American football is the latest sport to try to make a foray into the Chinese market. But the Los Angeles Times reports that the NFL is having a hard time spreading the message, as was made evident during viewings of the recent Super Bowl:
Although the Super Bowl was broadcast nationwide by state-run CCTV, Chinese authorities put it on a 30-minute delay, so organizers of the NFL party piped in a live feed from a Philippine satellite broadcaster. And though local fans were enthusiastic, they frequently stared blankly at TV screens during complicated penalties and on-field rulings.
“The NFL has a lot of work to do in China,” said Hong Liu, a 50-year-old Pittsburgh Steelers fan from Beijing who began following the sport while attending college in western Pennsylvania.
The NFL’s struggles in China have come despite an increasingly affluent youth culture hungry for international sports, and the league’s major push, begun in 2003, to make China its fifth foreign target market, after Britain, Japan, Canada and Mexico.
In December, the NFL announced it was suspending plans to play a preseason game in China.
