This past Dragon Boat Festival weekend, it wasn’t family gatherings, dragon boat racing, or zongzi that drew throngs of tourists to the eastern Jiangsu province, but an unlikely new attraction: the Jiangsu Provincial City Football League.

The amateur, all-male football tournament, which began on May 10, drew bigger crowds than many of China’s top professional league games, with over 180,000 fans flocking to six host cities during the three-day holiday, according to local government data. All six third-round matches sold out, each drawing more than 10,000 spectators on average.

In Xuzhou City, one match had to be moved to the city’s Olympic Sports Center to accommodate over 22,000 spectators.

UnionPay, China’s major payment network, recorded a 14.63% increase in intra-city cultural and tourism spending.

The tournament’s soaring popularity partly lies in its inclusive format, with each of the province’s 13 prefecture-level cities fielding an eponymous team. Meanwhile, the 500-plus players, aged 16 to 40, represented a diverse range of professions, including students, teachers, couriers, and programmers.

Jiangsu, one of China’s most developed provinces, also has a unique urban makeup. Unlike regions dominated by a single provincial capital, like Chengdu in the southwestern Sichuan or Wuhan in the central Hubei province, Jiangsu features numerous mid-sized cities — such as the capital Nanjing, Suzhou, and Wuxi — each with thriving economies, distinct cultures, and even competition when it comes to development, resources, and prestige.

This has given rise to the internet term “sanzhuang Jiangsu” — literally “loose-packed Jiangsu” — humorously capturing how the province’s 13 cities are economically strong and highly individualistic, yet loosely connected.

With each team competing for the honor, pride, and recognition of their hometown, the tournament speaks to football fans who yearn for grassroots passion and the sport’s more virtuous days — something increasingly valued amid the chaos and corruption scandals plaguing China’s professional football scene.

“This is what true grassroots football culture should look like,” said one highly upvoted comment on microblogging platform Weibo.

The matches quickly sparked an online sensation with hashtags related to the topic drawing more than 820 million views on social video platform Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Related Chinese slang and memes also quickly caught on, fueled by local government-backed promotions on social media.

One match between Xuzhou and neighboring Suqian City was billed as a modern-day Chu-Han Contention, harking back to a famous conflict between Liu Bang, ruler of the Han kingdom and Xuzhou native, and Xiang Yu, the Suqian-born leader of the Western Chu. Liu eventually won the four-year battle, marking the beginning of the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). By invoking this phrase, fans and commentators added a layer of drama, tradition, and regional pride to an otherwise friendly fixture.

In turn, tourism authorities capitalized on the tournament to stimulate local economies. In aid of their match on May 31, Changzhou offered away fans from Yangzhou free entry to its most popular sights, drawing more than 60,000 visitors to the city. And almost half of the 106,000 visitors to Changzhou’s Dinosaur Park over the holiday, the city’s biggest attraction, hailed from Yangzhou.

Other host cities like Xuzhou, Zhenjiang, and Taizhou offered consumption discounts that spanned dining, accommodation, tourism, and shopping.

Cities across China have in recent years increasingly turned to social media to achieve “internet celebrity” — or wanghong — status in a bid to boost domestic tourism and consumption.

From showcasing local sports events and scenic spots to highlighting local cuisine, local authorities are working to blur the boundaries between the cultural, sports, and tourism sectors, driving growth across multiple industries from dining and accommodation to retail.

Editor: Tom Arnstein.

(Header image: Football fans at a match in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, June 1, 2025. Zheng Hongliang/VCG)