Shanghai fair shows sports remain big biz

Kevin Chu, general manager of Unifitness Group, said the company provides overall solutions for building fitness centers, from designing layout to providing equipment and training.

"We have seen a growing demand from Chinese companies to build fitness spaces in their offices and R&D parks," Chu said. "In the past, our clients used to be only multinational corporations, such as GE and Intel, but now we started to have business from Huawei, Bytedance and Tencent."

The company has also worked with the China Rowing Association to organize online indoor rowing competitions-people compete with friends or strangers by connecting rowing machines at home to the internet.

Competing with friends in one's favorite NBA basketball teams on computer, racing in a Formula One simulator, or exercising with a Nintendo Switch-different types of esports have attracted crowds at the third CIIE that ended on Tuesday in Shanghai.

Esports is another sector in China where foreign companies want to work with Chinese counterparts to share the market's rapid growth, industry observers said.

According to games market researcher Newzoo, the global esports market's sales revenues will surpass $1 billion this year, while China is the largest single market with a revenue of $385 million. The country is home to the largest concentration of esports fans.

The Formula One Esports Series has partnered with Shanghai Juss Intellisports Co to open its China tournament last year, which became the first esports tournament to be broadcast on a TV channel in China. The program attracted 53 million online viewers this year.

The tournament held this year's 15th round race during the expo.

The Asian Electronic Sports Federation made its debut at the expo with the help of its strategic partner Duosport Co in Shanghai. It also signed partnership agreements with the city governments of Guiyang in Guizhou province, Longyan in Fujian province and Suzhou in Jiangsu province.

In his video speech to the event, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, president of the AESF, said, "Asia is deemed the origin of esports with the fastest growing player population around the world, and China is leading the growth."

Determined to promote the esports industry, Shanghai announced plans to become "the international capital of esports" and has held two top esports events, the International Dota 2 Championships in 2019 and the League of Legends World Championship in October.

Chen Weili, CEO of Duosport, said the company will work with the AESF to organize an esports competition for Asian college students in Shanghai next year.