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In contrast to other Chinese sports, which attract enormous commercial interests and relates to a kind of political kudos and ideological significance, Chinese baseball represents a singular case for the author to investigate the way in which China responds to sport globalisation due to its peripheral position in, and limited resource from, the domestic sport system and powerful stakeholders from the global society. The study examines the development of Chinese baseball and its interplay with the global sport giants and international events (i.e. the Olympic Games and the Major League Baseball [MLB]). Given the influence of sport globalisation, the author also identifies the consistent dominance of Chinese sport authorities and the spectrum of local stakeholders' reaction towards globalisation. The chapter ends with a discussion of the relationship between marginal position of Chinese baseball in the local sport system and the rationale of its response to sport globalisation.

This first chapter is the introduction to the book. The purpose of this book is to address and better understand why China tightly embraces modern sport in contemporary times. Some view this as an indicator of glocalisation and a result of Western industrial civilization putting pressure on China to showcase their strengths as a nation. Some important considerations to explore are China's mediated ability to play and compete with the west. Sport is also seen as a channel of observing global political and economic challenges, especially those in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the intense tensions between communities, which certainly inspires further academic development. Given China's recently remarkable achievements in sport, it is high time to show the world more inside stories of sport development across the nation. The contributors of this collection bring foundational Chinese context to each chapter as they examine changing sport cultures at different scales.

This chapter provides an exhaustive analysis on the development of cricket in China in order to advance existing theories of cricket's development and consider future implications for the international game. Adapted from two journal articles of He and Malcolm (2021) and He et al. (2023), it structures the development of cricket in China according to two key historical era: cricket as an ‘expatriate-only’ game and cricket as an ‘Asian Games sport’. The first era, cricket as an ‘expatriate-only’ game, is constructed according to three key phases: early development; post-war and the ‘opening-up’ era. The second era, cricket as an ‘Asian Games sport’, is constructed according to five periods: budding period (2003–2005), peak period (2006–2010), stable period (2011–2014), trough period (2015–2018) and revival period (2019–present). This paper offers a broadened examination of cricket's development in China, contending that cricket in the country (specifically the mainland) manifests itself in two distinct forms, that is, first, it survives as a grassroots sport, sustained by a resilient expatriate diaspora community. Second, it exists as a sport primarily directed by the state and bolstered by the Asian Games and deeply integrated into the Chinese educational system. It concludes that the degree to which the co-existed motives of multiple stakeholders aligned and misaligned, and the interdependence with the unstable ‘Asian Games sport status’ will serve as the cornerstone for cricket's future in China and contribute significantly to the international sport's global development.

This chapter explores the critical role of sport in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the South Pacific context, focusing particularly on socio-economic and environmental challenges, with an emphasis on climate change action. We explored how sports, and education through sports, can contribute to climate action in Vanuatu and other Pacific Islands. Vanuatu serves as a case due to its shared vulnerabilities with many Pacific Islands, such as a small economy heavily dependent on climate-sensitive sectors like tourism and agriculture, reliance on natural resources for livelihoods, a young population and substantial foreign aid dependence. Additionally, Vanuatu has well established and accessible policies on sports, sustainable development, climate action and youth engagement. Given its climate vulnerability, Vanuatu places significant emphasis on sustainable development practices and policies. We examined the alignment between Vanuatu's sport policies and SDGs-related policies, underlining the necessity for policy coherence to harness sports as a force for sustainable development. This chapter serves as a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers and practitioners interested in the dynamic relationship between sport and the SDGs in the Pacific Islands, offering valuable insights and recommendations for harnessing sports as a tool for promoting sustainable development in this region.

Along with the national government's expectation transformation, administrative system reform, economic transition, social demand structure's upgrading and population change, these negative effects are turning increasingly obvious and thus become huge powers that push the reform of traditional elite sports development mode forward. Against this background, in order to make this reform better adapted to China's reality and future development, the chapter suggests that Chinese traditional elite sports development mode should shift its driving forces of development from single to multiple, change its administrative system from government-oriented to society-oriented, develop its training concepts from instrumentalism to humanism, improve its construction of development from unbalanced to balanced and alter its effectiveness of development from extensive to intensive so as to achieve sustainable development.

The purpose of this study was to gather insights from sport marketing professionals and identify key opportunities, challenges and knowledge that sport marketing educators and researchers could utilize in developing curriculum and research agendas.

A qualitative approach was used, and data were collected through in-depth interviews with 15 sport marketing professionals. Participants were asked questions related to the knowledge, skills and experiences that they believe are important for students to have to be successful in the industry, as well as the types of research that would be most useful in their day-to-day work.

Industry professionals noted collaboration, transformation in digital marketing, data and analytics and experiential marketing as key trends facing the industry today. The findings suggest that sport marketing curriculum should focus on soft skill development such as communication, relationship building and empathy alongside hard skill development such as data analysis and storytelling. As well, findings show research areas where scholars can aid practitioners with a focus on consumer insights, technology, measuring ROI and experiential marketing.

With these findings, educators and scholars can better prepare students for successful careers in industry and contribute to the ongoing advancement of the scholarly field. This study serves as a starting point for further research in this area, and it is hoped that it will spark continued collaboration between academia and industry.