Text by Scott Huntsman

Photographs by Wan Quan

The quarterback is in the shotgun. He reads the defense and calls an audible, sending the tailback to the line up scrimmage, wide-left, while shouting “Red 32!” before finally catching the snap from the center.

Such a jargon-heavy description of action can be clearly understood by most middle-schoolers in the United States, but to any other fluent English speakers (not to mention 2nd language learners), it sounds like a bunch of gibberish. In America, the sport of football is more than a tradition, a literal weekend ritual in the fall season, but it’s no surprise that at Tiantan Stadium in Beijing, the seats were empty for the championship games of NFL China’s flag football league. But unlike stadiums around America, filled with up to 100,000 fans each on Thanksgiving weekend, the Beijing games weren’t organized for the enjoyment of spectators. The event was held purely for the players on the field, as America’s National Football League continues its investment in popularizing the sport through grassroots methods in China’s emerging market.

Four teams from two divisions faced off in championship matches for the fall season. The university division was limited to only players currently enrolled in Chinese universities, while the recreational division was open to any players, leading to heavy participation by foreign expatriates living in Beijing. Still, foreigners were a decided minority on the championship day, and most of the Chinese players demonstrated remarkable skill at such a blatantly foreign sport. The consolation (third place) game of the recreational featured an all-Chinese team pitted against an almost all-foreigner team, and although the foreigners showed fluidity acquired through a lifetime of playing and watching the full-contact version of the game, the Chinese team competed fiercely with an often unorthodox style, but effective execution.

Li Yunchun, who studies economics at Renmin University, discovered American football from his classmate. “When my friend asked me to join his team, I found it hard to believe that he was risking his health with such a dangerous sport. Soon, though, I found that it’s basically about passing and catching when playing the flag version,” remarks Li. “You can remove a lot of the violence, without sacrificing the nature and excitement of the game.”

Wang Jinfeng of Beijing Foreign Studies University disagrees. “I first became drawn to American football from seeing unstoppable runners bounce off all the potential tacklers. In flag football, it’s just not the same, it seems like only half the game,” claims Wang. “But still, it would be pretty expensive to get full pads for all the players here, so I can understand that it’s just not practical to play the real thing.”

Although only the most informed may know it, the NFL’s relationship with China is over seven years long now, but the multi-billion-dollar

 

American league has been struggling to break in to the world’s fastest-growing market like a toddler at the goal line facing Pittburgh’s defense. Still, even the most non-athletic minded Chinese person is well aware that one of America’s favorite exports is its professional sports leagues, as it’s now commonplace in China to see scores of fans crowded around televisions on mornings during basketball season. But, NBA is a distant third in popularity back in America, with baseball being the most attended sport, and football reigning as the most watched on television. Although basketball can already boast considerable international popularity, as evidenced by passionate Olympic competition in 2008, despite NFL’s aggressive international efforts in recent years, American football is still uniquely American.

Zhang Qizhou, a 27-year-old marketing manager from Beijing, was one of the few spectators to attend the event purely for pleasure. “I first became fascinated with American football when I studied at UCLA in college. This certainly isn’t the same kind of experience as the Rose Bowl each Saturday, but I can tell these players have a different kind of passion.”

Flag football is a considerably safer alternative to full-contact tackle football which features the additional advantage of much less necessary equipment. Like the other American sports, football has the disadvantage of requiring extensive equipment to be played similarly to the professional level. In fact, the bruising tackles are some of the most alluring features of the game. Basketball requires at least a hoop and a ball, baseball needs a bat and gloves, which is perhaps a major factor why traditional “football” (“soccer” to Americans) remains by far the most popular team sport worldwide, and arguably the most popular in China. Although American football is consistently played with full contact in backyards without any equipment other than the ball, the risk of injury is obviously extremely high, but NFL China was happy to provide flags, balls, and referees, while avoiding inflicting serious injury on any players.

NFL has long had ambitious plans for China’s growing economy, fueled by NBA’s enormous success in the Middle Kingdom. Still, although America’s so-called National Pastime, baseball, is wildly popular in some regions of Asia (South Korea took the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics), it is virtually unknown on the mainland, so any plans to push American football, which has gained little popularity outside its native country, seem overly ambitious. Basketball is another American invention, but the NBA has already been broadcast on China’s CCTV for over 25 years, long before Yao Ming ever set foot in Houston. NFL has struggled to get games on television in China, and it doesn’t help that Sunday afternoon games start at 2 a.m. in the mainland. NFL once planned an exhibition game for Shanghai in 2007, but the plans were quickly scrapped.

American Football remains an integral part of American culture, more than being just a game, which gives NFL some reason for optimism, since young, affluent, urban Chinese people are often fascinated by the finer points of American culture. Although the league has already attempted, with minimal success, to push the popularity of the sport in Europe, it is hard to compete with Europe’s wildly popular professional football circuit. China, however, doesn’t have such profitable domestic professional sports leagues, and young Chinese people’s fascination with NBA is encouraging. There are other signs of progress for the NFL’s extensive efforts. A year ago, the NFL estimated 400,000 people in China watched the Super Bowl. In 2009, the number rose sharply to 2.2 million. Although this is still a tiny percentage of the country’s massive total population, comebacks like this are what Peyton Manning was born for. If you’re not sure who that is, the NFL recommends you download his videos online immediately.