{"id":11383,"date":"2011-11-28T03:11:31","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T03:11:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-11-28T03:11:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T03:11:31","slug":"NFL-Tries-to-Tackle-China-Market-Again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11383","title":{"rendered":"NFL Tries to Tackle China Market Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time the National Football League tried to bring America\u2019s favorite sport to China, in the form of an exhibition game, the league pulled out at the 11th hour to avoid the embarrassment of empty bleachers. The league\u2019s latest attempt to introduce American football to a Chinese audience was more modest: A traveling version of the \u201cNFL Experience\u201d interactive marketing event held Sunday in Shanghai gave locals \u2013 and plenty of Americans \u2013 a chance to punt, pass and kick like the pros. Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett was on hand to offer tips to the city\u2019s small contingent of local players, like members of the Shanghai Sea Dragons. \u201cWhen you take a hand-off, you don\u2019t look at the quarterback you just run where you\u2019re going,\u201d Mr. Dorsett instructed nine-year-old Enoch Hung. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get down low.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

American football isn\u2019t a natural sell in China. The game is complex. Kids don\u2019t play it. The term \u2018football\u2019 here equals European soccer. Tackling seems dangerous. And the NFL so far lacks an ambassador on the scale of basketball\u2019s Yao Ming (though Chinese American Ed Wang\u2019s promising career with the Buffalo Bills is a start).<\/strong> In 2008, the NFL scheduled an exhibition game in Beijing between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, but then canceled it. The fear was that television coverage of an empty stadium would do more damage to the league\u2019s image than good. Sunday\u2019s festivities included non-tackling flag-football games. Venues offered chances to test passing, catching, kicking, running and jumping skills against benchmarks set by the pros. Four San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders were signing autographs.<\/strong> All five rows of the bleachers were full for a match-up of the two full-tackle club teams, the Shanghai Nighthawks and the Beijing Guardians (Shanghai won 35-to-7) on an Astroturf field next to Shanghai Stadium. The NFL said 3,500 people attended the events Sunday.<\/p>\n

The NFL Experience, which has been featured on the sidelines of the Super Bowl in recent years, will move next to Guangzhou. With its renewed China push, the NFL isn\u2019t only aiming to recruit a fresh generation of players, but is also trying to draw viewers from the world\u2019s most populous nation. It has a new deal on the Internet to stream games live on a Chinese service called PPTV.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
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