Abstract: Based on the legislation background of the national honor system, this paper reviews the basic research, problem revelation and path optimization of sports recognition and reward in China in the past 30 years.From the research perspective, the study finds that there are more on material reward while less on honor recognition; more on competitive sports while less on other fields.In the research methods, there are more institutional studies while less empirical analysis; more longitudinal studies while less horizontal comparative studies.The future research should further on the connotation and relations of "sports award", "sports honor", "sports honor system", "government supply" and "subject needs", etc.