In August 2022, a video clip of the 'Beautiful Village Basketball Association' in Guizhou, China, known as the 'Village Basketball Association' (VBA), went viral on Tik Tok (Tik Tok, a social media platform for creative videos of music, is the largest knowledge communication platform in China.). Using this as an example, this study analyzes the reasons for the VBA’s rapid popularity as a reflection of the new elements of rural sports communication. Results herein bridge current gaps of sports communication in contemporary Chinese villages and explores a new form of cultural empowerment for rural sports. Moreover, 71,325 comments from the VBA’s ten most popular Tik Tok clips were analyzed in Python using high-frequency word analysis, sentiment analysis, and co-occurrence word analysis through text mining methods. The study found that the atmosphere, which features bustling noise and excitement, is the main attraction for the public. The distinctive cheerleading and rewards of the VBA also starkly contrast with the NBA. Third, the main participants are local villagers and public participation is extremely high. Lastly, because no form of capital is involved, it is perceived as a purely sporting activity so that many people are tempted to join.

Zou Dandan, Chen Chen. What Types of Chinese Rural Sports Attract Attention: Take the Village Basketball Association as an Example. Frontiers in Sport Research (2023) Vol. 5, Issue 4: 38-49. https://doi.org/10.25236/FSR.2023.050408.

[1] Wang, J., Xu, Y., Zou, L., and Wang, Y.2021. “Does Culture Affect Farmer Willingness to Transfer Rural Land? Evidence from Southern Fujian, China.”Land 10(6): 594.doi.org/10.3390/land10060594

[2] Tiejun, W., Kinchi, L., Cunwang, C., and Huili, H. 2012. “Ecological Civilization, Indigenous Culture, and Rural Reconstruction in China.” Monthly Review 63(9): 29. doi.org/10.14452/mr-063-09-2012-02_2

[3] Friedman, E., and Duara, P. 1990. “Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942.” The American Historical Review 95(3): 885. doi.org/10.2307/2164432

[4] Wang, X., Tu, M., Yang, R., Guo, J., Yuan, Z., and Liu, W. 2016. “Determinants of pro-environmental consumption intention in rural China: The role of traditional cultures, personal attitudes and reference groups.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 19(3): 215–224. doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12142

[5] Chen, X. 2019. “The core of China’s rural revitalization: exerting the functions of rural area.” China Agricultural Economic Review 12(1): 1–13. doi.org/10.1108/caer-02-2019-0025

[6] Ye, C., Ma, X., Gao, Y., and Johnson, L. 2020. “The lost countryside: Spatial production of rural culture in Tangwan village in Shanghai.” Habitat International 98: 102137. doi. org/ 10. 1016/ j. habitatint. 2020.102137

[7] Chen, R., Ye, C., Cai, Y., Xing, X., and Chen, Q. 2014. “The impact of rural out-migration on land use transition in China: Past, present and trend.” Land Use Policy 40: 101–110. doi. org/ 10. 1016/ j. landusepol. 2013.10.003

[8] Liu, K. Z. 2019. “From invisible to visible: Kwai and the hierarchical cultural order of China’s cyberspace.” Global Media and China, 205943641987119. doi.org/10.1177/2059436419871194

[9] Yang, J., Černevičiūtė, J., and Strazdas, R. 2020. “The sustainable development of rural troupes under the rural vitalization strategy in China.” Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues 7(3): 1951–1962. doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2020.7.3(34)

[10] Ye, L., Dai, Y., and Dong, X. 2022. “The enabling mechanism of shuren culture in ICT4D: A case study of rural China.” Technology in Society 68: 101842. doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc. 2021.101842

[11] Tang, J., Ruan, H., Wang, C., Xu, W., Li, C., Dong, X. 2022. “Social Network, Cognition and Participation in Rural Health Governance.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19(5): 2862. doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052862

[12] Chen, P., and Kong, X. 2021. “Tourism-led Commodification of Place and Rural Transformation Development: A Case Study of Xixinan Village, Huangshan.” China. Land 10(7): 694. doi. org/ 10. 3390/ land10070694

[13] Liang, J. 2022. “Problems and Solutions of Art Professional Service Rural Revitalization Strategy Based on Random Forest Algorithm.” Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing 2022: 1–1. doi.org/10.1155/2022/9752512

[14] Liu, J. 2022. “Psychological Health Intervention of Rural Art and Cultural Communication of Dihuagu in Nanxian County under the Background of Network.” Journal of Healthcare Engineering 2022: 1–9. doi.org/10.1155/2022/7309387

[15] Mohammad, D. 2014. “Urbanizing folklore,Folkloricizingthe urban: cultural communication between the urban poor and popular music in Dhaka.” Asian Journal of Communication 24(5): 407–420. doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2014.903426

[16] Harris, C. A., and Harris, R. W. 2011. “Information and Communication Technologies for Cultural Transmission among Indigenous Peoples.” The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 45(1): 1–19. doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2011.tb00318.x

[17] Strand, T. R. 2019. “Tradition as innovation: Dialect revalorization and maximal orthographic distinction in rural Norwegian writing.” Multilingua 38(1): 51–68. doi.org/10.1515/multi-2018-0006

[18] Chicote, G. 2014. “De gauchos, criollos y folklores: los conceptos detrás de los términos.” Anales de Literatura Hispanoamericana 42(2013): 19-34. doi.org/10.5209/rev_alhi.2013.v42.43652

[19] Owiny, S. A., Mehta, K., and Maretzki, A. N. 2014. “The Use of Social Media Technologies to Create, Preserve, and Disseminate Indigenous Knowledge and Skills to Communities in East Africa.” International Journal of Communication 8(1): 14. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1667/0

[20] Pathak-Shelat, M., and DeShano, C. 2013. “Digital youth cultures in small town and rural Gujarat, India.” New Media & Society 16(6): 983–1001. doi.org/10.1177/1461444813496611

[21] Jurriëns, E. 2019. “The Countryside in Indonesian Contemporary Art and Media.” Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 175(4): 446–473. doi.org/10.1163/22134379-17502023

[22] Jia, C., and Zhang, J. 2022. “How the Popularity of Short Videos Promotes Regional Endogeneity in Northwest China: A Qualitative Study.” Sustainability 14(6): 3664. doi.org/10.3390/su14063664

[23] Ørmen, J., Helles, R., and Bruhn Jensen, K. 2021. “Converging cultures of communication: A comparative study of Internet use in China, Europe, and the United States.” New Media & Society 23(7): 1751–1772. doi.org/10.1177/14614448211015977

[24] Jia, Z., and & Yang, Y. 2022. “Research on Promoting Visual Communication of Local Folk Culture by Using Digital Technology.” Scientific Programming 2022: 1–12. doi.org/10.1155/2022/8058390

[25] Schuhbauer, S., and Hausmann, A. 2022. “Der touristische Einsatz von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien in Kultureinrichtungen im ländlichen Raum: Eine interviewbasierte ressourcentheoretische Untersuchung.” Zeitschrift Für Tourismuswissenschaft, 14(2): 134–163. doi. org/ 10.1515/tw-2022-0006

[26] Gong, X. 2022. “A Personalized Recommendation Method for Short Drama Videos Based on External Index Features.” Advances in Meteorology, 2022: 1–10. doi.org/10.1155/2022/3601956

[27] Bi, X., and Tang, C. 2020. “Research on the Motives Affecting the Behavior of Short Video’s Creators.” IEEE Access 8: 188415–188428. doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.3028392

[28] Zhao, C., Shen, H., and Zhang, Y. 2022. “The study on the impact of short video tourism Vloggers at social media platform on online sharing intention.” Frontiers in Psychology, 13. doi. org/ 10. 3389/ fpsyg. 2022.905002

[29] Xiang, Y. 2019. “User-generated news: Netizen journalism in China in the age of short video.” Global Media and China, 4(1): 52–71. doi.org/10.1177/2059436419836064

[30] Xia, H., Weng, J., Zhang, J. Z., and Gao, Y. 2022. “Rural E-Commerce Model with Attention Mechanism: Role of Li Ziqi’s Short Videos from the Perspective of Heterogeneous Knowledge Management.” Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 25(2): 118–136. doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 1097198x.2022.2062992

[31] Zhou, M., and Liu, S.-D. 2021. “Becoming precarious playbour: Chinese migrant youth on the Kuaishou video-sharing platform.” The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 32(3): 322–340. doi. org/ 10.1177/10353046211037090

[32] Chen, X., and Chiu, C. 2010. “Rural-urban differences in generation of Chinese and Western exemplary persons: The case of China.”Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 13(1): 9–18. doi. org/ 10. 1111/ j.1467-839x.2010.01296.x

[33] Wang, Y. 2020. “Humor and camera view on mobile short-form video apps influence user experience and technology-adoption intent, an example of TikTok (DouYin).” Computers in Human Behavior, 110: 106373. doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106373

[34] Stewart, M. 2019. “Live tweeting, reality TV and the nation.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(3): 352–367. doi.org/10.1177/1367877919887757

[35] Berry, M. 2015. “Out in the open: locating new vernacular practices with smartphone cameras.” Studies in Australasian Cinema, 10(1): 53–64. doi.org/10.1080/17503175.2015.1084173

[36] Lichtenstein, D., Herbers, M. R., and Bause, H. 2021. “Journalistic YouTubers and Their Role Orientations, Strategies, and Professionalization Tendencies.” Journalism Studies, 22(9): 1103–1122. doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2021.1922302