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Posts from the ‘American Football’ Category

Feb 25

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PHOTOS: NFL’s Ed Wang Running Football Practice in Shanghai

Offensive lineman Ed Wang is making an impact with local Chinese students through clinics.

Members of the Sea Dragons worked on tackling maneuvers, ball handling techniques and running drills. China's first and only local all-Chinese American football team, comprised of primary school students in Shanghai, could have just as easily been going through a regular practice. But this time, the young football players were taking their queues from Ed Wang, the Buffalo Bills offensive lineman, and the only player in the NFL with full Chinese ancestry.

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Aug 27

Ed Wang Kai and His Parents

A Profile of New Buffalo Bill Ed Wang

At The Buffalo Story Project, Charlotte Hsu profiles Ed Wang Kai (王凯), 23-year-old descent of Chinese Olympians now playing for the Buffalo Bills.

The air inside the Buffalo Bills’ autograph tent was hot and sticky, pregnant with the humidity of late July. This was not where rookie left tackle Ed Wang wanted to be. Nevertheless, he hunched his 320-pound frame over a table and went to work, initialing a football, a sports glove, and a few other items.

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Oct 23

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Broadcasting Monday Night Football to Chinese Audience

To most of Chinese I know, American football is difficult and distant. At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter interviews Zhang Nan, Monday Night Football’s play-by-play man in China, who tries his best to engage more Chinese into the sport.

Sure, the NFL has a small audience in China (roughly 20,000 viewers watch the weekly simulcast), but Zhang – as the play-by-play man – has a key role in helping the NFL expand it. And in doing so, it’s partly his responsibility to figure out a way to translate this most American of sports to a Chinese audience that has almost no knowledge or experience with it. The challenge is technical, cultural, and linguistic, and on Wednesday afternoon I spoke to Zhang (to the right of his broadcast partner, Guo Aibing, in the photo below) about how he handles the responsibilities.

Aug 4

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Becoming China’s First NFL Kicker

“Steve” Yue Wang’s eyes light up when you talk football. He doesn’t have any favorite players or memorable moments, either from watching or playing. He can’t rattle off any statistics. He’s never really played the game. These are all things the average American has done if they’re into football.

But Wang isn’t American. He just knows he enjoys football.

“I know the game of soccer, but it isn’t worth it anymore,” says Wang. “I am tired of playing [soccer]. Football is so new, and it is just different.”

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Dec 12

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NFL Cancels China Bowl, Again

This is actually the second cancellation of the NFL China game this year. The 2008 game, which scheduled for August 9 between New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, was called off by NFL this April, with the reason that they wanted to concentrate their "global resources" on next October's regular season game in London.

NFL China has been concentrating on developing grassroots fans in local colleges by staging various events and also marketing themselves on TV and the Internet. Chinese fans can now watch games on CCTV and Shanghai TV, and a live game is also available once a week on Sina.com, a major Chinese web portal.

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