Abstract: Taking the “Village Super League” in Rongjiang, Guizhou as a case study, this article deeply analyzes its internal development logic characterized by “people-centeredness”, “local cultural integration,” “media-driven popularity,” and “point-to-area radiation.” Using proceduralized grounded theory coding techniques, the study identifies five main categories—“accumulation of local resources”, “deep participation of villagers”, “construction of media discourse”, “industrial integration and interaction” and “cross-boundary collaboration and symbiosis”—along with their logical interrelationships. A sustainable development mechanism model for “village-branded” football events is thereby constructed. The findings reveal that the accumulation of local resources provides foundational conditions for sustainable development, villagers’ deep participation plays a critical role, media discourse construction acts as a mediator, industrial integration serves interactive functions, and cross-boundary collaboration enables empowerment. These five categories interact dynamically through vertical linkages and horizontal synergies, collectively driving the core category of “sustainable development mechanism.” Recommendations include preserving the events’ “purity” and “rural authenticity,” promoting “distinctive and aggregated resource utilization”, fostering “industrialization” and “hyperlinked themes” for village-branded events, and establishing “super brands” and “super economies” for such events.

Key words: rural sports revitalization, sustainable development mechanism, neo-endogenous development theory, grounded theory, Village Super League