Washington Post, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009 on page A1 and A19:
Bringing pigskin to land of ping pong: Cheerleaders and marching bands and playing flag football for a TV show that will run on CCTV(China Central Television) this fall. All in the hopes of converting tens of millions of Chinese into fans of American football. Such is the potential positive Sino-American Economics of Sports.
So far, there is little interest in fotball in China where the most popular sports are table tennis and badminton. While many young Chinese are big fans of the NBA and English soccer, both of which are bradcast on local TV, the glimpses they have gotten of American football are bewildering. Well,Chinese taste may be different but the world is getting closer and closer.
But there are small signs of real progress. According to the NFL, an estimated 400,000 people in China watched the 2008 Super Bowl. This year the figure grew to 2.2 million - a small sum given China's population but a positive sign given the game started at about 6 a.m. on a Monday in Beijing. There are only an estimated 500,000 expatriates living in China.
Francis Shieh a.k.a. Xie Shihao was exposed to American football in the fall of 1947 when I arrived at San Francisco from Shanghai. That was 62 years ago.
Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009 at 3.20 p.m.
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