Abstract:
The growth of sports-featured rural collective economies relies on both external multi-stakeholder investment and endogenous support from local rural resources. To clarify the impact of these two forces, this study selected four villages in China as case studies, constructing a theoretical framework based on new structural economics. The findings reveal that the collaboration between external investment and local resources evolves through four distinct models across different developmental stages: external investment-dominant, external investment-dominated sharing, local resource-dominated sharing, and external investment feedback. Optimizing the sports-featured rural collective economy requires dynamic adjustments to investment priorities, improved property rights systems, safeguards for villagers’ capital contributions and benefits, and balancing short-term and long-term gains. In practice, stakeholders should focus on attracting foundational investments, building long-term capacity, and fostering endogenous growth momentum to achieve high-quality development of the sports-featured rural collective economy.