With the accelerated growth of the esports industry over the last few years, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of esports athletes. Yet there is limited research examining these athletes' professional career journeys. This study provides a novel investigation into their career development process. This qualitative study uses a sample of 35 esports athletes from 16 professional esports clubs in China. Findings from semi-structured interviews confirmed our proposition that traditional career theories may be inadequate to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the newly emerged careers within esports. The authors propose that Chaos Theory in Careers (CTC) provides principles that may more effectively describe and explain the nature and main characteristics of esports careers, compared to the more conventional linear or stage-based sports career theories. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution through developing esports career theory which is applicable to a contemporary setting and has practical implications to practitioners for esports talent identification, recruitment and development.

This article examines the mobilization of football in relation to Chinese state building projects. Pierre Bourdieu's concept of 'symbolic power' is applied to frame policy analysis of China's 2016-2050 National Football Plan and narrative analysis of developments within China's rapidly expanding football sector. The extensive mobilization of national, provincial and local government institutions forms spaces for civic participation in state-building projects through direct participation in football. These civic spaces allow for active citizenship engagement with state projects and for expressions of consensus and participation with the Chinese Dream while also limiting potential for competing cultural movements to emerge. This paper argues that such developments are driven primarily for socio-political objectives with the aim of fostering shared notions of citizenship through the medium of sport.

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In China, the expanding eSports culture has produced a vast cohort of video-game players whose peak age ranges between 16 and 22 years. This study explores the dynamic identity transformation and mental wellbeing development processes of eSports professionals in a risk-prone society. It comprises in-depth interviews with players, coaches, managers, and commentators working in 15 top eSports clubs in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou, and Chengdu. We find eSports is perceived as non-secure, casual, and irregular by the Chinese public and that the mental changes experienced by eSports professionals throughout their careers have been significantly influenced by a more sophisticated form of state power and social norms, including cultural cognitive beliefs, economic stimulation, and authority attributions.

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