Soccer is the No. 1 sport in China, and basketball is No. 2, but football is somewhere in the top 10 of the sports hierarchy. And the origins of the sport are believed to date back to 1908, when visiting U.S. Navy sailors played in Xiamen.
The NFL opened an office in China in 2008, one year after its first regular-season game in England as part of a 15-year initiative to have the capability of having a full-time presence in London.
While Sky Sports televises live NFL games from 6 p.m. to midnight to the London audience, the time change in China adds another challenge. Sunday night games, for example, are shown Monday morning via video streaming and mobile devices as part of the NFL’s exclusive live digital agreement with Tencent, the largest streaming platform in China.
More than 90% of Chinese viewers watch alone, and many communicate about the games via chat groups.


Despite those potential impediments, Chinese viewers are tuning in. Live game digital viewership increased 72% the past year, and there were more than 709 million total video views of non-live, NFL digital content during the 2018 season. (Youku, a subsidiary of Alibaba, shows highlights packages.)
Super Bowl LIII aired on the morning of the Chinese New Year’s Eve and drew a live audience of more than 8 million in mainland China.


The Chinese are not only watching football, but also playing it. After only 36 teams across three cities in China participated in NFL flag football tournaments in 2014, more than 300 teams across 14 cities did so in 2018.
Thirty of the 34 provinces in China have at least one youth training program or adult football team, and more than 3,000 adults play on 76 organized recreational league tackle teams — a massive surge from the 400 players and eight teams who played just five years ago.
The University of Pennsylvania played against the American Football League of China (AFLC) All-Stars, a squad made up of several different clubs, in March.


The teams’ coaches met a couple of days before playing in the Global Ambassadors Bowl in Shanghai, and then a sell-out crowd of 3,200, including government officials, watched Penn warm up and compete.
The first Ivy League team to play a football game in China, Penn trounced the All-Stars 85-0, but Penn head coach Ray Priore said the lopsided score belied the talent his Quakers faced and that there were a handful of players with the ability to play on his team.
“They’re learning how to play it,” Priore said. “They weren’t as experienced on the techniques of football. They had some athletes.”
Though some of the taller players carried more than optimal weight, they executed sophisticated schemes like RPOs and spread passing formations.
“The coaching was good,” Priore said. “What they played was sound.”
Priore said he does not envision Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams going over to play but expects more Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams to make the trip.