This is a pretty interesting Washington Post story on the NFL's ongoing efforts to reach a potential Chinese market... but first, they have to teach some Chinese people how to play some American football: Bringing Pigskin to Land of Ping-Pong.
There's currently little interest in football in China, where the most popular sports are table tennis and badminton. And while many young Chinese are big fans of the NBA and English Premiere League soccer, football has yet to find too many fans. But there's money in there somewhere, and the NFL knows it.
Which is why you'll see members of the Taiwanese band Mayday spend ten days riding a bus around the Northeast this month, meeting cheerleaders and marching bands and playing football for a reality TV show that will run on CCTV. All in the hopes of converting tens of millions of Chinese into fans of American football.
Both the NBA and Major League Baseball have strong international followings. Isn't it time that the NFL gets in on that international cash? And somewhere (way) down the line, maybe we could see actual Chinese players in the NFL. Hey, in a country of over a billion people, there's got to be someone who can handle a football.
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