The Imperial Football League No. 1 Cup in Xuanping's 60th season, starting from the top 32 knockout stages in the summer, has attracted much attention because of many attractions. There are powerful duels between powerful players, and there are also old rivals.
The fateful battle, and the strongest showdown between the strongest dark horse and the strongest giants in history!
The Imperial Football Champion Cup has been held for so many times, and this one is the most interesting and the most popular one.
Not to mention ordinary people paying attention, even the dignitaries pay frequent attention, and even members of the royal family frequently attend the games.
Especially in the summer, a series of knockout rounds for the top 16 have attracted the attention of the whole people!
In the autumn of Xuanping's 60th year, the Buqiu Champion Cup was the most important thing for the entire empire, and all other matters had to be put on the sidelines!
The development of football in the Datang Empire has experienced explosive growth in the past two decades, especially after officially promoting professionalization, formulating the five major regional professional leagues, and holding the No. 1 Champion Cup, the influence has continued to expand.
Now, going to watch a football match on a day off and cheering for the team you support has become a daily leisure activity for people in the Tang Dynasty.
After all, there are still relatively few leisure and entertainment activities for ordinary people these days, and the only ones that are more lively are large-scale sports events.
At the same time, thanks to the development of trains, it not only makes it easier for teams to travel to other places to participate in games, but also makes it easier for people to go to the stadium to watch games.
In addition, football itself has a strong folk foundation, and the government has been supporting and promoting the development of football. Football teams in various schools are basically a must.
The combination of these factors has contributed to the current popularity of football in the Tang Empire!
Due to the continuous economic development of the Datang Empire, the gradual improvement of people's living standards, and the further development of transportation, especially urban and suburban transportation, some large-scale sports events in the Datang Empire have developed very well.
The development of football, which represents the leisure and entertainment industry, also directly reflects the rapid improvement of the living standards of the people in the contemporary Datang Empire.
Looking at the grand scene of the North Shore Stepping Stadium today, it’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a prosperous time!
Not only football, but also other sports events in the Tang Empire were very popular, such as Cuju, Chui Wan, rowing, ice hockey, etc.
However, these are far less developed than stepball and polo!
Needless to say, stepball is currently the number one sport for the people, with a wide audience, the greatest influence, and the best commercial development. The fact that stepball can develop so well has a lot to do with the difficulty of promoting polo.
Step ball is actually a simplified, low-cost version of polo!
If it weren't for the fact that polo was difficult to promote due to its high cost, the Tang Dynasty would not have promoted step ball at all, but would have directly popularized and promoted polo on a large scale.
After all, strictly speaking, polo was the favorite sports event of the Tang Dynasty people, and it was especially respected by the upper class.
During the holidays, make an appointment with a few friends and sit in a box at the polo field to watch a polo match. This is a very common social activity among the upper class of the Tang Dynasty!
The middle-income class has always been closer to the upper class in terms of preferences, so middle-class people in the Tang Dynasty, no matter whether they really like it or are just pretending, they must know a little bit about polo, otherwise they will occasionally have the opportunity to participate in some high-end social activities
On special occasions, when people are chatting with you, they accidentally mention polo, but you can't even talk to them, and they often turn around and leave.
Before leaving, I often wonder: Why did a poor boy sneak in...
Watching polo matches, in contemporary Tang Dynasty society, was not actually about watching the matches, but more about socializing.
Every year before the Royal Polo Match, countless imperial dignitaries are eagerly awaiting it, especially the new nobles and senior officials are extremely anxious. They are so anxious just to wait for an invitation letter to the Royal Polo Match!
Many people in the Tang Dynasty know that one can tell whether a person has truly joined the elite class by seeing whether he has received an invitation letter to the Royal Polo Tournament.
Every year at the royal polo match, the Holy Emperor would attend the match in person, accompanied by a large number of royal members, the top dignitaries of the empire, and their immediate family members.
Similarly, during the Royal Polo Tournament, it was to some extent the highest-level social venue in the empire every year. Many dignitaries would bring their sons and daughters over to see if they could resolve their children's marriages during the Polo Tournament.
event.
Well, I don't have the opportunity to see so many powerful children gathering together on weekdays.
To a certain extent, the annual Royal Polo Match has gradually become a pro-conference meeting for powerful young men and women.
But this actually reflects the high-end social attributes of polo.
Many people in the Tang Dynasty have a strong affinity for polo. Whether most people really like it or not is not important. The important thing is to go to the polo match, which is a status symbol.
However, the high demands of polo are still a flaw, and there is no way for this game to be popularized on a large scale.
Polo is a very dangerous sport. Players must undergo long-term professional training, wear professional protective equipment, and comply with strict competition rules to be able to compete and protect themselves and the horses they ride on.
Professional training is easy to say, but more importantly, polo has a huge demand for horses, and the quality requirements for horses are too high.
In a standard polo match, the total number of participants from both sides is twenty-two. There are eight quarters in a game, and a horse can only participate in two of them at most.
This is because the polo match is too intense, with almost the entire field filled with constant bursts of sprinting, which consumes a lot of physical energy of the horses. Horses that participate in the game can easily be killed if they participate in the game for too long, and after the horse's physical fitness declines, the players
The movement of controlling the horse will change, leading to some accidents, and accidents on the polo field are very serious.
In order to avoid accidental protection of the players and also to protect the horses, it is mandatory that a horse can only participate in two quarters of the game.
In other words, as a minimum standard, after a game, both teams must prepare at least 88 horses, but in fact, more horses must be prepared to deal with different situations.
After a professional polo match, it is normal for both sides to prepare more than a hundred horses.
And this horse is not just any horse, it must be a top-notch riding horse, and it must have a docile personality, and the price is not cheap.
In order to protect golfers and horses, a lot of protective equipment is used, and it is expensive.
All of these have resulted in the inability to popularize polo on a large scale, and have also led to the high maintenance costs of professional polo teams, so ticket prices are often several times or more than those of football events.
Jinling No. 3 Polo Team’s home game ticket prices and the average ticket price can reach Wutang Yuan.
As for the same top step team, such as Yangtze Athletic, also in Jinling, the average home ticket price is only NT$35, a price difference of more than ten times.
Therefore, although many people in the Tang Dynasty like polo, they cannot afford to play or look down on it!
Many little kids often start saving pocket money when they are very young, just to be able to watch a top polo match with their friends.
Polo only had a strong influence in the Tang Empire, but it was difficult to popularize it.
But the step ball is different. This thing is a simplified version of polo. Although the protective gear is also expensive, compared to the sport of polo, it is not worth mentioning.
In addition, the imperial government has always focused on the promotion of polo, so the popularity and influence of football continue to expand.
Until today, the influence of football has gone beyond the sports event itself, and has become an entertainment program that is carnival for the whole people.
And this has further stimulated the commercial development of football!
This can be seen from the size of Shanghai North Shore Stadium.
When the Shanghai North Shore team was first built, they didn't even have their own stadium and could only rent public stadiums to play games. Later, they built a professional stadium of their own. As the ball market continued to boom, the scale of their stadium continued to expand, from 10,000 to 10,000 people.
Thirty thousand people, then fifty thousand people, then eighty thousand people.
Now, the capacity of Shanghai North Shore Stadium has reached 80,000 people, and when the stadium was upgraded, special modifications were carried out in accordance with the newly promulgated laws. Otherwise, the capacity could be even greater.
In a football match five years ago, because the number of fans entering the stadium far exceeded the capacity of the stadium, a trampling incident eventually occurred. In the end, the Department of Culture and Education of the Ministry of Rites and the Construction Department of the Ministry of Industry directly issued an extremely strict standard!
All professional venues or temporary venues that host sports events or other large-scale entertainment are required to be strict
Set up seats, entry and exit passages, escape routes, and imitate fire-fighting measures in accordance with standards and above.
This is to ensure that trampling does not occur during events with a large number of spectators.
At the same time, entrance and exit channels are strictly divided according to areas to avoid dense crowding in a short period of time.
Professional venues need to pass official quality standards audits before they can be put into commercial operation.
Temporary venues must also be reviewed and approved by official agencies above the provincial level before they can be used to hold events.
In addition, relevant security measures have been formulated, requiring event organizations to arrange and plan strictly in accordance with the relevant security measures, and must obtain recognition and approval from the local patrol department before holding relevant large-scale activities.
Since then, the capacity of various stadiums has dropped, and they have generally been replaced by seats, while increasing access channels. This has also forced each team to invest more money in upgrading the stadium to make the stadium larger to accommodate more people.
Gone are the scenes of crowds watching football as before.
However, safety has greatly improved, and there have been no safety incidents in these years.
Today the North Shore team faced the West Lake Automobile Team. The North Shore Stadium with 80,000 people was packed with seats!
Such a grand occasion can only be seen in the prosperous times!