February 8 marks the first day of the lunar new year, but for twenty-year-old Han Wenxin, one of the growing number of American football enthusiasts in China, Super Bowl 50 is definitely more thrilling and invigorating than watching the annual Spring Festival Gala on TV.
"I might be too excited to fall asleep on the eve of game day," said Han, a college student in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. "As it approaches, I have been having a lot of dreams about all the possible outcomes of the championship." It is his fifth Super Bowl since he fell for the game in 2012.
The Super Bowl, the biggest game of the National Football League (NFL), this year features The Denver Broncos rivaling Carolina Panthers. The game will kick off at the Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California at 7:30 a.m. Beijing time and will be streamed on eight Chinese digital media platforms including PPTV, LeSports and Alisports, and nine television channels across China, including Beijing Sports and Guangdong Sports.
"We have averaged over 12 million viewers [annually] in the past five years, and this is growing every year, so we should definitely see more than 15 million viewers in China for Super Bowl 50," said Richard Young, the managing director of NFL China. Since entering the Chinese market, where the "three big balls" - soccer, basketball and volleyball - prevail, the Chinese division of the league has been trying to cultivate a stable fan base for the American sport.
The social media push
A search on Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, yields various posts talking about the upcoming Super Bowl, ranging from game guides to updates on this year's performers, Beyonce, Coldplay and Lady Gaga. The hashtag #Super Bowl 50#, initiated by NFL China, has over 2 million reads.
It is not the first attempt by Young's team to launch social media promotion campaigns to drive fan engagement. In 2015, hashtag #Super Bowl 49# drew fan attention not only to the game but also its advertising, and singing sensation Katy Perry, who was given the nickname "fruit sister" by her Chinese fans.
"Social media is the hub of everything we do, considering the fans to our on-ground events as well as our on-air games and highlights," Young said of the league's key strategy in China.
In January, the NFL China official Weibo account, which boasts over 400,000 followers, was ranked the sixth most influential sports league account on Weibo, according to the Weibo Yearly Review. It is the third highest Weibo ranked international sports league, behind the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Premier League in the UK.
In China, the NBA is still the most popular foreign sports league given the sports' strong fan base. The NBA successfully tapped into the Chinese market in the 1990s thanks to television technology which brought high-quality basketball matches to the country. Hoping to gain a similar foothold in the market, the NFL's strategy is to use social networks and video streaming platforms to reach targeted Chinese audiences.
"I believe American football is the fastest growing sport among young males in first- and second-tier cities," said Young. They are also among the active users of social networking websites.
Development on the ground
One of the challenges facing American football in China is encouraging participation. It is quite common to see Chinese students and adults playing football or basketball nowadays, but an ordinary Chinese playing American football for fun is still quite rare.
And for avid fans, like Han, who want to play, finding a team and the space to play can be challenging. In 2014, after being only a spectator for two years, Han joined a flag football team. "Due to a shortage of facilities, the team consisted of a mixed bag of students from different universities and company employees," he said.
