there is no special hostility towards chinese fans...that's overblown. Every fan base in US sports polarizes into fan favorites...except for possibly the fans of the defending champions. Even then, look at the Laker's after 3 titles...they still divided into Kobe vs Shaq fans. It has a lot to do with our two party system in the US. Every weekend, there are two parties competing for the babes. Some babes are FOFs (Friday only Fans) and some babes are SOFs (Saturday only Fans). So, some of us guys become FOFF-ers and others are SOFF-ers. It's an American male psyche thing, I guess, that has spilled over into sports.
I'd be surprised if most of the Aussie Rockets fans that come on this bbs are chinese. Houston has always had a strong supporter base in Australia - and it is thanks to Hakeem. The top jerseys were always the Jordan, Ewing, Penny Hardaway and Hakeem jerseys. Those were often the only ones available for sale at the retail outlets. As for Chinese being the second most spoken language in Australia at home: true - BUT you have to bear in mind that accounts for only 1% of the population (200000 people out of 20million). So it's not like every 3rd person is speaking Chinese at home and therefore a Yao Ming fan
I am from Denmark and have been a hardcore Rockets fan since 1994. Back then I was only a young kid but I remember being up late at night just to watch the rockets play in those magical years. No one I knew even cared about basketball so when the rockets won the championship I remember walking to school being totally pumped but having no one to share it with. Luckily places such as clutchfans now gives people who was in a situation like me the possibility to share their fanhood with other people. But american sports is growing over here. the NFL has been broadcast for 10 years now and the NBA is being broadcast as well and that slowly brings more people into it. NFL is HUGE here now. I also believe sites with live streaming of the NBA games such as myp2p.eu will continue this trend. So you americans better get used to us "foreign" fans.
I'm in the UK and a Rockets and Astros fan. Don't think there's many Houston fans in the UK though, most US sports fans in this country are New York fans.
I am from New Zealand. Here the only nba games that is showing is on espn, which does not have many Rockets games. So a lot of fans tends to use youtube as a means of watching the games. Also, like someone else have mentioned, Chinese is the second largest ethnic group in New Zealand
