While the global COVID-19 crisis sports headlines are hogged by cancelled/postponed events (think China F1 GP, Qatar MotoGP, the World Indoor Athletics Championships, the UAE Tour and Ireland v Italy Guinness 6 Nations) and furious speculation about which will be the next events to be called off (the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games?), many of the supportive activations and messages from the sports community have gone under the radar.
For example, amidst the tragedy and the panic, football clubs around the world have sent support, encouraging messages and major financial donations to the football community in China, clubs made donations and earning appreciation and engagement from Chinese supporters.
More than half of all European clubs from the big four leagues active on Weibo posted messages of support and a quarter of them used a dedicated hashtag page in support of the fight against COVID-19.
Amongst the team videos and personal player messages, to supportive statements on shirts and ‘加油中国‘ slogans and creative ‘Stay Strong China’ graphics, the key tactic was where the sentiment was sincere and delivered with care, rather than jumping on the bandwagon.
Paris-Saint Germain replaced its shirt sponsor logo with a ‘Stay Strong China’ message on first-team kits
and for its game against Bordeaux, PSG ran in-stadium animations in support of China in the face of the COVID-19 crisis and also promoted this through video on its social channels.
While a ‘Stay Strong Wuhan’ message ran throughout the stadium for a 15 February match between FC Barcelona and Getafe the players all walked onto the field holding the hands of children of Chinese origin in solidarity with the Chinese people affected by the virus. The 22 kids were from FC Barcelona’s Chinese supporters club and they all wore T-shirts bearing the messages ‘Stronger Together’ and ‘China, Stay Strong’ in Mandarin, while a blue centre pitch canvas also carried the two slogans.
A LOOK BACK | Before the win over Getafe, Barça showed support for China amid the #coronavirus outbreak pic.twitter.com/PyMtnRArWx
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) February 17, 2020
SOLIDARITY | Teams unite in the face of the #coronavirus situation in Chinahttps://t.co/8l3SOgRHpc
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) February 16, 2020
Another example saw Inter Milan (owned by Chinese retail giant Suning) play a match in a limited edition ‘Forza China’ jersey patch to show support for the city of Wuhan and China as a whole which was then auctioned off after the game with the funds raised donated to Wuhan recovery efforts. The message ‘Today and always. Together as a team. Forza Wuhan’ was also present throughout the stadium, while Inter also donated 300,000 face masks for medical use to Wuhan.
FORZA CHINA
Inter's players will wear a special patch with a message for Wuhan and the entire Chinese population for the #DerbyMilano https://t.co/u2kkHEvG4N pic.twitter.com/e1iMSKLNme
— Inter (@Inter_en) February 8, 2020
Other supportive actions ranged from online sports broadcaster PP Sports making all football programme services free during the extended Chinese New Year period (leading to a 151% spike in streaming), to iQiyi Sports making the El Classico match free for all.
From appreciative fan messages on social to local and national media (eg CCTV, China Daily, and the People’s Daily) coverage highlighted the positive impact of these initiatives across China.
#Football club Paris Saint-Germain voiced solidarity with China in the fight against the novel #coronavirus with special jerseys printed with the message "stay strong China" on the front. @PSG_English #COVID19 #PSG pic.twitter.com/0wcxLL0fVa
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) February 25, 2020
This is also driving impressive engagement numbers on Weibo for several supportive European football clubs. On Weibo there was a 77% rise in total engagement and a 79% increase in follower growth (with a combined 28.5 million video views) for European football clubs during the 2020 Chinese New Year compared to the same period in 2019. From 14 January to 4 February European club online usage grew more than 20% to 6.11 billion hours (that’s a staggering six hours per Chinese fan).
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