‘Super’ success in Chinese men’s handball

The Chinese Handball Association (CHA) Men’s Super League returned at the end of 2020 for its second edition, following its launch back in 2019, with the 2020 edition (CHL 2020) held in the southern Chinese city of Jiangmen, Guangdong Province from 22 to 30 December.

Six teams from across the country took part in 22 matches: Jiangsu, Chinese National Club (featuring mainly China U23 players), Guangdong, Beijing Guangcai and two new teams representing their provinces, Anhui and hosts Shandong. 

As part of the development of players in China, with reference to ‘the slow transition between offence and defence’, the CHL 2020 developed regulations in scoring with goals from beyond the 9-metre line, goals from fast-breaks (including one-pass quick breaks) and goals from in-air shots counted as 1.5 points.

The competition took part in two stages, first with a league format and each team playing five games. The top four teams then played each other in the semi-finals with 2019 runners-up Jiangsu eventually winning the title, defeating Chinese National Club (the China U23 national team) 36.5:26 in the final. Shandong defeated Beijing 32.5:30.5 in the third place match, while Anhui beat Guangdong 49.5:28.5 to finish fifth.

The All-star Team was also announced with goalkeeper Liu Maike (Beijing Guangcai), left wing Tian Rui (Shandong), left back Zhang Jianjie (China), centre back Rao Yuanyuan (Anhui), line player Zhao Chen (Jiangsu), right back Li Shuang (China) and right wing Wang Jieyuan (Jiangsu) voted as the most impressive in the league.

Along with the honour of being called national champions, Jiangsu also took home prize money of USD $123,000, part of an overall prize fund of USD $322,000.

With the action on court, came action and hard work off court as the CHA works hard to promote handball in the Asian nation. The CHL 2020 was able to attract a wide range of sponsors from different industries, resulting in high commercial value. Familiar, global names could be found in the 10 CHL 2020 official partners, including China Mobile, Select, Gerflor and Peak Sport, amongst others.

Despite matches being played behind closed doors without fans due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this did not stop the interest from the Chinese sporting community with just under 10 online platforms, including Migu Video and Sina Weibo, broadcasting the games live.

This resulted around 11 million views, and the highest online audience for a single match around 4.6 million. 

A further 50 media platforms also covered games, including the biggest online news organisations in China – Xinhua News/Xinhuanet and the People's Daily Online – with a cumulative reading volume exceeding 33 million. Television stations CCTV-5 and CETV-4 reported reaching more than 64.4 million people.

“The CHL 2020 showed the huge potential of the Chinese handball market,” said Liu Ruochen, Assistant Manager, Chinese Handball Association, to ihf.info. “The data [of the media interest] greatly reflects the market appeal of the CHL 2020, which is meaningful for the marketisation and commercialisation development of Chinese handball.”

For more information about handball in China, visit http://handball.sport.org.cn.