"American football in China” is a sport/location combo that at first sounds like a joke, like “Jamaican bobsled team.” But according to the rule that, in a country of 1.3 billion people, everything is happening somewhere, the existence of Chinese football should come as no surprise. Unlike basketball, which missionaries brought to China in the late nineteenth century and which has long enjoyed government support (Chairman Mao was a fan), football is a recent import. It doesn’t come close to breaking into the country’s top ten sports. Even the term in Mandarin—“olive ball”—sounds awkward. But it is here and growing fast. The NFL first set up a China office in 2007 and started a flag-football league that has grown to more than 36 teams. Meanwhile, a raft of amateur tackle clubs has materialized, including, as of summer 2012, the Chongqing Dockers.
Read the rest of Christopher Beam's article in The New Republic.
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