With the transformation of the principal contradiction facing Chinese society, the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life have put forward new and higher requirements for the public sports service system. By examining the evolutionary logic of the systems and means for providing public sports services from a diachronic perspective, it becomes evident that the construction of China’s public sports service system has undergone a gradual transition from being closed to being open. This provides an institutional foundation for further exploring the path of incentive-based legal regulation that effectively combines government governance with market mechanisms. Based on the current situation of the supply of public sports service in China, the current supply mode of public sports service still bears a strong government-led feature. This government-led model with the absence of market mechanism has realistic difficulties such as insufficient total supply, unbalanced regional development and slow growth. As the absolute main body of the supply of public sports services, the government controls the whole process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, resulting in heavy political and financial burdens, and leading to insufficient supply of public sports services. In the choice of public sports service supply tools, the government often adopts the way of direct provision, and a single policy tool is easy to fail, making it difficult to resolve the dilemma of unbalanced supply. The combination of institutional mechanisms and inherent market problems has led to typical market failures in the supply of public sports services, which have failed to stimulate market vitality in the supply of public sports services. Incentive legal regulation is a governance strategy to stimulate the vitality of public sports service supply and promote the high-quality development of public sports service, and has functional advantages in overcoming the disadvantages of traditional supply means. Incentive legal regulation, without changing the existing market model and regulatory structure, couples the action strategies of various entities pursuing their own interests with the goals of public sports services through incentive compatible institutional arrangements. Specifically, according to the technical logic of “before， during， and after”, before admission, the rights, obligations, and responsibilities of market entities are scientifically allocated, market admission standards and subject qualification standards are relaxed, and the initial motivation of market entities is released. In the process of operation, through the combination of economic incentive tools, the income of suppliers is increased, the supply costs are reduced, and an effective internal incentive is formed for market players with reasonable sharing of cost and income. Afterwards, it is supplemented by a restrictive regulatory mechanism to strengthen the maintenance of market order and performance evaluation deterrence, prevent market failure and government failure risks, and leverage the joint advantages of the market and government to ensure the effectiveness of incentive legal regulation. Thus, an incentive legal regulatory framework that effectively combines government governance and market mechanism is set up to provide a feasible idea and suggestion for promoting the equalization of public sports services.