and enhance regional cultural identity with the help of the event communication matrix.
“Sports +” activates new development capabilities
Another eye-catching result of this league is that it has transformed the “flow of spectators” into “increase in consumption.” Qianjiang launched the “Tour Qianjiang with One Ticket” initiative, linking the crayfish food IP to create a fan market, attracting more than 160,000 tourists in total, directly leveraging more than 100 million yuan in consumption, and the hotel booking rate increased by 45% compared with normal days; Zaoyang was the first to launch a “discount with ticket stubs” activity, linking the city’s business districts, scenic spots, and hotels to release benefits. The average daily passenger flow in and around the venue reached 12,000 people, and nighttime consumption increased by 30% year-on-year.
Hanchuan set up the competition area in Tianyu Lake, a tourist resort, and launched the “Game Tour” linkage plan, which led to a 21% year-on-year increase in passenger traffic at major tourist attractions in the city, and the average occupancy rate of key hotels and specialty B&Bs in the city increased to 20%; during the Yidu competition area, each event The city attracts an average of 3,000 people to participate, and the flow of people in various scenic spots and the consumption of restaurants and hotels have achieved significant growth; Xiantao takes “sports + consumption” as the starting point, making gymnastics culture and special steamed vegetables a must-experience item after watching the game, continuing to amplify the economic effect of the event.
From agricultural products to cultural and creative products, from tickets to scenic spots to catering and accommodation, the league has allowed the county’s characteristic resources to achieve a jump in value. The relevant person in charge of the Hubei Provincial Sports Bureau said that the successful holding of this top 100 county basketball league is a successful practice for Hubei to deeply implement the national fitness strategy and promote the construction of a strong sports province. The event not only enriches the people’s spiritual and cultural life and popularizes basketball, but also enhances economic and cultural exchanges between participating counties and cities, injecting new momentum into county economic development.
[Editor in charge: Zhou Xiaoyan]
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