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.

Fernando Torres of Liverpool beats Didier Zokora of Tottenham Hotspur

So the boycott worked.

A few days to the kick-off of this season’s English Premier League, we’ve got some good news for football fans in China. Looks like WinTV, the Guangdong-based pay-sports channel, is looking to sell broadcasting rights to as many local TV stations as possible, as keeping it will neither do no good to themselves nor to the exposure of EPL.

The company so far has snatched deals with Guangdong TV, Jilin TV, Zhengzhou TV and SMG Shanghai, meaning that EPL will be back for free in Guangdong, Jilin, Henan Provinces and Shanghai. It appears WinTV is currently in talks with several other channels including Beijing TV. Guangdong, Jilin and Zhengzhou will air one game a week while Shanghai to broadcast four matches. Earlier this month, China Youth Media announced that they’ll broadcast this season’s EPL to China’s 30 million plus colleage students via Kooboo, a video-sharing website, as part of a licensing agreement between them and WinTV.

Update 1 –  Sina, a major Chinese web portal, announced they’ll broadcast live streaming video of all 380 matches of this season’s EPL for free. Like Shanghai,  Jiangsu TV will also air four matches a week.

Update 2 – Tencent Inc. announced that they’ll stream live video of all the matches of Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man City on QQ.com, the company’s Chinese portal site.

Update 3 – Beijing TV and Heilongjiang TV will start broadcasting from September 26.

Links and Sources:

• Malcolm Moore: Why isn’t someone selling football to the Chinese?
• New Culture via NetEase: Watch EPL for free (Chinese)
• Nanfang Daily via Sohu: EPL back to Guangdong TV (Chinese)

Previously：

• Chinese to Enjoy English Premier League for Free?
• How China’s Transfer Rules Made Footballers Untransferable

Photo credit: FAPL

The opening ceremony at last year’s Olympic Games in China was the most watched live event in human history, outstripping the moon landings, the funeral of Princess Diana and Barack Obama’s inauguration. The Sunday Times can reveal that the Beijing extravaganza, staged at the Bird’s Nest stadium on August 8, attracted the world’s first “genuine 1 billion” television audience, according to an authoritative report to be released tomorrow.

The report shows at least 593m people around the world, including 5m in Britain, watched the four-hour show in its entirety (the “average” audience), while 984m tuned in for part of it (the total audience or “reach”, which excludes those who watched in public places).

Sadly, at least 16 residential communities, ours included, were reportedly blacked out of that 593 million, who the authorities couldn’t care less about.

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The new CSL season will be kicked off on March 21, with Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Luneng and Beijing Guoan are among the favorites. While the defending champion Shandon Luneng lost their midfield general Zhou Haibin to PSV Eindhoven, Shanghai Shenhua spent over $ 8 ml USD in the transfer market this winter, snatching Mark Milligan from Newcastle United Jets in Australia’s A-League and another two players from FC MTZ-RIPO, a team in Belarusian Premier League. The Beijing Guo’an FC, or Imperial Guard, received a RMB 20 million yuan (roughly $ 2.92 million USD) boost from Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport (BMBS) this January, and Li Weimiao, head of the Beijing Municipal Football Administrative Center, the football governing body under BMBS, became vice president of Guo’an Club.

There’s been rumors that the decision makers at General Administration of Sport in China (GASC) has been discussing whether to nationalize Chinese football by getting back clubs’ ownerships. “This could be the first step of GASC’s nationalization plan,” said Nan Fang, a former Beijing Guo’an midfielder to China Sports Review, “If they do it, they’re probably going to cross the river by feeling the stones.” Nan, co-founder and coach of Beijing Langyue Football School, attributes the futility of Chinese football to bad environment, namely fixed games and bribes in the league. “You can’t whiz everything back into the 80s. Things changed.” Aside from help fund a friendly match with world champion club Manchester Utd, BMBS will also help Guo’an develop youth players in the government-funded sports schools. “This would bring more young talents into the pool,” Nan noted. “I think the problem is whether they have enough good coaches there.”

China’s FA is currently in talks with Nike for a sponsorship deal. The sportswear manufacturer is reportedly to have prepared a 10-year-long contract for the clubs, with each club in the 2009 season could get equipments worth of RMB 5 ml and another RMB 1.5 ml fund. A lot money for some, the deal might not sound very riveting to big clubs like Beijing Guo’an, who is currently sponsored by Adidas.

Previously:

• Chinese to Enjoy English Premier League for Free?
• Go West! Chinese Footballers Now Can Transfer, Finally
• China May Juguo Its Professional Football League
  

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