Less than a week after the AFL’s debut on Chinese broadcast media, Port Adelaide Football Club have signalled their intent to play a true-blue premiership match on Chinese turf.
According to a new Memorandum of Understanding between the league, the club and their new sponsor Shanghai Cred Real Estate, Port will do their darnedest to flog Sherrins overseas in 2017 as the AFL’s official promoter of the game in China.
Citizens of the Portress needn’t fear though, ’cause the club also confirmed they wouldn’t be giving up a home game in the process. It’s not yet clear how exactly that sitch will be sorted out, but it’s already looking like the furthest ‘away’ match ever played.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was there as well, and he also managed to spruik our own personal brand of footy. ABC reports he described the code in the most rousing way possible, calling it a sport played on “an enormous field, extraordinary athleticism, it is the leaping, jumping, flying game.”
In case you were wondering, Turnbull also said last week’s Power v Bombers broadcast probably attracted somewhere between one and two million viewers, which kinda demonstrates the market the league wants to move into. Still, it may take a lil’ while for a billion people to get the code down pat.
