College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
School of Humanities, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot, China.
PLoS One. 2024 May 13;19(5):e0303572. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303572. eCollection 2024.
The development of the digital economy constitutes a key component of China's endeavors to advance towards "Digital China." The sports industry functions as a new catalyst for high-quality economic growth. This study systematically evaluated the integration between these two sectors.
First, we conducted two levels of grey relational analysis to assess their integration between 2016 and 2021. Second, we conducted a VAR analysis to determine whether their integration between 2009 and 2021 represents a causal relationship.
At the macro level, the grey relational analysis reveals that the sports industry (grade = 0.770) ranked second among China's eight key economic sectors in terms of digital economy integration. At the meso level, a wide variation (ranging from 0.606 to 0.789) existed in the grade of integration between the digital economy and the sub-sectors of the sports industry. According to the VAR model, the digital economy does not Granger cause (p = 0.344) the growth of the sports industry.
This study yielded two added values to the existing literature: First, there exists a sectoral imbalance in the digitization process; second, the explosive growth of the sports industry was not primarily caused by the digital economy. Accordingly, the "sports + digital" complex is still in the first wave of technological integration. We propose three policy recommendations, namely, sectoral synergistic development, overtaking via esports IP, and new economy and new regulation. Collectively, these findings provide updated insights for the digital transformation towards "building a leading sports nation" and "Digital China."
数字经济的发展是中国迈向“数字中国”努力的关键组成部分。体育产业是高质量经济增长的新催化剂。本研究系统评估了这两个部门之间的融合。
首先，我们进行了两级灰色关联分析，以评估 2016 年至 2021 年期间它们之间的融合度。其次，我们进行了 VAR 分析，以确定 2009 年至 2021 年期间它们之间的融合是否存在因果关系。
在宏观层面，灰色关联分析显示，体育产业（等级=0.770）在数字经济融合方面在中国八大关键经济部门中排名第二。在中观层面，数字经济与体育产业子部门之间的融合程度存在很大差异（范围为 0.606 至 0.789）。根据 VAR 模型，数字经济不会导致（p=0.344）体育产业的增长。
本研究对现有文献有两个附加值：首先，数字化进程存在部门失衡；其次，体育产业的爆炸式增长并非主要由数字经济引起。因此，“体育+数字”综合体仍处于技术融合的第一波。我们提出了三条政策建议，即部门协同发展、通过电子竞技 IP 超车以及新经济和新监管。总之，这些发现为“建设体育强国”和“数字中国”的数字化转型提供了最新的见解。
