NFL propaganda would shame the most patriotic Beijing cadres

While another edition of the American colossus known as the Super Bowl is officially behind us, the good folks who brought you this corporate orgy masquerading as a football game have decided that domestic consumption is nice and all, but the world is much bigger than Battle Creek, Iowa, and Bartonville, Texas. So despite global weariness to the notion of it, there is more American imperialism in our near future. Are you ready for some football, China?

The NFL will hold its first ever game in China in August when the New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks in the China Bowl in Beijing. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. After all, the announcers during the Super Bowl kept reiterating that one billion people were watching. Naturally, some had to be in places like Harbin and Tianjin because critical mass demands it. Consider that in the US the estimated audience was 93.15 million, roughly one third of the country, making it the second most-watched Super Bowl ever. So that leaves another 900 million people who were, apparently, watching the Super Bowl as well.

Now we have to look at where else American football is popular in the world. There are pockets of interest in Europe, particularly in England which will host a regular-season game for the first time later this year. Some people in Germany are curious and apparently a few Spaniards as well. But France? American popular culture? Forget it. If you took all the people who were watching the Super Bowl in Europe, Canada, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea it might - and again this is very generous - total 100 million.

That still leaves 800 million viewers unaccounted for, which means roughly one third of China and a little less than half the people of India had to be watching to ensure an audience of one billion. I'm not even sure there are 800 million people in China and India who have electricity.

There is only one sports event that can rightfully claim a viewership in the billions and that is the soccer World Cup. So next time one of the NFL's missionaries comes calling out here telling you that one billion people were watching the Super Bowl, you tell him he's full of the same stuff Fido dumps on the sidewalk.

And while it's nice that such a bona fide American institution like the NFL has foreign ambition, the propaganda they are spreading would even embarrass the most shameless cadres in Beijing. 'Younger Chinese fans like the colourful uniforms and the cheerleaders and the electric atmosphere,' Gordon Smeaton, vice-president of NFL International, said last year when then commissioner Paul Tagliabue visited China. 'What we are finding is that the Chinese really love the strategy. It's a battle for territory and if you make that clear to them, the game starts to make a lot more sense.'