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NFL woos Chinese on phones, tablets
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FANS in China watched the New England Patriots stun the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl on their mobile phones and tablets — and on their way to work.
The National Football League is looking to score with viewers in China, where games often start during morning rush hour, via a push online. For the first time, the Super Bowl streamed live on popular messaging platform Sina Weibo.
The stakes are high for the league’s bid to tap the enormous potential of China’s 1.4 billion people. US sports leagues and media companies are increasingly looking to China’s market for growth. World Wrestling Entertainment, for example, is training Chinese athletes in hopes of turning them into television sensations.
A major hurdle was that the Sunday afternoon US kickoff was at 7:30 on Monday morning in China — 14 hours ahead of game time at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
“I watched the first half when stuck in a traffic jam,” one viewer wrote in the Weibo livestream forum. “For the second half, I had to be careful not to be caught by my boss at work.”
Just over 3 million people tuned into the livestream to watch the game. Other watched via platforms like Tencent and LeSports.
The sport is still new to China, and the NFL is pushing tie-ups with more than a dozen platforms on regular television and online to reach viewers, even at rush hour, NFL China managing director Richard Young said.
The NFL wants to build enthusiasm in China and other overseas markets after a season in which US television viewership dropped 8 percent, according to Nielsen data, to a weekly average audience of 16.5 million.
The Super Bowl broadcast in China featured Chinese graphics and announcers explaining the rules and plays. The NFL hosted “boot camps” for Chinese commentators to bone up on touchdowns, fumbles and other football jargon.
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