Cool stuff: China snowboarding film sneak peek
Monday, 29th June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
mellowparks.cn "happy 牛 year" teaser from Steve Zdarsky on Vimeo.
With the stifling hot temperatures beating down on Beijing lately, it's a good time for daydreaming about all things ice cold. In that spirit, we bring you this promotional video for "Happy 牛 Year," a Chinese snowboarding movie from Melloparks.cn set to hit the streets in December. That's "牛" as in "niu," Chinese for bull, the zodiac sign for 2009. "牛" is also found in the Chinese name for the beverage Red Bull (Hong Niu), a familiar brand in action sports and the title sponsor of the Red Bull Nanshan Open. Quiksilver, Nitro, Dakine and Nanshan Ski are all sponsors of the film. It will be available free at various locations in China, including Quiksilver and Nitro retail locations. Much of the film was shot at Quiksilver Nanshan Mello Park in Beijing.
Tags: Dakine, Melloparks.cn, Nanshan Mello Park, Nanshan Ski, Nitro, Quiksilver, Red Bull, Red Bull Nanshan Open, snowboarding
BOCOG reports 1.16 million RMB profit
Wednesday, 24th June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
China made RMB 1.16 billion (US $170 million) in operating profit from the 2008 Olympic Games, a Chinese government auditor recently reported (full story from the Financial Times here).The Beijing Olympic committee reaped its revenues primarily from sponsorships and TV broadcast rights, according to the Financial Times. Its expenditures were on "transport, accommodation, medical services and temporary event infrastructure." The expenditure numbers do not include construction of the 93 new facilities required for the games. And the Financial Times points out that absent from the report are the amounts spent on improving air quality or improving the capital's infrastructure with new subways and roads.
Here are some other numbers from that report:
RMB 20.5 billion (USD $2.925 billion): Revenues as of March 15 for Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) RMB 800 million above budget.
RMB 19.34 billion (USD $2.829 billion): BOCOG expenditures
RMB 19.455 billion (USD $2.846 billion): Investment in 93 new sports venues
RMB 3.5 billion: Initial investment in Bird's Nest stadium
RMB 150 million: Annual maintenance cost for Bird's Nest
30,000: Maximum number of tickets that current operators of the Bird's Nest can sell daily for tours of the white elephant
Tags: Beijing Olympics, Bird's Nest, Olympics, sports venues
Zheng makes victorious return to Wimbledon, Li also advances
Wednesday, 24th June 2009 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
China's top female tennis player Zheng Jie (郑洁) returned victoriously to Wimbledon on Monday one year after she made a name for herself by reaching the tournament's semifinal round.
Zheng, currently ranked number 15 in the world, beat Kristina Barrois of Germany 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London on Monday in what was a high-pressure return for the Chengdu native.
"Indeed, there is a big change for me in one year and I do feel more pressure coming back here," Zheng recently told the China Daily. "A lot of people hope I make the semi-finals again or go even better."
Zheng has been a Wimbledon champion before – in 2006 she and doubles partner Yan Zi won the women's doubles competition.
The diminutive Zheng still has far to go to equal her standout performance last year – her next step is to face Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova in the second round today.
This year's tournament is the first to feature two Chinese seeds in the singles draw – Zheng is joined by Li Na (李娜), who is ranked number 19 in the world. Li has also advanced to the second round after beating Kazakhstan's Galina Voskoboev on Tuesday.
Zheng Jie image: Women's Tennis Blog
Tags: Li Na, tennis, Wimbledon, Zheng Jie
Nuggets, Pacers to play in Taipei
Wednesday, 24th June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
NBA China CEO Tim Chen (far right) with Taipei mayor Hua Lung-bin (left) and sports affairs council minister Tai Hsia-ling (center)
The game will be played at the 12,874-seat Taipei Arena. Tickets go on sale at noon on June 25, and can be ordered online at AllGenki.net. The NBA sent the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors to play in Guangzhou and Beijing around the same time last year.
Related:
Bucks and Warriors to play in China in 2008
Tags: basketball, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, NBA, Taipei, Taipei Arena, Taiwan, Tim Chen
Olympic air worse than reported
Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Air quality at the 2008 Olympics was worse than previously reported, according to new research compiled jointly by U.S. and Chinese universities.Particulate air pollution during the games exceeded excessive levels as defined by the World Health Organization, and was 30 percent worse than Chinese environmental experts have said, according to a report published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The research was conducted by scientists from Oregon State University and Peking University, and funded by the National Science Foundation in the United States and the National Science Foundation of China.
Nature's own cleaning agents may have done more to clear the air than the well-reported man-made efforts employed last year by Beijing, says Staci Simonich, an OSU associate professor of environmental and molecular toxicology: "It was some evening rains and favorable shifts in the winds that provided the most relief from the pollution."
View the complete study here A photographic account of pollution during the games, from the Oregon State researchers, is available on Flickr.
Tags: 2008 Olympics, Beijing Olympics, pollution
Yao and Yi's Trade Talk
Monday, 22nd June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Last year, draft day eve saw a trade that moved Guangdong native Yi Jianlian from the Milwaukee Bucks to the New Jersey Nets. A year later, the shine has dulled on Yi's move to a bigger market with a bigger Chinese-American population and a hope of landing Lebron James in 2010. The power forward played showed some consistent strong play in January before getting injured and then never returning to form the rest of the season. He averaged 8.6 points and 5.3 rebounds. Yi has three years left on a $15.6 million contract with the Nets.
While Yi might not have earned his $3 million on the court for the Nets last year, a recent piece in the New York Daily News indicates that the team likes his marketability in China. Yi is China's third most influential celebrity, according to Forbes' annual ranking of Chinese celebrities. The Daily News piece says that Nets CEO Brett Yormark is currently in China meeting with executives from 33 different companies with the goal of signing four or five new deals.
Yao Ming, by far China's biggest sports star, has been talked about for a move to Cleveland ever since news broke of a group led by Chinese businessman Huang Jianhua, aka Kenneth Huang, working on a deal to buy a 15 percent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers. So far, it amounts to little more than a Chinese fan's fantasy of bringing Yao together with 2009 NBA MVP Lebron James. Yao's got two years left on his contract, with the freedom to opt out on the last year, in which he would make $17 million if he chose to stick around. He's been a Rocket for all of his seven-year career and is the face of the franchise, both for fans and for opposing teams--beating the Rockets means stopping Yao (if, of course, he's healthy).
Yao added a little fuel to the rumors earlier this week with his vague talk in an interview with Shanghai television station. "It is still an unknown," was his response to questions about a possible move to Cleveland.
Related:
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Yi, Jay-Z and Lebron?
Lebron, Yao image: Blogcn.com
Tags: basketball, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Huang Jianhua, Kenneth Huang, NBA, New Jersey Nets, Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian
Titan Front Page: Kaka vs. Messi and Kobe's best buddy Sun
Thursday, 11th June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The rest of the page is all basketball--a column by Zhang Weiping（张卫平）about the Orlando Magic's struggles against the Lakers, and a photo of Sun Yue sitting next to, or as the caption seems to joke, protecting, Kobe on the flight to Orlando for Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Forgive us if we are a little skeptical about the MVP runner-up's motivation for creating a photo op with a player who's been relegated to the D-League and just happens to be one of three NBA players from China.
Titan Sports is China's leading sports newspaper, putting out issues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It is published jointly by Hunan Art and Culture Publishing House and Titan Publishing House (Danwei).
Tags: FC Barcelona, football, Kaka, Lakers, Messi, NBA, Real Madrid, soccer, Titan front page, 张卫平
QSL's China baseball partnership still in very early planning stage
Tuesday, 9th June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Huang (left) with Chinese Baseball Association chairman Lei Jun
But Huang wasn't there to talk basketball--in fact, he wouldn't answer any questions about the Cavs deal (which, according to Marc Stein at ESPN, hit a snag when an embezzlement suit was filed against Huang in Florida). Instead, he and Marc Ganis, owner of Chicago-based SportsCorp Limited, were there to talk about their partnership with the Chinese Baseball Association to develop youth baseball in China.
The baseball deal, which brings the CBA and Huang's QSL Sports together to create the Chinese Youth Baseball League (CYBL), was announced last week. Ganis is a strategic partner charged with creating the league's framework, developing facilities and providing coaching support. But with no imminent plans to form teams, start league play, build a single ballpark or broadcast any baseball content on Chinese television--all things that QSL said last week that it planned to do--the CYBL seems far from ready for a ceremonial first pitch. Questions about details of any planned initiatives between QSL and the CBA were evaded.
"We have been working very closely with CBA to set up the youth league competition," Huang said. "We have a lot of cooperation with Taiwan as well. We are targeting within the next twelve months to have some real competition getting started, but we don't have a fixed timeline or schedule yet."
QSL did not reveal how much it plans to invest in Chinese baseball, only saying that it is a multi-million dollar commitment over the next 15 years. Huang and Ganis did not say which cities might see games first, but the six cities with CBA-run Chinese Baseball League teams are the obvious candidates.
If QSL had no actual plans to announce, why hold a press conference now? By following the Huang-Cavs story by one week, the baseball announcement got more press than it otherwise would have in China. Several basketball journalists attended the press conference at the China Sports Administration's headquarters complex, adding to media coverage that could help with QSL's search for sponsors, which is clearly a priority.
Marc Ganis
"Building baseball fields is one of the great sponsorship opportunities that are out there," Ganis said. "We think that when people see those opportunities, when we create them, you'll see a lot of fields being built."
Today's press conference mostly addressed well-worn questions about baseball's challenges and potential in China, but the NBA association is front and center for QSL. Its Chinese name, 骑士联盟（Qishi Lianmeng), means Cavalier Alliance or Cavalier Union.
The QSL-CBA deal has no affiliation with Major League Baseball, and the MLB found out about it at the same as the general public. MLB is currently the leading promoter of youth baseball in China. Its Play Ball program, which organizes competition between 120 schools in four cities, just finished its second year with the Diamond Cup, a two-day championship tournament in Shanghai. For the next four months, the MLB Road Show, a sort of small baseball festival, will visit five Chinese cities. The league also contributes equipment and clinics for coaches, players and umpires.
"Not only is the game in a developing stage, but interest is in a developing stage," says Rick Dell, MLB's director of baseball development for China, who has been involved in baseball in Asia for 15 years. "If there's anyone in this country who knows how difficult it is to do what he's talking about doing, it's me. To have a great plan and execute it is a challenge here. And if you have no plan, it's impossible to get anything done. If they had a plan ready, they probably would have mentioned it."
What QSL does have is a formal agreement with the sports administration--no small feat in China--and the business leadership of Huang, who is emerging as a fascinating deal maker working to bridge the gap between the Chinese and American sports worlds and hoping to make a pile of cash doing it.
Related:
Huang bets on baseball
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Tags: baseball, basketball, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang
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