Abstract: Awards for popular sports games, such as sumo, surfing, kemari, boat racing and horse archery, in the Song Dynasty cover a wide variety of forms including currency, physical objects, or even official ranks. Awards for games like sumo, surfing, kemari, or boat racing, stress short-term incentive effect, while awards for horse archery are mostly awarding decrees or laws,stressing long-term incentive effect. This could be related to the military threats from the northern frontier. Different from the previous historical periods, awards for sports activities in the Song Dynasty take on some new features such as the expansion of awarding items, the standardization of awarding regulations and the use of paper currency. While catering to the life needs of practitioners, sports awards in the Song Dynasty promote the commercialization and marketization of sports activities. Stimulated by high rewards, games like sumo and boat racing take on the initial forms of modern commercial sports, thus pioneering sports marketization in China.

Key words: the Song Dynasty, sport awards, study, marketization