I recently read an article that was an opinion piece on the role of China in international sports. Obviously, China plays an enormous role in this sector of human life, like putting forth lots of money through their talented athletes and the myriad of spectators that will come and watch the matches. With this, many corporations do not try to poke the bear because of the fear that it will disrupt their market and will lead to lost revenue. Recently, there has been an exception.
A dominant female tennis player disappeared from the public eye and ever since there has been lots of pressure mounted on the CCP, especially by the WTA. The believed reason for this is because Peng exposed one of the highest-ranking members of the CCP for sexual assault. Days later, the state media showed a video of Peng and she seemed alright, and even said so herself, but the WTA and others were not convinced.
I find it interesting that it was only the WTA that really added fuel to the fire of making sure that Peng was safe, and they still are. Other organizations are too afraid to lose money from the Chinese, which is despicable. There are plenty of other untapped markets that can still help generate a profit, but it is not close to the maximum percentage they want, so they decide against it. I hope that, in the future, that more organizations will band together and call the CCP out on their shenanigans.
The story of Peng is a crazy one, as well as a very concerning one. The mass amount of viewership and revenue that large sports organizations receive from China’s fanbase is definitely a different level than possible at other nations across the globe. With that being said, I believe that would mean it should have the biggest magnifying glass on it to protect to. Larger organizations that are turning a shoulder to all the incidents that have happened in China shines a terrible light on their organization, and hopefully the WTA, or other organizations in the future, find a way to clean up the CCP’s actions within the sports community.