HANGZHOU, April 1 (Xinhua) -- By day, Pan Chengkai sells homeware online; by night, he trains hard for his basketball dreams.
Pan, 25, spent last season as one of ZheBA's standout players, earning MVP honours in seven games for a provincial basketball league in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Now back in the gym, Pan is preparing for the new season, lacing up his sneakers, calling out plays as he weaves between teammates, and pulling up for jump shots well past 9 p.m.
The cheers at this venue are not for household-name Olympians, but for everyday people you might see on the subway, including programmers, delivery drivers, small-business owners, teachers and college students.
None of their games appear on a professional schedule, yet in the seven months leading up to the finale of the league's inaugural season in February, matches across Zhejiang's 11 cities and 90 counties packed arenas to capacity.
Where seats ran out, fans brought along foldable stools and waved handmade banners in support of their neighbors, coworkers and former classmates.
Representing his hometown, Pan said, "It's worth every drop of sweat." Such a comment may sound trite elsewhere, but here, at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, it resonates perfectly.
Similar scenes are playing out across the country. In the mountainous Guizhou Province in southwest China, a village soccer tournament has grown so popular that it has attracted international legends such as Roberto Carlos and Fabio Cannavaro.
Observers see this grassroots fervor for team sports, alongside the earlier boom in more solitary pursuits like marathons and hiking, as part of a broader shift in how Chinese people engage with sport.
Medals and trophies still matter, but for more people, sport is becoming a personal and participatory pursuit. It is evolving into an activity shaped less by national ambition and more by a quieter, introspective question: how to live better.
FROM ELITE GLORY TO EVERYDAY FITNESS
For much of the modern era, China's story of sport was told in the language of wounded pride and regained dignity.
After a century marked by invasion and humiliation, and the cutting label of the "sick man of East Asia," athletic triumphs carried meaning far beyond the playing field. Following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, sporting success became a powerful symbol of confidence, unity and revival.
This elite tradition remains, with the dominance of the women's volleyball teams in the 1980s and the global spectacle of the 2008 Beijing Olympics etched into the nation's collective memory.
But a quiet discourse has been growing alongside it. Over the past decade, balanced diets, weight control, regular exercise and mental health have entered the mainstream conversation in the world's second-largest economy.
Years of public investment have produced a nationwide network of more than five million courts and tracks. Taken end-to-end, the country's fitness trails would circle the globe more than ten times, according to official data.
With scores now factored into high school admissions, physical education has real teeth. Parents who once hoarded math tutoring sessions are now hiring soccer coaches too. They have come to realize that sport builds something that worksheets cannot.
This shift in attitude aligns with improvements in public health metrics. According to Lei Haichao, head of the National Health Commission, average life expectancy at birth in China reached 79.25 years in 2025, with a goal of raising it to 80 by 2030.
Sports journalist Ci Xin, who has more than two decades of experience covering major events, has watched the shift in public sentiment up close.
"People increasingly look beyond the scoreboard," said Ci. "They're drawn to the way a match unfolds, how someone holds up under pressure, the bits of personality that come through."
When Chinese freeskier Gu Ailing, also known as Eileen Gu, won silver in big air at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, Chinese social media did not dwell on the missing gold.
Instead, the image that resonated most was a still frame from just before her final jump, capturing an athlete poised at the top of the slope after a shaky second attempt.
Netizens hailed the piercing, determined gaze beneath the goggles as the ultimate display of commanding presence, describing it as an "alpha" moment in the language of internet culture.
GROWING SPORTS ECONOMY
Back in Zhejiang, officials have been careful not to smother ZheBA's grassroots soul. Professional players are kept out, and slots for the upcoming season are being reserved for county-level teams that have clawed their way through repechage rounds, said Mao Genhong, a local sports official.
The ripple effects extend well beyond any box score. In Cangnan County, one coffee shop reported that its sales had jumped by nearly 50 percent during the inaugural season. Across Zhejiang, the league generated more than a billion U.S. dollars in spending on sports, tourism and related services, according to the organizers.
Technology is adding its own edge. AI-powered cameras track every cut and jump shot, while some players recover in cold-therapy chambers or heated flotation tanks. Local designers also use these leagues as testbeds for experimenting with new fabrics.
The excitement is spilling over into spectator sports that were once considered niche in China.
The recent Formula One Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai drew a record crowd of around 230,000 over three days, with many fans flying in from other provinces and overseas.
In the world's largest new-energy vehicle market, the championship's move to more balanced power units -- roughly half combustion engines, half electric -- has struck a particular chord. It has leveled the playing field in the stands as much as on the track, giving new fans an easier way to get into the sport.
China's sports industry is still in an early, formative phase, compared with markets in Europe and North America, where competition, recreation and entertainment have long been commercially intertwined, Ci said.
But the direction is clear. From floodlit village pitches and city marathons to the grandstands in Shanghai, more Chinese are learning to savor sport as a way to relax, connect and increasingly embrace a more active way of life.
"It's no longer just about standing on the podium," Pan said. "It's about being part of the game." ■
