From Workers' Stadium to Europe, BYD Shows Two Lines of "Long-termism"

On October 24, Tsinghua High School at Tsinghua University defeated Shijiazhuang No. 2 High School 2-0 in Beijing Workers' Stadium, winning the championship of the 3rd Dongrun Cup National Youth Football Final. This campus football final was held at the most iconic venue in Chinese professional football. 22 campus teams that emerged from 352 schools nationwide completed their highlight moments under the lights of the professional field.

As the top strategic partner of the event, BYD witnessed and supported this tournament. Kong Dongmei, founder and president of the Dongrun Public Welfare Foundation, and Li Yunfei, General Manager of BYD Brand and Public Relations Department, jointly presented awards to the winning team.

If looking only at the Dongrun Cup, this might seem like a routine corporate public welfare sponsorship. But observing it within BYD's action logic of the past two years reveals a clear thread: in youth football, BYD chose a path requiring patience. Instead of concentrating resources on a few "genius prospects", it simultaneously supported elite youth training projects such as "Chinese Football Kids" and "Audition for the Future", while shifting focus down to county-level campuses and regular high school teams.

According to Lun Chuan, since 2024, over 200 young footballers under its organization have traveled to Germany, Japan, Spain, and Brazil, visiting training bases of clubs such as Bayern Munich and Barcelona, as well as attending stands of the UEFA Euro and FIFA World Cup. Meanwhile, owner volunteers went deep into remote areas such as Ili, Xinjiang, and Yuanbao, Guizhou, delivering equipment and public welfare courses to mountain area campus teams. Elite elevation and grassroots popularization proceed side by side, rather than choosing one. This structural balance explains more whether an enterprise truly understands the growth laws of youth football than the amount of a single investment.

The Dongrun Public Welfare Foundation, a national 5A-level foundation supervised by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, has been deeply engaged in youth education assistance for over a decade. Its projects cover 31 provinces and regions and 324 counties nationwide, with a mature county-level implementation network. BYD partnering with it essentially aligns corporate resource investment with the professional execution capabilities of public welfare organizations. Since the Dongrun Cup officially started in 2023, it has covered over 20 provinces nationwide, cumulatively attracting over 1000 campus teams, more than 10,000 players and coaches to participate. Over thirty participating players successfully selected for the National Youth Team, National Secondary School Team, and U-Series Elite Training Camp.

In the view of Lun Chuan, behind these numbers, a talent channel from county-level campuses to professional tiers is being gradually opened. And holding the final of this tournament at the Workers' Stadium conveys a clearer perception: top-tier venues are not exclusive to the few; ordinary children who love football also deserve to complete a seriously treated match under the same lights.

This "long-termism" temperament is also reflected in BYD's main business. In the first three quarters of 2026, BYD Group cumulatively sold 3.132 million vehicles, of which overseas sales accumulated at 1.338 million, a year-on-year increase of 92.66%; September single-month overseas sales were 179,900 vehicles, with a year-on-year increase of 153.9%.

In Thailand, Brazil, and Hungary, BYD is embedding its production, R&D, and charging systems into local markets. The Hungarian passenger car plant has a total investment of approximately 4 billion euros, with a planned annual capacity of 300,000 units. The Budapest European Headquarters and R&D Center ensure products adapt to European standards and regulations from the blueprint stage. In the first three quarters of 2026, BYD's cumulative sales in Europe increased by 72.87% year-on-year. Europe is transforming from an "export destination" to a "second home field".

At the October Paris Auto Show, BYD ATTO 8 made its European premiere, becoming its first European model equipped with the 2nd Gen Blade Battery and Flash Charge Technology. WLTP range is up to 653 kilometers, charging from 10% to 97% takes only 9 minutes, scheduled to launch in Q1 2027. DOLPHIN G DM-i developed specifically for the European market was also unveiled, calibrated for European road conditions and regulations from the early product definition stage.

From product exports to industry rooting, this path is also not a choice to harvest results in the short term. Building factories overseas, local R&D, channel layout, and regulation adaptation, each item requires calculating the return cycle in units of years. But it is precisely this "slowness" that changes the existence of Chinese brands in the global market from "selling out" to "staying back".

Lun Chuan believes that viewing these two threads together, BYD's development logic is self-consistent. The return cycle of youth football is measured in decades, and the return cycle of overseas localization is also not measured by quarters. An enterprise willing to invest simultaneously in county-level campus teams and European factories obviously does not have its decision scale based on the next financial report, but on the next cycle.

The Workers' Stadium night of the Dongrun Cup, and the ATTO 8 booth at the Paris Auto Show, seem far apart, but point to the same judgment: things truly worth investing in often require more time than market expectations. The improvement of Chinese football soil is like this, and the globalization of Chinese brands is also like this. "We cannot play on behalf of them, but we can take them to the field." This sentence talks about football youth, but placing it on a Chinese enterprise that is moving from "selling out" to "walking in", it also holds true. Being present is the first step, staying back and taking root is the harder part. Whether it is football or cars, what truly determines the final height is always those people and enterprises willing to look far ahead.