BEIJING, May 9, 2012 (City Weekend) — “No, they can’t do that!” Matt Beyer, the first foreigner to pass China’s General Administration of Sport-administered Sports Agent Certification Exam, shows up to an interview in Xidan, giving somebody the business over the phone. “Tell them no!” he says, smiling, motioning that the call will end soon and mouthing apologies.
Beyer is a busy man. “My biggest challenge is always time management,” he says, smiling—he is almost always smiling—“I would love it if I could have about 30 hours in the day.”
This seems a reasonable request, considering Beyer, China’s only foreign sports agent, does an impressive amount of traveling. Both Beyer and his company Altius Culture, a sports-focused total athlete management, consultancy and marketing, entertainment and events agency that launched in February, are based in Beijing, but work often takes him to Shanghai and Guangdong.
Despite employing some aggressive language on the phone, Beyer is cordial, candid and chatty as we talk in a coffee shop.
He has to leave shortly for Wukesong to attend a China Basketball Association Finals showdown between the Beijing Ducks and the Guangdong Southern Tigers. Considering Beyer’s Chinese proficiency—yes, the sports agency exam was in Chinese— and his connections with China’s growing sports sector, he is in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. In addition to propping up China’s culture industry throughout the world, the government has decided to grow its sports industry.
Sports, according to Beyer, currently make up 0.5 percent of China’s total GDP, but the government wants to take it to 0.7 percent—a move that is expected to create about four million jobs and make the industry worth about 50 billion U.S. dollars over the next five years.
“The sports market is a huge emerging industry,” he says. “Investors are willing to participate and get involved, but they may not have the ability to execute a deal.”
Which is where Beyer comes in.
His knowledge of the the language, the culture and the business environment make him a key player as China enters international sports. Beyer’s six weekends of classes leading up to the agent exam certainly paid off, as he’s now both credible and qualified to work as a full-blown sports agent in China, meaning he can do everything from team-to-team transfers, including transferring NBA players to the CBA (“The NBA has 420 players—if you’re not one of them, you can either play in the development league or go overseas,” he notes), to marketing athletes and getting them involved with private events.
While he’s handling marketing activities in China for some of the world’s top foreign athletes, such as Shaquille O’Neal, JR Smith and Wilson Chandler, just to name a few, and high-profile domestic athletes, such as silver medalist freestyle skiier Li Nina and gold medal-winning breaststroke swimmer Luo Xuejuan, there is one star he’d love to bring over: Michael Jordan. “He’s the most famous foreigner in China,” he says. “He’s the Bruce Lee of basketball.”
But Beyer is doing more than just linking up foreign and Chinese athletes and sports teams—he’s also working to help change China’s sport culture, a system that has come under fire for sacrificing education and physical well-being in the name of winning. In addition to Altius Culture, Beyer has also been working closely with the Champions Program at Beijing Sports University for the past two years. As the president of the University of Wisconsin’s alumni chapter in Beijing, he’s an obvious partner choice for the program that helps former Olympians and World Championship athletes go abroad to further their studies or develop skill sets that can carry them through life.
“China’s worked so hard to train them, but then they haven’t been a part of normal society for so long,” he says, citing kids who grow up practicing diving for three hours each day at the expense of regular schooling as an example. “So what do they do? There are so many former athletes in crappy jobs.”
Not only does the program help athletes with English skills and alternative sports-related career options, like kinesiology or developing a public image that could be parlayed into a deal as a brand ambassador or spokesperson, it also puts athlete after athlete on Beyer’s radar and links him with the university’s professors and deans—the people behind a lot of sports policy.
This summer Beyer is helping to organize basketball camps for Chinese kids. They’ll be open to high school-aged boys only, and the majority will come from Beijing, but a handful of ballers from around the country are also expected to turn up for the boarding camp that will combine college entrance skills, lessons on sportsmanship and teamwork, nutrition counseling and basketball training.
“It’s a very new model for China,” he says. “We’re promoting educated, well-rounded players and developing the full spectrum of the person and the athlete.”
He’s quick to point out, though, that it’s not a charity, and it won’t be cheap. Applicants will also be carefully screened. The camp is targeting student athletes hoping to head to the U.S. for university.
But are they hoping for NCAA stardom or to play at the university level?
“The sports China’s good at, the U.S. doesn’t care about,” Beyer says, pointing to ping pong and diving. “A lot of sports that the U.S. and Europe excel at, well, China doesn’t have anyone waiting in the wings.”
With a smile, he says it’s time to head to the game. And then he’s gone.
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