A year or two ago, some surveys said that UK's Manchester United (Soccer) was the world's most popular sports club (for any sports). In many countries outside U.S. people insanely follow that team. I can't help but find certain foreign Manchester United fans dumb: third world countries' people, in poverty, cheering millionaire players who are playing for their former colonial rulers, who do not care/know about their foreign fans at all. I am glad Rockets is on the way to be the most popular team in the world. Maybe it already is. AND I am glad fans like the team for a valid reason. Soon millions of Chinese will learn to love Steve and Cat too! Even if Yao's star power dims, Rockets will remain China's most favorite team.
there are two chinese soccer stars playing in the english league (same league as man utd) and I hear they're pretty big in china as well (jerseys, tv, etc). i wonder if they're as big as yao, since the chinese fans here said soccer is still the #1 sport over there.
The NBA is probably trying to get a more lucrative license to broadcast all NBA games on TV. Hopefully grow some fans that really do love the game and not the name. It's smart, and it covers their bets for now. It could even solve the problem of shrinking TV revenues domestically and the shrinking cap.
I'm sure you could get some serious fist-fights started on that subject. The Premire League guys (primarily Sun Jihai with Manchester City), started with a huge head-start in terms of popularity in China... but I see that changing as they aren't getting the same media attention internationally that Yao Ming is getting. In China, I'm sure more people watch Premier League soccer than the NBA... but if Yao Ming continues to be huge, I think that popularity will (strangely) re-infect China. China wants to be good at what the rest of the world cares about, and if it believes the rest of the world cares about the NBA, Yao will simply *explode* in popularity.
If you are not a soccer fan, you wont understand the craziness. Man.U is hugely popular in Asian,like China, South East Asia countries. Japanese tour aganet has program for Japanese to go to Man City to watch Bekerham to play. And these countries had nothing to do with colonial Britain. Plus the imperialis's America isnt much better. Just kidding. Seriously, I know what it takes to be the most popular sports club in the world. Real Mardrid, AC Millan, Man.U are in that class. Rockets, forget about it. But does it matter? By the way, I hate Man.U, coz I am liverpool man, if you follow EPL.
Hey u know what i think will happan, i think after the rocket win the champion there will be a parade in houston as well in china(shanghi) too n the rocket need to travel to china after they thx the fans in houston n u will see fans in the news in china are just as happy n crazy in the street as the houston fans after the rocket win the nba final
there are also 2 players on the Everton squad(other Liverpool team for you Feishen) and i heared that chinese came all the way from their home country to watch a game. Same goes for Japonese going to Parma games to see Nakata. I think that the world cup efect working,especially after it was in Asia. Same here! ALA
