If it’s about sports and there’s a China angle, we’ll talk about it in the China Sports Insider Podcast. Mark Dreyer is the China Sports Insider. He’s worked for Sky Sports, Fox Sports, AP Sports and many others, and has covered major sporting events on five continents, including three Olympic Games 2008-12. He has been based in China since 2007. Produced and hosted by Haig Balian, a journalist and filmmaker who hosts and produces The Beijing Sessions podcast.
We round up the news this week with Zhang Weili’s stunning knockout win in the UFC. How long until she fights for another title (2:26)? Meanwhile, F1 driver Zhou Guanyu — a recent guest on the podcast — continues to have a run of bad luck, plagued by technical issues when driving well (3:45). Meanwhile, China’s breakout tennis star Zhang Qinwen backs up her strong run at the French Open by winning her first WTA title in Valencia (9:23), and a trip down memory lane to 2016 when then-Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho was grilled at the Bird’s Nest by a certain Haze Fan — who’s been in the news this week for entirely different reasons (11:00).
Our guest this week is Jeremiah Jenne, a long-time Beijing resident, historian, podcaster, and — crucially — a big Boston sports fan (13:00). Jenne talks about what it’s been like watching the Celtics play in the NBA Finals and makes a bold prediction (15:00). Watching the games in China can be done using a variety of different methods — legal or otherwise (16:07) — but the impact of the NBA being banned from Chinese screens for the past two years has been minimal for Jenne (18:15). He recalls the time when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver pissed off the Chinese government not by what he said or did, but by revealing they had tried to silence him (19:40). There used to be a time when he could watch games with friends in pubs, but now that’s much harder (22:28).
Jenne discusses why Boston sports fans got their reputation (24:00) and wonders whether there is a Premier League equivalent to shit-talker-in-chief Larry Bird (28:56). Another Boston team, the Patriots, once opened an office in China, but it was a short-lived affair (31:33), with the NFL’s hyper-detailed nature clashing with China’s events culture (33:10), reminiscent of the NHL’s exhibition fiasco in Shanghai when hockey players couldn’t see through the fog on the ice (34:00). In fact, players from all sports have had issues when traveling abroad for pre-season, even though the fans love it (36:00).
Onto baseball and some theories on why the sport hasn’t made it big in China (38:05). Jenne says that watching sports is a taste of home that helps keep him grounded (42:20) and explains why being a Red Sox fan has helped him understand China better (45:09). Why relegation needs to happen in North American sports (48:06) and which US sport is most likely to adopt the concept (48:42). Finally, Jenne describes the evolution of the typical Chinese sports fan he’s encountered over the decades (50:06), reveals what’s exciting him these days (53:40), and muses on what Chinese sports fans must think when they see full stands in Europe and North America (54:50).
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