[新聞] Bringing Pigskin to Land of Ping-Pong

[Jazzsoul (Addicted)]

這是華盛頓郵報原文 (有圖)，有興趣看看，懶得看可以跳過 :p

文 http://tinyurl.com/qt5njh

圖 http://tinyurl.com/qx8m5q

我只擷取相關部分，其他跟五月天無關的就刪了。

Bringing Pigskin to Land of Ping-Pong
NFL Looks to Reach Chinese Market With Reality Show

On a pockmarked Loudoun County field of mud and weeds, the National
Football League spent a day last week honing its plan to invade China.
Facing a population that has little knowledge of touchdowns, let alone
a zone defense, the notoriously buttoned-down league figures the solution
might involve one of Asia's most beloved rock bands running around a
children's flag football game while being filmed for a reality TV show.

"We've started to understand what the code is to get into the Chinese
market," said Chris Parsons, the NFL's vice president in charge of
international operations. The key is not the game itself, but all the
trappings of American culture that surround the action on the field.

Which is how Stone, Monster, Ashin, Masa and Ming -- the members of a
Taiwanese band called Mayday -- happened to spend 10 days riding a bus
around the Northeast this month, meeting cheerleaders and marching bands
and playing flag football for a TV show that will run on China Central
Television, or CCTV, this fall. All in the hopes of converting tens of
millions of Chinese into fans of American football.

It speaks to just how desperate the NFL is to make this happen.

中略，大概講的就是打算進軍大中華市場。

They insisted that the show not be a hard-core football program. It also
needed a star -- "an ambassador," as Chang put it, "someone we could use
as a hook to sell the game."

The choice was easy. Mayday. Most of the more popular bands in China would
be defined as "boy bands," with a softer sound. Mayday's is a bit harder,
more rock 'n' roll.

"I think they had an innate curiosity about why the NFL is so popular in
America," Chang said, adding that two of the band's members had actually
watched NFL games on television and wanted to know more about it.

The show isn't exactly highbrow. The 16 episodes that have been filmed
follow silly plot lines that have the band doing things like popping into
the NFL's headquarters in New York looking for Super Bowl tickets and
instead landing in the office's cafeteria taking on a cooking challenge
with Lewis. Another has them in Foxborough, Mass., where they talk to the
New England Patriots cheerleaders. Others involve tailgating and visiting
Chinese-American players at Harvard and Virginia Tech.

The show, titled "NFL Blitz," will run on Chinese state television through
the Super Bowl.

In one of the shows shot in Virginia, Mayday stops at James Madison High
School in Vienna, where it encounters the marching band and thus learns the
importance of bands at football games. Another has it stumbling across a
peewee football game in Vienna. The flag football game at Virginia Academy
is the final program in the series and will be the only one in which Mayday
actually plays football.


It was obvious after watching one taping that the reality show will not have
the usual sheen of an NFL Films production. But then, it doesn't have to.
The intent is to produce a campy, lighthearted program that will convince
Chinese children that if they want to learn the essence of America they must
come to understand American football.

"The Chinese know and love Mayday and they want to know more and more about
them," Lewis said. "They're like the Beatles. That's how the Chinese feel
about them."

But instead of John, Paul, George and Ringo famously exchanging fake punches
with Cassius Clay at Miami Beach's Fifth Street Gym during their 1964 U.S.
tour, Stone, Monster, Ashin, Masa and Ming listened politely as one of the
directors of the NOVA Youth Flag Football League screamed at them -- for the
camera's benefit -- to "1-2-3 PLAY FOOTBALL!"

The band members laughed and shouted "1-2-3 FOOTBALL!"

Then the musicians, along with the show's hostess, Ada Liu, and another
singer off their label, a woman who goes by the name Ring, ran incoherently
among the children, grabbing flags and occasionally getting to run the ball or
throw a pass.

Ashin, the band's lead singer, sat out most of the game, standing instead
with Aaron Randolph of IMG China and another IMG staffer who wore NFL golf
shirts and provided commentary in Mandarin. It was an odd sight. One that
undoubtedly will make more sense when the tape is cut up and spliced into a
reality TV show.

And if it does, if the image of children running around a field of mud and
weeds in Loudoun County throwing a football in a form of controlled chaos
appeals to Chinese ages 12 to 24, then the NFL might have something it
hasn't found in all the other countries it has been:

Fans.




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推 srp:謝謝分享^^  我媽媽說 他看到我英文進步的曙光了XD
→ ptlin:原po要不要好心點幫忙翻譯... (←睡眠不足懶得翻的人)
推 icq0905z:之前已經因為這張圖笑半天了XDD結果他又出現了XDDDD
推 mdeternity:"They're like the Beatles." our Beatles,indeed!
→ Jazzsoul:等我有空吧 QQ
推 eileen88:Ashin, the band's lead singer, sat out most of the
→ eileen88:game <<<  這樣才像我們的主唱大人嘛.. XDD
→ carrie28:sat out 翻譯過來是坐在一邊嗎!?  XDDD