Imagethief was astounded to see the following, brief AP article as part of the NFL roundup in today's San Jose Mercury News:
NFL may play pre-season game in China
BARRY WILNER
Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. - With the Summer Olympics headed to China, why not the NFL, too? Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Wednesday the league is considering playing a preseason game in Beijing next summer, one year before the Olympics are staged there.

The NFL has played exhibition games outside the United States regularly since 1986, although there won't be any this summer. Last Oct. 2, Arizona beat San Francisco in the first regular-season game played abroad, in Mexico. The Cardinals gave up a home game in Tempe, Ariz., to play in Mexico City, where they drew 103,467 to Azteca Stadium.

"I think the chances are increasing," said Tagliabue, who was in China last May and met with Beijing officials and Chinese Olympic executives. "We've had many discussions on that and our international people have been to China."

Several NFL owners have cited China as a new frontier the NFL needs to penetrate in a global marketing approach. The NBA already has succeeded in that area, in great part thanks to the popularity of Rockets All-Star Yao Ming.

While Tagliabue called the Mexico City game "a resounding success," no regular-season games will be played abroad this season. He did emphasize the need to "institutionalize" having such games, or the Pro Bowl, played outside the United States in the future.
Blimey. The NFL? In Red China? The mind fair boggles. If you listen closely, you can actually hear my mind boggling now. What would the Great Helmsman have thought about this? Can there be any more decadent, degenerate, capitalist sport than made-for-network-TV American football? Hell, it even has a position called the "running back", which is perilously close to "running dog".

It's heartwarming that NFL owners see China as the next great frontier for their sport. Imagethief applauds their spirit of enterprise. I used to be a die-hard Forty-Niners fan before years of living in Asia reduced my avid, raging fandom to total apathy. It's hard to stay connected when you can't see any of the games live and when you think the management is selling the team up the river.

Despite my enthusiasm, however, it's quite clear to me that, unlike the NBA, the NFL is doomed to complete failure in China for three very clear reasons:
  1. No Yao Ming
  2. Never had a Yao Ming
  3. Not likely to have a Yao Ming.
To paraphrase Kryton, I realize that this is technically only one reason, but I felt it was so important that it was worth mentioning three times.

And this, of course, should be added to all the other idiosyncrasies of American football that make it so hard to export. After all, a quick survey of the globe yields the following list of countries that have non-subsidized American football leagues:
  1. Canada
And they had to change the rules, because they're Canada and it would insult them to accept anything wholesale from America, from which they are always trying so hard to differentiate themselves. (NB: Ten years of living in Asia has cured me of automatically assuming anyone with a North-American accent is from the United States.) Note the "non-subsidized" remark, above. I realize that Europe has NFL Europe. That venture is as about as commercially viable as a Sno-Cone stand in a Smolensk winter. I am staggered at the gall of the NFL, charging Europeans to watch its farm teams. At least the Major Leagues had the common courtesy to limit export of their farm teams to Canada and the Caribbean. And they didn't have the moxie to try to brand them as "Baseball Lite".

If the NFL wants to create a Chinese market they'll have to create a Chinese star. To to that, they need to get Chinese kids playing American football now with an eye toward a college league by 2016 and a draftable Chinese player by 2020.  And that's if everything goes perfectly, and if you can persuade Chinese kids that American footballs aren't defective basketballs that should be thrown out.  Steve, the man behind Beijing Lives, runs a touch game up at Tsinghua University. He described it as "ultimate frisbee with a football" because, "the whole idea of running plays just doesn't sink in". Promising.

So I'm all for a pre-season game here in Beijing. Heaven knows, we could use the entertainment. But you'll forgive me if I don't buy Tivo to start recording the games off of CCTV just yet.

Bonus pop culture quiz: Who is Kryton and, for extra credit, what was the original quote? No Google.