Pretty cool article about the development of Chinese arena football and neat to see a former Hokie helping out.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15727119/us-hopefuls-see-new-chinese-a...
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Looks like he is having a chance to see the world. Hope he can deal with the air.
His parents were both Olympians for China in the 80's, so it's likely he's been to China before.
http://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/416728#comment-416728
I knew he was supposed to be playing just thought it was cool he is now also vice president of development for the CAFL.
Why wouldn't you just re-embed the tweet?
On mobile.
You could've edited your comment, copied, and pasted the embed link. Then again, like Midge said, this article highlights his involvement in the development which deserves its own thread anyway.
I agree it needed its own thread, that's why I didn't say "drink".
I drank anyway because why not?
Arena football in China. That's got to be a tough sell.
They actually seem to have a decent turnout for tryouts earlier this year. There is also a crap load of rich people to buy up teams.
There is actually 2 full contact amateur leagues right now. I coached on the Shanghai Titans for a season but it was too much time in the end. I have a lot of friends playing in these and they are all trying out for the Arena league.
But you are thinking of it the wrong way. China has a pretty drastic lack of team league sports. Soccer and CBA (China NBA) are the two biggest draws. But it has an under served population of over a Billion people. That type of market exposure is priceless, especially for something like Arena football that has fast games, minimal infrastructure requirements and can cherry pick athletic talent as much as they need to. Hell, the amateur leagues have been getting NFL level washouts for a few seasons now and have had D1 players sprinkled in every team for years. Now imagine you are the only Arena football team in a city like Shanghai that has over 20 million people. You'll be sold out every game and your merchandise will sell everywhere.
I hear he is also teaming up with former Hokie lineman Eugene Chung to ensure that everybody have fun at these CAFL games.
If I live to be 100 I will still love that joke with all my heart.
Cool, Wang Chung lives on!
Then afterwards you can love it with all your new artificial heart!
I wonder how many Wang's each of those teams have?
I don't know whether to break down the frequency of the name Wang or just reply "At least 22."
Heh. I get it. It's a penis joke.
Oh hey Captain Killjoke
BUMP
here is the full list of the newly drafted (as of last Friday) CAFL. As you can see two of the #1 picks are Hokies: David Wang and Bryan Randall. Randall's team also has former Hokie Xavier Boyce on it as well. I have friends on both their teams, as well as Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing teams. Now I have to figure out who to root for...
Are Willie Mcginest and Terence Smith really going to play Chinese Arena Football? They were starters in the nfl
Willie McGinnis not McGinnest, caught me off guard as well, had to google. But Chinese Sports leagues do throw out some absurd money to lure bigger (or at least household names at a point in their career) players, so it wouldn't be a huge stretch if he weren't 44 years old. Doubt an indoor league has quite that pull, though I'm surprised they didn't try to get TO. Maybe they were afraid he'd celebrate on the star on the flag?
There will be a replay of the draft on this link "soon".
http://caflfootball.com/cafl-draft-results-are-in/
It looks like Ed Wang was the expert on the draft panel.
I feel like I'm watching Dodgeball.
Dude Beijing is STACKED but I think Qingdao will gel as the season goes on. Dailan the dark horse to win it all.
Some teams only have 1 listed QB. That's a gamble
Is this league expected to be superior in pay or success than the AFL? There are a lot of big names on the draft list that you would think would stick around the US. There are MVPs in this draft. Just the chance to start fresh without having to wait on someone else to move on? A gamble?
I wouldnt doubt that they may get paid more in China than the AFL. One example is women's basketball. Brittney Greiner, a #1 overall pick in the WNBA earned around $50K from the WNBA her rookie year, but in China, she earned $600,000 that same season. Max contracts for the WNBA are $105K a year so its becoming a new trend that the top players are bypassing the WNBA to be ready for their foreign contracts. Diana Taurasi sat out her $100K WNBA season because she is making $1.5 mil playing for a Russian club. Average WNBA salary is only $60K.
It appears that the AFL is currently paying their players somewhere between $830-$1000 a game, so annually that is only $15-$16K a year. I would imagine they could find a much better compensation package from the Chinese teams simply because of the demand for entertainment over there coupled with a huge population.
Most arena football players have 9-5 day jobs. It's almost a glorified adult football league for ex-cons and roided out dudes with anger management issues.
This is correct.
Rounds 1 - 5: 2k USD per game
Rounds 6 - 10: 1.5k per game
1k for everyone else
David Wang was first player selected a) because he is good and b) as face to Ed.
Lastly, the arena league is a precursor (hopefully at least) for a full professional league
Edit*
Oops, wrong place