The Jiangsu Football City League, dubbed the "Suchao" or "Jiangsu Super League", a national sensation for birthing viral memes, has unleashed an unlikely sponsorship frenzy across one of China's wealthiest provinces.
This grassroots tournament, made up of 13 teams competing in East China's Jiangsu province, is transforming the amateur league into a commercial powerhouse.
Just six sponsors backed the league during its first three rounds after it opened on May 10.
With jokes and witty slogans like "The match comes first, friendship fourteenth" and "No match-fixing, no biased referees, only long-standing rivalries" sweeping Chinese social media, hashtags related to the league exploded past 11 billion views on short-video platforms by June 21.
As of Friday, the league had attracted 27 official sponsors — plus two charity partners — spanning finance, retail, e-commerce, food items and automotive giants.
When premium international beer brand Heineken erected pitch-side billboards, fans hailed it a "Champions League-level sponsorship", noting even the Chinese Super League hadn't secured such a prestigious brand.
Ordinary dreamers
Apart from the league's official sponsors, each division and each team also has its own sponsorship partners.
Dongha Northeast Street-side BBQ thought with its heart and not its head, when it decided to back underperforming Changzhou out of a sense of local loyalty.
Zhang Jingyu, a Harbin native who runs the family restaurant, said the sponsorship fulfilled a dream of her family to support sport in Changzhou. Her niece, a second-grader, practices gymnastics at the city's sports school and has won many medals representing Changzhou in provincial competitions, becoming a source of pride for the whole family.
On June 7, Zhang came across an invitation for sponsorship cooperation from the league's Changzhou division. To thank the city for nurturing her niece's talent, the family decided to contribute 100,000 yuan ($13,750) in sponsorship.
"We knew our sponsorship would mean having a sign at the field, but we didn't expect it to be so eye-catching. Also, we didn't anticipate the subsequent popularity of the league," Zhang said.
On June 21, the match between Changzhou and Nanjing ended with a score of 0-4. Changzhou suffered its fifth consecutive defeat without scoring a goal.
Prior to the match, Changzhou had been ridiculed for their losing streak, but they showed fighting spirit during the game, which won them widespread respect.
Of the 22 advertising boards displayed around the ground at the match, Dongha BBQ was the only individual business entity.
Its yellow sign — simply reading "Dongha Northeast Street-side BBQ" — stood out starkly amid the prominent professional advertisements of brands like JD.com, Bank of Jiangsu, and others. It attracted the attention of fans and quickly spread on major short-video platforms.
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Netizens dubbed Dongha BBQ the "super individual business entity of the year", and praised the local government's business-friendly environment.
According to data released by Changzhou, the match had 36,712 spectators at the ground and over 8.57 million online viewers. It trended as the top topic on Weibo and Douyin.
Following the sudden surge in popularity, a large number of fans have flocked to support Dongha BBQ.
"We were worried our humble sign might look out of place," Zhang said. "I am very grateful to Changzhou, which embraces thousands of ordinary dreamers like us," she said, advising fans to visit her overwhelmed restaurant at a later date for better service.
Sponsors scramble
On June 13, two big companies, JD.com and dairy giant Yili, almost simultaneously announced their sponsorship of the 2025 Jiangsu Football City League.
While sponsorship of sports events wasn't particularly vibrant this year, the Jiangsu league's spark defied the trend.
The sponsorship threshold set by the organizers was relatively low, with the Bank of Jiangsu securing the entire season's sponsorship for just 8 million yuan.
But as the event's popularity soared, the league initiated a second round of sponsorship, with an official sponsor's fee surging from 500,000 yuan to 3 million yuan.
"Money alone won't get you in now — just like during the hottest times in the real estate market, you have to draw lots," one Jiangsu media insider noted.
At the start of the event, the six sponsors were mostly local enterprises in Jiangsu.
However, existing avenues weren't enough to meet the demands of more potential partners. Some enterprises have taken alternative routes by sponsoring the divisions and the 13 football teams.
In the Nanjing division, for example, the advertising boards on the sidelines have all been filled, even after the matches were moved to a bigger venue, with an additional 14 boards.
On June 19, Ping An Insurance became the official partner of the Nantong division. The insurance giant sponsored the Chinese Super League for many years, but did not renew the deal in 2024.
Despite Suchao being an amateur league and the players coming from various backgrounds, the sponsors include a variety of listed companies, with some selling luxury items.
Jiangsu Jinshiyuan Liquor Co, headquartered in Huai'an, was one of the earliest sponsors of the league with its Guoyuan V3, a premium baijiu.
"The popularity of the event has exceeded our expectations. At that time, we only became a sponsor because football has a great influence and a wide base of followers in Jiangsu," said Zhang Tao, a deputy director of the company.
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Jinshiyuan Liquor is also a sponsor of the Huai'an division.
Another giant in the liquor industry, Yanghe Co, sponsored its hometown team of Suqian.
The jerseys of many of the teams in the amateur league prominently display the logos of local enterprises, most of which are major industries in their respective cities.
Xuzhou's jersey features soy milk producer VV Food & Beverage Co; Wuxi's bears CITIC Pacific Special Steel's logo; while Zhenjiang's showcases flooring leader Power Dekor.
According to the official account of the Yangzhou Sports Bureau by June 11, the Yangzhou team had 15 sponsors. They were headed by local enterprises including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's Yangzhou branch, construction company Jiangsu Hanjian Group, and Yangzhou Yangjie Electronic Technology.
Netizens believe that the participation of JD.com may be related to its founder Liu Qiangdong being from Suqian; while the entry of Li Auto might be because its production base is located in Changzhou.
Economic ladder
The sponsorship frenzy is a clear expression of Jiangsu's wealth, according to many netizens.
In 2024, the province's GDP exceeded 13.7 trillion yuan, ranking first nationwide. Each of its 13 cities has strong economies. At the top, are five "trillion-yuan cities", with Suzhou leading the pack with over 2.67 trillion yuan in 2024 GDP, followed by Nanjing, Wuxi, Nantong, and Changzhou.
Xuzhou is just a step back at 900 billion yuan, while even Lianyungang, at the bottom of the economic ladder, had an annual GDP of 466.3 billion yuan last year.
"For football projects, social and cultural support is crucial, including economic support," Huang Haiyan, dean of the School of Management at Beijing Sport University, told the 21st Century Business Herald.
He pointed out that the sponsorship fees for the league in Jiangsu have gone through three stages starting with local support, followed by national awareness of the league, and, finally, a premium competition, with its commercial value experiencing exponential growth.
High economic development and strong consumer power in Jiangsu are also among the factors that have contributed to the high commercial value of the league.
On Saturday, the match between Nanjing and Suzhou took place at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Stadium.
The two cities have long exchanged barbs and jokes over which one is the "true capital" of Jiangsu. Despite Nanjing's provincial capital status, Suzhou's higher GDP has fueled a "capital city dispute" meme.
"We can't lose to Suzhou, no matter what," vowed Nanjing fans.
The main stadium of the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center can accommodate 62,000 people, and tickets for the match were sold out almost instantaneously. The two teams drew 0-0.
Official attendance at the game was 60,396 spectators, a new record for the attendance of an amateur soccer event in China.
While its team languishes at the bottom of the league with zero goals in its first five matches, Changzhou has executed a master class in converting sporting losses into economic wins.
The city's self-deprecating wit — a hallmark of the Suchao phenomenon — is now driving unprecedented "football plus culture & tourism plus consumption" integration across the province.
The Tianmu Lake Scenic Area in Changzhou launched a "bald-headed free ticket" promotion, which has no gender or age restrictions and only requires the recipient to have no hair. In Chinese, zero points is referred to as having one's head shaved clean.
From June 22 to the end of August, bald people can enjoy free entry to the area's mountain and water gardens and the South Mountain Bamboo Sea.
On July 2, Jiangsu Yancheng Safari Park officially announced a name change to "Changzhou Yingqiu Wildlife World". In Chinese, "yingqiu" means a winning goal.
The zoo manager, surnamed Xu, explained that although Changzhou has yet to win a match, their fans are eager to see the team score and win.
In the sixth round on Sunday, Changzhou, true to form, drew 0-0 away against Huai'an.
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According to a special survey conducted by the Jiangsu branch of the National Bureau of Statistics, the Suchao, in its inaugural year, has successfully garnered public attention and established a strong reputation, becoming a vibrant new calling card for Jiangsu's economic development.
The branch surveyed 3,189 permanent residents across the province and released the results on July 1.
It revealed that 88.7 percent of those surveyed felt the positive impact of the matches on economic development, such as boosting growth in the restaurant and accommodation industries, attracting out-of-town tourists, and promoting tourism development.
The Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, in collaboration with the 13 cities, has organized various activities such as exhibitions, theatrical performances, and intangible cultural heritage showcases based on match schedules.
They have introduced over 1,400 measures such as reduced admission fees for attractions, consumer vouchers, and more volunteer services to make travel more convenient and attract out-of-town visitors.
According to monitoring by the Jiangsu Smart Cultural and Tourism Platform, during the fifth round of matches from June 28 to 29, the number of out-of-town tourists in Suzhou, Yancheng, Taizhou, Nantong, and Lianyungang increased by more than 24 percent compared with the previous weekend.
During that weekend, Nantong received nearly 1.27 million visitors, including 374,000 from outside the province, generating total tourism revenue of 690 million yuan, according to statistics from Nantong's cultural and tourism department.
The match between Suzhou and Yangzhou on June 29 resulted in weekend visits to Zhouzhuang Ancient Town increasing by more than 160 percent, officials said.
The game took place at the Kunshan Olympic Sports Center Stadium in Kunshan, a county-level city of Suzhou, with a maximum capacity of around 45,000 people. A total of 43,617 spectators were at the ground.
When the league was initially planned, organizers were concerned that even 2,000 seats might not be filled.
However, the number of spectators at each match now reaches the venues' full capacity.
