Without being too proficient in news, you can also guess the identity of sponsors of most inspirational and social sports tournaments that are naturally spreading every day in the press and social networks: Bao Hien.
Just a few days ago, Mr. Hien's group also awarded the Vietnam People's Public Security Sports Delegation for its high achievements at the 2025 World Police and Firefighters Sports Festival.
At first glance, these news items are nothing special. The presence of sponsors besides a movement tournament is always considered an unofficial effort: the main motivation for sponsorship is always to promote sports in the form of a social movement, rather than the act of placing pure brand banners.
And Mr. Hien has done so for many years, before the grassroots sports were more noticed and participated.
A different way of thinking
In 1980, at the Winter Olympics held in Lake placid, New York, a symbolic badminton match between the Soviet Union and the United States took place.
The Soviet team was the defending champion, having won 4 consecutive times, with the entire squad being world-class professional players. Meanwhile, the US team is a group of young players, amateur players, mainly... college students. But the American badminton team caused a stir after defeating the Soviet Union 4-3.
This miracle is called Fiber on the ice, a turning point for a new way of thinking: he can do sports from the root and still win. The American badminton team was created from the badminton movement in American universities, not a will-owned badminton training campaign at the upper levels.
From there, the world has another option to go with sports: socialize it. The path to developing sports from the root is to encourage many people to play it, then select excellent athletes from that strong sports background.
Mr. Hien's path
People still remind us that Mr. Hien started building Hanoi Club from the roots as a youth training center in 2006, instead of buying a whole team and burning down the stage.
Nowadays, this is very normal, but at that time, the number of quality youth training centers in the V League was counted on the fingers. The teams compete to reward players at a sky-high price to win, without focusing on training.
Few people know that Mr. Hien has invested in amateur table tennis since 2007. And it is said to be an investment, but the main thing is to sponsor and promote, not for profit: Hanoi T&T Table Tennis Club and recently CAND-T&T Table Tennis Club are both practiced with modern equipment, contributing to raising the level of Vietnamese table tennis, bringing historical achievements such as the HCV SEA Games.
Le Dinh Duc, an athlete who won 2 gold medals in the men's team and men's doubles at the 2025 Nhan Dan Newspaper National Table Tennis Championship, was unlikely to continue competing due to a serious illness. Mr. Hien was the one who generously covered all the treatment costs, although he was not sure he could return to play.
If you type the phrase "Showing in the stands" into the search bar, Google will return you about 3 million results. But Mr. Hien's going to watch a sports match, or cheering on office players... will often not be on the news, even though this number is probably no less than the times he went to Hang Day to watch Hanoi FC compete.
Mr. Hien not only played, but also laughed with the teams he followed. He not only went to see the V-League in the most beautiful arenas in Vietnam, but also wandered into small, alley-level arenas to watch and encourage amateur office players to play football.
Earlier this year, he hired a private jet to take 600 fans and their families to Thailand to cheer for the Vietnam team in an important match at the 2024 ASEAN Cup. An act shows that Mr. Hien is human: being in love means completely eliminating material considerations.
In fact, if they consider material things too much, like a business that uses sports as pure economic leverage, Mr. Hien and T&T probably will never choose the path of the US badminton team in 1980.
Coming back to develop the socialization of sports and promote the movement was a difficult, lonely and painful choice in the early 2000s. Achievements have not been seen, contributions have not been recognized, and people working in sports from the root always have to endure psychological challenges from comparison: other officials have burned the stage and won early championships, while Mr. Hien had to wait a long time to see the sweet fruit.
But until now, Mr. Hien is no longer lonely. What he has done before has become the standard, and the current achievements of the country's sports have become more sweet than ever, because we know that behind it is a patient and methodical journey as a fulcrum. During the difficult days, Mr. Hien did the things that few people paid attention to, from youth training, building grassroots playgrounds, and sponsoring anyone who wanted to play sports, not just professional athletes.
Until now, he is right. A piece of news about him and T&T appeared next to an amateur tournament, so it evoked more emotions than we thought. For many years, he and his business have done the same: encouraging those who want to play sports.
