To further improve the quality of the development of characteristic sports towns in China and take the road of connotative development, as well as to promote the transformation and upgrading of China’s sports industrial structure, it is necessary to conduct in-depth and systematic research on sports characteristic towns in China. By utilizing the methods of literature review and logical analysis, this paper systematically studies the connotation, significance, development pattern and path of the sports characteristic towns in China. The study suggests that the significance of the sports characteristic towns includes four aspects: Firstly, it is an effective way to facilitate the construction of new urbanization; secondly, it is a useful practice to promote poverty alleviation and rural revitalization; thirdly, it is an important platform for promoting the supply-side structural reform of sports; fourthly, it is a beneficial path to promote regional economic growth. Starting from the way to promote the connotative development of sports characteristic towns in China, this study proposes a new pattern of connotative development of sports characteristic towns that follows the principles of “sports + culture”, “sports + tourism” and “sports + Internet”, and further puts forward the development path of the sports characteristic towns in the new era, which includes identifying industrial type, building experiential projects, paying attention to talent training, and improving policy guarantee mechanism.