Results tagged “nfl”

From Shanghai Scrap comes a very interesting article about the NFL's attempts to break into China. Most Americans don't understand that the entire rest of the world doesn't understand something as quintessentially American as football. But if you think about it, how would you translate something as esoteric as the "Wildcat" offense to a Chinese audience? These are the sort of questions that NFL China has to grapple with in their attempts to build up public interest in the sport on the mainland.

What do the NFL, small Chinese children, and a Taiwanese rock band have in common? Absolutely nothing, until the NFL decided to embark on its latest effort to make professional American football popular in China.

If you watched Super Bowl XLIII in China, you missed out on what is often the best part of the show--the commercials that advertisers pay obscene amounts of money to air during the game. You can see them all and vote for your favorites here.

UPDATE: We're actually having some trouble getting these videos to play here on our Shanghai ADSL connection. Anyone (in China) having any luck? OK, it works when we have our VPN turned on. Try that or maybe a proxy.

Heres' a public service announcement to (illegal) satellite TV users from Shanghaiist: Don't put stuff on top of your satellite receiver box. We had gotten in the habit of placing the occasional DVD or DVD sleeve on top of our satellite box, which is covered by a bunch of small vents. Not long ago, while working at our computer (surprise, surprise) at around 1 am, we heard a popping noise coming from near the TV...

Forgive us, but we enjoy watching a game of American football every now and then (yes, even after that ugly display in London). Last year, we got in the habit of watching the NFL's Sunday and Monday night games on Monday and Tuesday morning here in Shanghai while we answered emails, fed the dogs and did other important things (we watched on ESPN Asia via our Filipino satellite system). Right now, for example, we'd be...

Yep, it's that time of year again: When Americans here try to explain to everyone else why we place so much importance on college athletics, namely football (the version where you don't use your feet too much). If you'd like to try to understand, or if you would just like to tell college footballs fans how silly you think they are in person, head out to Bubba's today. The first full Saturday of college football games is going on right now in the good ol' US of A. And Bubba's will have a couple selected games playing on tape delay on Sunday. Here's Bubba's email:

Yep. At least that is what Newsweek would have us believe. They attended the 2007 World Cheerleading Championships in Orlando, Florida, last month and noted that 38 teams from 15 foreign countries participated in the international events. Two years ago, when the international events were launched, three teams showed up.

Last fall, we told you about the China Bowl — the NFL preseason (American) football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks scheduled for early August in Beijing. In February, we told you about all the China Bowl plugs we saw during the international broadcast of the Super Bowl. And just one month ago, we told you about the three Chinese kickers (one named "Rambo") the NFL was training with the hopes that at least one of them could suit up for the China Bowl. We even had one reader email us to see if we could confirm the date (we had heard anywhere between August 7 and 9) — because he had already booked plane tickets for his brother-in-law, a huge Pats fan, to come to Beijing, but was worried he had him schedule to fly back before the game even started.

The New York Times brings us the latest story of the latest US pro sports league in search of "the next Yao Ming." This time it's the National Football League, which is currently schooling three Chinese athletes (English names William, Rambo and Sean) on the fine art of place kicking. Where are they getting their training? The United States Basketball Academy, of course, in Eugene, Oregon. Their instructor kicks in the Canadian Football League.

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the Gothamist network wanted to express would like to tell you, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate.

We have finally woken from the slumber brought on by watching the Super Bowl (the Prince halftime show was much better than the game itself). If you were tuned in to ESPN Asia this morning like we were, you saw, over and over again, the same Allen Iverson "I'm not a gangster" commercial they've been playing for two years now — we love AI as much as the next guy, but would have preferred these. You also heard the announcers, over and over, talk about the "one billion viewers" that were tuning in to the game, and, almost as often, you saw them promote this August's "China Bowl" NFL preseason game in Beijing, featuring the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, on August 8. Here are the details of that game — not much has changed since we last told you about it in September, except now they have a logo (pictured).

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to.

Beijing will play host to an NFL preseason game next year, the professional American football league announced today (it had been rumored for a while). The New England Patriots will take on the Seattle Seahawks at 8:30 pm on August 8, 2007 in Workers Stadium. The game will be televised live in both the United States (NBC) and China (CCTV). (The Associated Press story, linked to above, said the game "will be shown live on NBC at 8:30 a.m. ET on Aug. 9. The dateline was "FOXBORO, Mass." -- forgive them if they don't quite understand how the time difference works up in New England.)

After we heard about this magazine, we figured we should pick up a copy just in case this magazine meets the same fate that as the Chinese Rolling Stone. Flipping through the articles, we see that the cover is Yao Ming and that the magazine, while having snippets of other stuff, is fairly basketball heavy this issue, no doubt because of the FIBA competition currently being held in Japan. Aside from pieces on Yao Ming and teammates Wang Zhizhi and Yi Jianlian, there are also pieces on Lebron James and the US basketball team.

Shanghaiist received a distressed email from a reader named Tiffany. She writes: