JOWDOU · TO THE WORLD — 2026 GLOBAL LAUNCH OF JOWDOU SPORT

Five thousand years ago, the embryonic form of sports known as the "Chiyou Game" emerged in legends about the ancestors of the Chinese nation. Five thousand years later, this traditional game centered on single-leg combat has undergone 21 years of standardization and development. It has grown into an original Chinese ethnic sport with intellectual property rights deployed across 118 countries and regions worldwide. On September 17, the press conference themed “Jowdou · To the World — 2026 Global Launch of Jiaodou Sport” was held in Beijing. Three national-level competition series were unveiled simultaneously: the City Jowdou King Ranking Tournament, the Jowdou Goddess Challenge, and the Jowdou Kids Club League. Together they form a full-year competition matrix featuring “weekly events and monthly highlights”.

Game as Culture: Contemporary Interpretation of 5,000-Year-Old Civilization Genes

Jiaodou, also remembered by countless Chinese as “Zhuangguai” or “Douji” (the traditional one-legged pushing game), requires no equipment and can be played on school playgrounds, threshing grounds or alleyways. Tracing its cultural roots, it dates back to the “Chiyou Game” of 5,000 years ago and shares origins with Chinese martial arts.

In 2005, to promote traditional Chinese culture, a research team assembled experts from 16 sports universities across China. They screened, excavated, innovated and formulated standards from more than 100 folk sports games, and finally developed the original ethnic sport “Jowdou”. The transformation from an orallypassed folk pastime to a modern competitive sport with rigorous rules is a microcosm of the modernization of China’s traditional ethnic sports.

“Vital inheritance does not mean copying folk customs exactly,” said Wu Yanda, Founder of Jowdou Sport and President of the Beijing Jowdou Association. Many traditional ethnic sports possess vibrant cultural cores yet lack standardized competition systems. This prevents them from moving beyond folk custom scenarios to build sustainable industrial ecosystems. “We must conduct in-depth research on traditional sports, carry out standardized transformation, and establish a complete rule system, so that ancient folk sports can meet the communication and competitive demands of modern society.”

Rules as Empowerment: Preemptive Intellectual Property Rights Build Discourse Power over Standards

From Wu Yanda’s perspective, for Chinese folk ethnic sports to truly go global, they must first adapt to universal international sports rules and deliver considerable spectator appeal and competitive intensity — the foundation for commercial value. Numerous folk ethnic sports across China boast solid public support and profound cultural heritage, yet they have long suffered from insufficient intellectual property protection and missing standard systems.

Jiaodou Sport offers a solution: “preemptive intellectual property rights”. Drawing on his ten-year career as a lawyer, Wu Yanda promoted the establishment of an intellectual property brand management center in the early stages of the sport’s development. Full-chain intellectual property protection was completed for trademarks, competition rules, venue standards, event intellectual property (IP) assets and more. The inauguration of the Jowdou Intellectual Property Management Center breaks the conventional path for sports IPs of “authorization after maturity”. In the early phase of global promotion, a standardized authorization and operation system has been built. Core rights and interests, including trademarks, patents, event hosting rights and broadcast rights, have been converted into a cooperative, replicable and globally unified normative framework.

Jiaodou Sport has completed comprehensive intellectual property deployment in 118 countries and regions, covering core IP assets such as event brands, technical rules, Jowdou venue standards, Jowdou Kids, Jowdou King and Jowdou Goddess. In future, staging Jiaodou Sport events in more than 230 countries and regions worldwide will require official intellectual property authorization. “The essence of global trade competition lies not only in products, but also in rules, intellectual property and brand discourse power.” This exploration, built on intellectual property, provides an industrially valuable model for original Chinese sports IPs to compete internationally and promote homegrown standards “going global”.

Sport as Education: Dual Empowerment via Sports Education Integration and Employment & Entrepreneurship

On the education front, Jiaodou Sport has built solid experience in sports education integration. After six years of development, the Beijing Jowdou Kids Tournament has formed a standardized competition referee system, covering more than 180 schools and tens of thousands of young people across Beijing. Aligned with the educational vision of “integrating sports with education and advancing five-dimensional all-round development”, tournaments combine competitive confrontation with character-building and intellectual development. Lu Qin, Chief Education Expert of China Children’s Press and Publication Group, commented that Jiaodou Sport uniquely helps children develop concentration, self-confidence, teamwork skills and self-control, offering an innovative path for implementing five-dimensional all-round development and family education.

The founding of the Employment and Entrepreneurship Guidance Center marks industrial extension built upon the intellectual property system. The center breaks down the complete industrial chain into standardized posts that can be trained, certified and filled. It creates a full-chain pathway: “training, certification, employment, entrepreneurship, city partner”. It covers diverse roles including referees, coaches, operators, communicators and club managers. It opens career advancement channels for retired athletes and sportsmajoring graduates, while also delivering low-threshold skill development opportunities for the wider public.

Culture as the Future: Telling China’s Stories to the World through an Original Sport

“Accessibility” constitutes Jiaodou’s distinctive competitive edge in the event economy. Unlike high-threshold professional traditional sports events, Jiaodou demands no sophisticated equipment and is venue-agnostic. Matches can be quickly staged on school playgrounds, shopping mall atriums or community open spaces, enabling people of all age groups to compete with zero barriers. In September 2024, the “Night Beijing · New National Trend” Jiaodou Sport Carnival was held at Dongba Wanda Plaza in Chaoyang District, Beijing. A total of 450 young competitors from 38 teams representing 17 schools competed in the shopping mall atrium. The event boosted local commerce and consumption, serving as a vivid example of “sports-commerce integration”. The supporting public space network of “Jowdou Venues” will build mini cultural sports tourism complexes integrating sports experiences, event hosting, parent-child interaction and cultural sports consumption, delivering the comprehensive value of “one event energizing an entire city”.

At the industrial level, Jiaodou has rolled out the “City Partner” model. Centered on intellectual property sharing, it grants brand, standard and system authorization to partners across Chinese provinces, municipalities and the globe, allowing participants to share dividends from the IP. Looking ahead to global expansion, Wu Yanda disclosed plans to build an International Jowdou Academy. It will export certified coach and referee systems, and host world championships including the International Jowdou King Tournament and the Jowdou Goddess Tournament. Leveraging platforms such as BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and China-Africa cooperation, the sport will pursue global outreach via intellectual property-based trade models. “China’s 5,000-year-old civilization is profound, yet it lacks carriers for global communication. Sports serve as a vehicle for culture, and culture forms the soul of sports. Original national sports with world-ready standards constitute the ‘core chip’ for building a strong sporting nation and a strong cultural nation.”

From the ancient “Chiyou Game” five thousand years ago to a modern sport with intellectual property protection spanning 118 countries and regions, Jiaodou Sport has blazed a path for modernizing folk ethnic sports: “standardization, IP building, industrialization, internationalization” supported by independent rules, proprietary intellectual property and a complete industrial system. It also contributes an inclusive, accessible Chinese solution to enrich global sports diversity.