From "Living Heritage Transmission" to "Rural-Driven Development": Research on the Industrialization of Sports Intangible Cultural Heritage Empowering Rural Revitalization

This paper focuses on the functional transformation and innovative pathways of sports intangible cultural heritage within the context of the rural revitalization strategy. The rich sports intangible cultural heritage resources inherent in rural settings are undergoing a profound reevaluation of their systemic value in response to specific national strategic drivers. However, the long-dominant paradigm of living heritage preservation struggles to translate into endogenous drivers for rural development due to its inherent economic fragility and limited social impact. To address this challenge, this study proposes constructing a rural industrial ecosystem with sports intangible cultural heritage as its core engine. The implementation pathways include: grounding in cultural origins to build a modern, multi-tiered product system and systematic brand; establishing organizational mechanisms through internal cultivation and external attraction to foster collaboration between local talent and professional operational entities; and extending industrial chains to promote deep integration and symbiosis between sports intangible cultural heritage and diverse sectors such as cultural tourism and specialty agriculture.