The site is called Choysum, and it aims to provide weekly or daily news on popular teams in America and Europe via email so that readers can easily follow sports from their phone. For a start, Choysum plans to focus on American football, with its small and growing niche fans in China.  It will  rely on a team of freelancers to report on the 16 games each week and send articles via email to readers.

“We expect the Buffalo Bills, because of Ed Wang, who is the first Chinese-American to play in the NFL, to be the most popular team,” said Clarence Hu, the founder of Choysum, in an email interview. “Our freelancers are passionate fans of each team. By paying people to do something they love, we can make the system sustainable.”

The articles on Choysum are written from the ground up in Chinese with the Chinese sports fan in mind. According to Clarence, they are not translated versions of English originals.  So we can expect their content to be different than most of the usual translations reports on portals and sports sites.

What Choysum is building is very interesting in terms of the production of their content and how they deliver them. But at the end of the day, what matters most is how strong their content are. It sounds like many BChengs and Camerons reporting on the CSL in Chinese for now, and we’ll just have to wait and see.

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.

Ed Wang high fives students at the Shanghai United International School.

Wang has spent the past week traveling through Beijing and Shanghai as part of the NFL’s efforts to help educate local Chinese and expand its fan base throughout the country.

“I was expecting them to have an idea of how to play,” said Wang, after concluding a clinic at the Shanghai United International School, located in the southern part of the city. “But I am wholeheartedly impressed with just how knowledgeable they are about the different positions. The students I’ve seen enjoy the game, and they pick it up real quick.”

The 2010, fifth round draft pick says despite the fact that football seems like a foreign language to many Chinese, the primary school and university football players — the NFL has several college-level flag football teams in Beijing — he has spent time on the field with shows there is growing interest in the sport.

“They have the equipment and coaches here, China really needs more teams so they can compete,” he said. “I didn’t really start enjoying football until I was about 11-years-old. These kids are seven and eight years old. They are starting earlier. To come here and try and make an impact, it is great to see them respond so positively.”

Below are images from Wang’s clinic with the Sea Dragons (click on the images to see original sizes).

— Zachary Franklin

Ed Wang Kai and His Parents

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.

He gripped a Sharpie in his hand, but his mind was elsewhere. When he lifted his head to survey the remaining fans, he seemed relieved to discover they were waiting for the other linemen attending the pre-season signing session, and not for him…

The story is on the cover of this week’s Artvoice. Thanks to ZB for the tip and best of luck with Ed and David’s recovery.

Photo: NFL China

There is no question that large, global sporting events can help change the image of a city. Governments use the spectacles as a means to redevelop or invest further in a city’s infrastructure. South Africa proposed a nine billion rand — or about 1.7 billion USD — budget on city infrastructure projects for next year’s World Cup. According to the Beijing Organizing Committee, the 2008 Olympic Games saw about 60 billion USD invested in city-wide infrastructure projects, which included new stadium venues for the sporting events.

Last week, the article “Sloppy Services Bode Ill for Guangzhou’s Asian Games,” which appeared on the Global Times and was reported by China Sport’s Review’s David Yang, noted that Guangzhou would spend approximately 29 billion on infrastructure throughout the city, and an additional 900 million USD on stadium construction and renovations, in preparation for the athletic events in 2010.

China continues to show willingness to play host to several international sporting events, as well as increasingly popular national athletic endeavors. As mentioned, there are the 16th Annual Asian Games in Guangzhou. The 2009 East Asian Games are currently taking place in Hong Kong until Dec. 13.

Nanjing, which bid and was eventually eliminated for consideration as the host city for the 2012 Youth Winter Olympic Games, is currently in the bidding process for the 2014 Youth Summer Olympic Games. Even animatronics is getting into the mix, as 2010 will also see Harbin play host to the Robot Games, where androids designed from more than 100 universities worldwide will compete.

Apparent in the infrastructure bubble that takes place in cities around China that are vying for the chance to host a major sporting competition is that chinks are beginning to arise in just how productive and profitable a host city can be in the years after the athletics have moved on. Just recently, China Daily reported the city of Harbin gave up on its plan to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, saying that a push by the People’s Republic to host a winter Olympic Games event was “premature.”

Beijing’s crown jewel of sporting events, the 2008 Olympic Games, cost a reported 400 billion RMB, with 12 venues constructed for the two-week event. A 2006 New York Times article titled “The China Syndrome” noted the original budget for the National Stadium was about 500 billion USD, yet the Bird’s Nest currently sits toiling just north of the city center.

Long-term use of Olympic venues has always been the Achilles heel of hosting the event, but in China’s case, where the country is taking on larger sporting events, when infrastructure includes new stadiums and sporting venues, what is happening to these places after the games have finished?

In January, USA Today reported the Bird’s Nest is still searching for a permanent tenant, has yet to hold a major sporting event, and there are doubts the stadium will ever recoup the 450 million USD the government spent to construct the architectural wonder.

According to an Oct. 2005 Reuters article, the budget for the 2005 China National Games held in Jiangsu province was roughly one-third of the 2008 Olympic Games spending, and the Nanjing Olympic Sports Stadium —constructed in 2002 and an integral part of the 2005 China National Games — according to the stadium’s official Web site is now used almost exclusively for local events.

chinaSMACK, which translates “hot topics” on Chinese Internet forums and Chinese news reports, reported that in addition to the myriad of scandals at the 11th National Games held in Shandong during the month of October, the total cost and construction for the event totaled 200 billion RMB, including the Jinan Olympic Sports Center, a 60,000-seat stadium that was the centerpiece of the National Games.

China Daily reported in 2008 that Harbin needed three more stadiums built — at a price tag of 370 million USD — for the 24 Winter Universiade, which featured 4,000 athletes from 50 countries. And the East Asia Games, according to the secretary of home affairs’ home page, saw renovations on the three stadiums in Hong Kong, costing about 240 million USD.

The question surrounding all these monumental athletic venues is who plays in them going forward? The China Basketball Association, the country’s most visible sport, lost 17 million USD overall during the last season, according to an Economist Intelligence Report released in October. The People’s Republic currently has no homegrown athletic teams in any sport that can fill stadiums to capacity on a weekly basis.

Both the National Basketball Association, Premier League and the National Football League have made attempts to bring games to China, but the results have been marginal: a few preseason NBA and Major League Baseball games, an outright rejection to ship Premier League games outside of Europe, and two cancellations by the NFL.

China’s sports powerhouse ambitions, while praiseworthy on the field, have yielded few positive results for long-term sporting events. Yes, major international competitions take time and planning, but China has the infrastructure in place to do more with its sporting venues,  and tying its infrastructure plans to major sporting events should draw continued usage for years after.

— Zachary Franklin

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.

"Steve" Yue Wang enters his final year at Cumberland University where he will play both football and soccer.

“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.”

Wang, a senior at Cumberland University in Nashville, Tenn., has played soccer all his life. Soccer is what Wang has to do. He’s on a soccer scholarship, which has opened the doors for an education that includes double majoring in both business management and marketing. He holds a 3.7 overall GPA. He plays jazz and blues music in his free time. He picked the English name “Steve” because he says Ray Vaughn sounds like Yue Wang (pronounced like ‘u-way wang’), and he always enjoyed Stevie Ray Vaughn’s music.

But this is a story about what Wang wants to do: Become the first professional Chinese kicker in the National Football League. And to understand what Wang wants to do, it is essential to understand where he comes from and how he’s gotten to this point.

Soccer in the People’s Republic

Wang grew up in Tianjin, China — a city east of Beijing that has a population of 12 million — playing soccer since the age of 10. In China, like other countries around the world, if you are identified as an athlete, you are taught your sport. That’s not to say that Wang did not receive an education, he just played soccer everyday as if it were a job. By 1999, he had qualified for the Chinese junior national soccer team.

Wang has played soccer in every province in China, and in countries as far away as Brazil. In 2004, his coach suggested he try playing in Europe, the pinnacle of the soccer world. Wang was selected for a second division team in Portugal, but for whatever reason — which remains elusive for Wang to this day — he was denied a working visa and his opportunity to play soccer in Europe disappeared.

“Then, my coach suggested I stick with the amateur route of going to America by first attending college and then playing [soccer] in a league,” says Wang. “At least I’d have a degree.”

According to Wang, he was offered a scholarship by an NCAA Division-I school, but because he had not been recruited directly out of high school, he could not attend. Instead, he was recruited to Lindsey Wilson College, a small school in Columbia, Ky.

“I’d never been to America before,” says Wang. “Lindsey is a tiny college in Kentucky. The city is no more than 4,000 people. And it’s a dry county, which means no alcohol. They have an amazing soccer team; the whole team is international. But for me, soccer was beginning to seem old. I was getting tired.”

Finding Football in America

Lindsey Wilson has consistently made the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics soccer championship tournament over the past decade, including overall wins in the 2001-02 and 2005-06 seasons.

It was at Lindsey Wilson that Wang kicked his first football one day after soccer practice when a friend egged him on. “I’d seen football in college, but I thought it was stupid,” says Wang. “Football is about tackling; soccer is about using your skills with your feet. I liked kicking better. And as an outsider, football seemed violent.”

Yet, from that moment on, Wang was hooked to football. In his spare time, he’d head to the indoor basketball courts at Lindsey Wilson and, using the sides of the backboards as imaginary goal posts, would stand on the opposite end of the basketball court and kick the football “through the uprights.” Since no one else was around, he’d simply spin the football on its tip, give it a kick and watch it sail through the goal.

Wang transferred to Cumberland University after his freshman year, saying he couldn’t do the whole “small town thing” anymore. He continued to play soccer for Cumberland, but during his first few days on campus, Wang says he went over to the football coach’s office to see if he could walk on the team.

“He kind of didn’t bother with me, didn’t even look up from his desk,” says Wang of his visit. “He brushed me off, saying they already had six kickers. But I still had soccer.”

Instead, he’d practice along with another kicker from the football team, to the point where Wang says the football coaches refused to allow Wang on the football field or even practice with team balls. In 2008, Wang was named to the Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes list as a soccer player, along with making First Team All-TransSouth Conference.

But before getting his soccer accolades, Wang made a trip to Atlanta, to try out as a kicker for the Georgia Force, a team for the Arena Football League. Wang never knew if he’d end up getting recruited, as the league suspended its 2009 season. In April 2009, Wang attended the 6th Annual Aguiar Kicking Academy Pro Camp in Las Vegas to see if the NFL was a viable opportunity.

“Before the showcase on the last day — with coaches and scouts there to watch — I’d never kicked a football through the uprights with a snapper and a holder,” says Wang. “That whole process of snapping the ball threw me off. I wasn’t expecting it. I missed my first kick —the easiest one of the kicks we were expected to do. I made the rest.”

Wang was handed an NFL player contract, but was also told there were no guarantees he’d make a team. If he signed the paper, Wang would forfeit his eligibility to play soccer his senior year at Cumberland, dissolving his scholarship and a chances of obtaining a degree. The NFL career would have to wait.

“Preparing” for the NFL

He enters his senior year at Cumberland on an athletic high. He’s at the top of his soccer game, and more importantly, he’ll also be kicking for the Cumberland football team. “The football coach’s attitude completely changed after the NFL camp,” he says, laughing. “He told me, ‘We’re always looking for a good kicker.’”

At 28-years-old, Wang wants football. He understands he would be the first Chinese national to make a professional NFL team should he be selected. And he uses it like a selling point when he speaks.

“He can kick the snot out of the ball,” says Jeff Loucks, head coach of the men’s soccer team at Cumberland. “How many in the NFL can make a 60-yard field goal? Steve can do that. He has so much potential and so much upside.”

Wang says as a kicker you don’t need to be particularly attuned to all the other aspects of football. You don’t need to know formations, and according to Wang, you don’t need to understand how to play the game. Wang says you just have to kick the ball through the uprights. But before Wang can begin his career as a kicker, he might want to try on the uniform first. After all, he’s yet to fully suit up.

— Zachary Franklin

1. Juguo Rules the Games 

51 golds, 21 silvers and 28 bronzes, a total 100 medals. China for the first time surpassed the US in the number of golds won most golds in an Olympic Games by sticking to its juguo or whole-nation sports regime. People at the General Administration of Sport of China, the governing body of China’s sports, had since been discussing about proliferating their successful juguo model into a more popular sport, football.

2. Lin Miaoke, Blackout and the Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games will be long remembered not only by its pyrotechnics and drum show, but also a girl named Lin Miaoke, who lip-synced when singing ‘Ode to the Motherland.’  “The reason was for the national interest,” said Chen Qigang, the musical director of the opening ceremony in a radio interview. Chen added that the decision of doing lip-syncing was made at the highest level. It goes without saying that whoever knew about this decision before the ceremony were cool about it, even the parents of Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi, the real singer, for whatever reasons that I can’t understand. 

Chen’s so-called ‘national interest’ did scare me, along with the blackout struck our community in Beijing on August 8, 15 minutes after the show began. I saw my neighbors helplessly talking to one other in the alley and guiltily drove to my friend’s. No one told us we were to have a blackout, and no one even came to us to explain what had happened after August 8. A Caijing article later showed that at least 15 pathetic residential communities in Chaoyang District had blackout that night, together contributing to the ‘national interest’ unknowingly. The lip-syncing girl at least had a shot of rejecting doing good to the ‘national interest,’ we didn’t. And that’s only in Beijing, the capital city.

3. Age Of Chinese Women Gymnasts Questioned

Chinese women gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan, were questioned about their ages after winning golds at the Games. It all began with Stryde’s hack of Chinese websites. All evidence disappeared, ID cards and passports provided. Sorry American girls, you did really well in the games but Chinese did better, if not in the indoor stadium. 

4. Yi Jianlian and CBA Age Scandals

Ages of 22 CBA players were found to have been changed their ages before the new season in the new yearbook issued by CBA, the governing body of Chinese basketball. The association then told media that there’re actually 26 players changed their ages, submitting all the info to FIBA and acting like they had no idea about the situation before. Early this December, a reporter at the Chinese-language version of Sports Illustrated found evidence suggesting that Yi Jianlian, New Jersey Nets forward, is 3 years older than he claimed to be.

5. Horse Gambling in Wuhan

Some 3 million jobs and 100 billion Chinese yuan annual sales sound so enticing that gambling, after nearly 60-year ban in China, reappeared in a different form of packaging. And looks like it will be welcomed even more by the government under the current economic circumstances. 

6. China Bowl Canceled by NFL Again

From Hongda’s withdrawal from Formula One to MLB and NFL’s job cuts, sports industry was so much struck by the slumping economy this winter. China bowl was once again canceled by NFL and New England Patriots closed its office in Beijing.

7. Li Ning Lit the Olympic Flame

Li Ning’s lighting of the Olympic cauldron at the closing ceremony is no doubt the biggest ambush marketing in Olympic history. Although not an official Olympic sponsor, the Chinese sportswear manufacturer must have sold more sneakers thanks to the incomparable publicity it enjoyed at the ceremony. Li Ning penned a contract with Los Angeles Clippers’ Baron Davis this November, a branding move that can be translated as ‘we don’t care much about the North American market.’

8. Fenglu Club Vs. CBA

It’s sad after so much preparation and promises and Fenglu still hadn’t gotten what they wanted, a seat at Chinese Basketball Association, China’s top basketball league. “Geographical balance” might be the weirdest explanation one can ever think of, and unfortunately that’s all CBA could offer for the club.

9. Liu Xiang’s Last Minute Withdrawal         

For millions of Chinese fans, Liu Xiang is simply a source of national pride, the same complex Chinese people had towards China women’s national volleyball team in the 1980s, after claiming five straight major titles. Liu’s last minute withdrawal at the Beijing Games were widely sympathized by fans except for the anger from the scalpers. Liu, 110-meter hurdler, had been covered almost everyday by Chinese media after winning gold in 2004 Athens Olympics. Some said he was hurt not by injury, but the overzealous Chinese media.

10. Chinese Football Out for 2010 World Cup

Chinese football fans could not be downhearted more this year. The national men’s football team was eliminated in the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers this June and lost whatever match they could lose in the rest of the year. Yesterday on December 30, Wei Shaohui, the manager of the men’s team and an official at Chinese Football Association, apologized in a press conference for the poor performance of the team with his theory about potency, “we’ll be potent again when the performance gets better.”

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The N.F.L., widely considered the most successful sports league in North America, will reduce its staff by about 150 employees after theSuper Bowl in response to the slumping economy, Commissioner Roger Goodell told staff members in a memo Tuesday.

The N.F.L. has a total of 1,100 employees at its New York headquarters, at NFL Films in New Jersey and at the Los Angeles offices of the NFL Network and NFL.com. Although voluntary buyouts are being offered now, the league will not determine the breakdown of cuts until after the championship game on Feb. 1.

Some franchises have started to trim their staffs, as well. The Denver Broncos made cuts earlier this year, and the New England Patriots recently laid off about 5 percent of the staff from Gillette Stadium — about two dozen people — in anticipation of reduced trade-show and special-event business there next year.

The Patriots also closed their one-person China office, which opened when the team was scheduled to play a game there. With the N.F.L. focusing its overseas plans on regular-season games in Europe, the China game has been canceled.

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. 

We’re suprised by the Patriots’ pullback from Beijing. But it all makes sense when looking at a bigger picture, where Honda’s withdrawal from F1, MLB’s recent job cuts and Arena Football League’s possible suspension in 2009 are all considered. 

Related Reads:

• New York Times: Feeling Pinch, N.F.L. Will Cut About 150 Jobs
• LA Times: Arena Football League reconsiders suspending 2009 season

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