Reporting the view on HCMC’s physical training and sports development in the new landscape, Deputy Director of the HCMC Department of Culture and Sports Nguyen Nam Nhan stated that promoting the sports economy to become a new pillar of urban development is a priority.
HCMC aims to expand its sports development beyond the mindset of “just winning medals,” treating it instead as a specific economic sector. From an economic perspective, HCMC is building a “golden” market that includes professional training services, high-tech equipment production, and especially sports tourism.
Not stopping at merely training athletes, HCMC is shaping a long-term strategy in organizing events to turn sports into a distinct economic field. Few localities host sports events with such high frequency as HCMC. Consequently, the true potential of sports tourism here can be highly lucrative, a fact that has been proven in recent times.
Statistics from the HCMC Department of Culture and Sports reveal that over the past five years, sports events have not only attracted participating athlete delegations but also generated substantial revenue from sponsorship contracts, sporting goods, sports services, and tourism.
For instance, the 2022 HCMC Sports Games gathered 6,628 athletes, a 24-percent increase compared to the previous games. This served not only as a mass sports playground but also contributed to stimulating the consumption of sports services (uniforms, equipment, tourism) and building big data on the exercise preferences of citizens.
Another example is the 2024 World Teqball Championships, hosted for the first time by HCMC. This event reached 470 million potential customers globally, a 400-percent rise from the previous year, and was broadcast in 74 countries, breaking Teqball viewership records. The total media value reached US$2.1 million, an increase of over 200 percent compared to the previous edition in Bangkok, Thailand.
Most recently, the 2025 HCMC International Martial Arts Festival continued to affirm the city’s position as an international rendezvous for martial arts disciplines, serving as a meeting place for culture, academics, community exchange, and the application of modern sports technology.
Statistics show the Festival attracted about 35,000 in-person attendees, generating 8.67 million reaches and 1.85 million interactions on social networks between November 8-24, 2025, along with 3.8 million online video views. The total estimated media value reached about VND16.5 billion ($619,000) during the event.
“In recent years, organizing ‘open’ events in central areas has been a deliberate strategy of ours. Prime locations maximize audience accessibility, and more importantly, create favorable conditions to attract businesses, brands, or sponsors who want to be present. They are not just looking for advertising space but also want to associate their brands and accompany the dynamic, positive image of the city’s sports. Besides professional sports activities, the events are also closely linked to the goal of developing tourism products,” said Director Nguyen Nam Nhan.
He also shared that after the regional consolidation phase, the HCMC sports sector has formed a strategic vision called the Development Triangle:
- The traditional HCMC area: a center for training, research, and application of advanced sports science;
- The Binh Duong area: a place with abundant potential for discovering and training talents while developing the domestic sports equipment industry;
- The Ba Ria-Vung Tau area: an ideal locality for developing marine sports and organizing national and international events.
These three areas joining forces will form a “sports triangle” with three core missions of elite training, human resource provision, and sports event organization, all operating on a comprehensive, modern, and synchronous digital foundation.
