Can China's appetite for the Western lifestyle include football? Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY Sports August 14, 2014
(Photo: Jeffrey G. Pittenger, USA TODAY S) Ron Jaworski, who fancies himself as a Johnny Appleseed type for growing football, is going global.Major global.The former NFL quarterback is part of a group that announced plans Thursday to, well, blitz China with football – the Arenaball variety – and a league of their own.It's called the Chinese American Football League, and the group headed by Philadelphia businessman Marty Judge, who with Jaworski co-owns the Philadelphia Soul arena team, plans to launch a six- to eight-team league in 2015. Dick Vermeil, who coached Jaworski and the Philadelphia Eagles, is part of the group, too.Go for it.What business-minded folk wouldn't want to get in on the ground floor of a new venture in China?If it works, you're talking about a market in the world's most populated country with roughly 1.4 billion. Even if a small percentage become rabid fans, it could probably sustain a league.The CAFL, which worked for two years to finalize a deal it struck with authorities in the Communist nation to pursue the project, envisions putting its franchises in the largest cities, in arenas where the wildly popular Chinese basketball teams play."I'm so excited about this," Jaworski told USA TODAY Sports. "They have an insatiable appetite for the Western style of life and sports."Whether that appetite includes football remains to be seen.The NFL has had a presence in China for nearly two decades, but still isn't at the point where it has had any of its international preseason games there. The league sponsors flag football, and the game is exported on television with weekly highlight packages. The Super Bowl is also carried in China.Yet it's proven difficult to establish football globally in nations that are not steeped in the game's tradition (see England), with competition including the most popular international sports, such as soccer and basketball.In the case of China, challenges include development of players, and the language, too."There's always challenges," said Jaworski, an ESPN analyst. "This is an enormous project. But we feel it will be successful because they like the game of football."Maybe the climate is right for this in China. Jaworski raves about the exhibition game that was staged there last year by Judge, maintaining that it drew nearly 10,000 spectators.The CAFL hopes to sell franchises for $10 million, with an NFL model that would give owners a piece of television and licensing revenues.The teams are projected to be 20-man rosters with half of the players being Chinese and half American."We're coaching over there now at five universities, developing players,"Jaworski said. "That's going to be the key, getting Chinese players to play the game of football."And therein lies the risk of such a venture taking off as the organizers would hope.Football is such a foreign sport, compared to soccer, basketball and gymnastics.Still, with the potential for such great rewards, the idea of exporting football to China seems worth the risk. And perhaps the more compact arena version of football – rather than the conventional 11-on-11 outdoor sports -- is just the ticket."The NFL has always talked about being a global game," Jaworski said. "We're going to do it in China."
