After fumble, NFL plots a new blitz in China

On the football field, two false starts sets your team back 10 yards. For the National Football League, which has twice delayed exhibition games in China, the stakes are much higher.

Despite dropping the China Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks in 2007 and again in 2009, the NFL - which dwarfs other professional American sports leagues in revenue and viewership - is still champing at the bit to vie with National Basketball Association for the hearts of Chinese sports enthusiasts.

To avoid further missteps in getting the game a proper kickoff in the world's most populous country, league officials are tweaking their game plan to build a new fan base and scouting potential stadiums for a preseason game, likely in the summer of 2011.

The National Stadium (the Bird's Nest) in Beijing and Shanghai Stadium, which can accommodate about 80,000 people each, are top contenders, Chris Parsons, the NFL's vice-president of international operations, said during a visit to Beijing last Thursday.

"Obviously, the Bird's Nest is a fabulous stadium, one that the world is aware of and definitely one we would want to consider," said Parsons. "The NFL likes to play games at the best places. Those two cities would be favorites because they're the biggest and we've got more fans in those markets.


"The reason we play a game in China is to bring the entertainment of American football to the Chinese people firsthand. You do that to not only please the fans that we currently have but also to make new ones. We have to have enough of the current fans to start with to sell out the stadium and then other people will come in and see it and enjoy it. We'd want to actually play one game and continue to come back and play in China."

Parsons denied that venue scheduling (the game was initially planned for Workers' Stadium in Beijing) or bureaucratic issues played any role in the NFL's decisions to delay the inaugural China Bowl.

"It had to do with our readiness to come to China as a league," he said of the cancellations. "Government relations are incredibly important to us. We want to spend a significant amount of time consulting with government to make sure we do this in the right way and we have their support and do things according to what is required of bringing a game into the market."

And if there's another dropped punt in the China Bowl effort, it would most likely be the result of a new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association at the end of the 2010 season and not issues within China where prospects are solid, Parsons said.

"We've had a presence here (with an office open since 2007) and we've grown the fan base pretty significantly," said Parsons. "We have more than 6.5 million fans, based on our latest studies." About 1.5 million of those Chinese fans are considered by the NFL to be "avid" followers of the sport who "will seek it out frequently", said Parsons.

About 2.2 million television viewers in China watched the 2009 Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, despite the early-hours broadcast in China because of the time difference.

In the US, the game was the most-watched television program in history, with 151.6 million viewers. It was shown in 230 countries and territories in 34 languages.

While the lure of such a vast viewership in the States means heated, and costly, bidding wars among TV networks for the right to broadcast games, the league finds itself in the position of scrapping to get its games shown in China.

"The key to driving that growth has been getting a broadcast presence," said Parsons. "As we've continued to build that presence, whether it's through CCTV or through some of the satellite provincial channels, it's all a great opportunity to connect with fans."