Imagethief grew up in San Francisco. In the 1970s I was far too preoccupied with Star Wars to pay any attention to football (I was ten when the movie came out, and it stamped itself right onto my tiny frontal lobes). However I came of age in high school, from 1981 to 1985, when the Forty Niners, thanks to the sleazy real estate dollars of Eddie Debartolo, were the dominant team in the league.

And good thing, too, because my high school team, the Paly Vikings, sucked in rather the way that the Niners do now, and my university, UC Santa Cruz, was not interested in hosting any institution so crypto-military as a football team. (The role of menacing, overbuilt jock squad at my school was played by the dykey women's ultimate frisbee team.)

The result of all this was that I was a big football fan for a long time. Fortunately, I left the USA at about the time the Niners began their long, penurious slide into post-Eddie D. oblivion.

My connection with the Niners has faded with the years, but my love of the game endures. It encapsulates so many heartwarming, American values: explicit violence, showboating poor sportsmanship, repressed homosexuality, rampant drug abuse under a veneer of family-friendly probity, and so on. That's why I was excited some months ago to hear that the NFL was going to stage an exhibition game in China.

Alas, the NFL has just pooped on my pigskin parade with an announcement that it will concentrate on better prepared ground and postpone its Beijing appearance until 2009. Here is the press release in full:

NFL International to Focus on London in 07

China preseason game rescheduled for 2009

(April 2, 2007) -- The NFL has determined that it will focus its global resources this year on its first overseas regular-season game -- to be held Oct. 28 in London, England, with the Miami Dolphins hosting the New York Giants.

The American Bowl preseason game in China, originally set for Aug. 9 in Beijing between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, will be rescheduled. Working in partnership with the Beijing municipal authorities, the NFL will plan to play a game at the National Stadium of Beijing in August of 2009.

"The regular-season game initiative was approved by NFL ownership after we announced the China Bowl. Therefore, we will focus this year's efforts on the regular-season game," commented Mark Waller, senior vice president of NFL International.

"Our assessment is that Chinese fans would be better served if our game in China is played at a later date after we have launched our international series of regular-season games and more effectively paved the way for the introduction of our game into China," added Waller. "As a new sport in China, it is critical that we create the best platform for the introduction of the game. We are delighted Beijing authorities have agreed with our assessment and have invited us to play in Beijing in 2009."

NFL International is presently establishing an office in Beijing and will partner with the city to build fan interest in American football prior to the 2009 flagship event.

Here is the key sentence: "Our assessment is that Chinese fans would be better served if our game in China is played at a later date after we have launched our international series of regular-season games and more effectively paved the way for the introduction of our game into China. As a new sport in China, it is critical that we create the best platform for the introduction of the game."

Translation: Yao Ming-mad Chinese don't give a rat's ass about NFL football. We need to do some marketing or we're going to be playing to a 40,000 seat stadium occupied by ten American journalists, some diplomats and a bunch of hard-up expats who don't mind sitting outdoors in Beijing in August for three hours. And while we're at it, we'll do it after the Olympics, when we can use the new stadium.

In fact, this makes sense. Why fly all the way to China just to play a meaningless game in front of a smattering of disinterested fans? This is the preseason, after all. You could accomplish the same thing in Seattle just as easily.

So I applaud the attempt by the League to allow itself the time to prepare the ground for a successful NFL rollout. And I think its smart that they allowed themselves two years. After all, you can't just market football. You need to prepare an entire social infrastructure to accommodate it. That's why I'd like to suggest the following PR campaigns to help China get ready for some football:

  • Introduce an "experience football" program at Chinese schools and universities to get kids playing touch and flag football. Bring in some American football players to host a few celebrity football camps.
  • Invite Chinese kids to trade in their anterior cruciate ligaments for a free pair of Li Ning football spikes. Invite kids to vote on the web for whose ligament is most mangled.
  • Work with a major Chinese orthopedic hospital to release an NFL sponsored concussion education and treatment program called, "I can't believe it's not brains!"
  • NFL cheerleader tryouts at major Chinese universities! Let's get the sexiest Chinese girls into some sequins and spandex! And what a plus for the NFL to introduce a little Asian mystique into those whitebread, all-American cheerleading squads. Who knows what the Chinese word for "pom pons" is?
  • Appeal to academically obsessed Chinese parents by introducing an affordable home steroid lab kit for sporting kids, "Johnnie's First Juice!" (This can be followed by "Johnnie's First Roid Rage!")

Yep. With a program like this, exhibition games are just the beginning. We'll have "NFL China" in business in no time.

Down! Set! Hike!

Update: If you're not a 39 year old American male and you don't get the "Are you ready for some football?" reference, then watch this brief video on YouTube.