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| Posted: 19 July 2018 at 09:56 | IP Logged
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LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- The Chicago Bears have signed kick
returners/receivers Armanti Edwards and Micheal Spurlock
and reached an injury settlement with receiver Domenik
Hixon. They also waived linebacker Tana Patrick on
Tuesday. Edwards has 40 punt returns for 281 yards and 15
kickoff returns for 295 yards over four seasons with
Carolina (2010-13) and Cleveland (2013). Spurlock has
appeared in 67 games with two starts over seven seasons
with seven teams, including 11 games with Detroit and
Dallas last season. He has 81 punt returns for 780 yards
and two touchdowns along with 107 kickoff returns for
2,594 yards and three touchdowns. Hixon has 109
receptions for 1,460 yards and seven touchdowns in eight
years with Denver (2006-07), the New York Giants (2008-
12) and Carolina (2013).
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seconds remaining, and No. 7 North Carolina held off a
resilient No. 25 Virginia team, 54-51, on Saturday. John
Henson contributed a double-double with 15 points to go
with 11 rebounds for the Tar Heels (25-4, 12-2 ACC), who
have won five straight and 10 of 11.Canadas largest
sports company wants the Maple Leafs to become Chinas
favourite hockey team, in much the same way Manchester
United is the most popular soccer team in the worlds most
populous country. At the same time as Chinese government
officials have asked the NHL to stage a regular-season
game in China as early as next season, TSN has learned
four executives with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment
are scheduled to leave Friday for Beijing for meetings to
help grow hockey in China, an untapped frontier for many
sports leagues around the world. MLSE chief commercial
officer Dave Hopkinson, Bo Hu, MLSEs executive in charge
of Chinese business, and two colleagues will attend
meetings in Beijing with Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
his staff, and Chinese government officials. Maple Leafs
President Brendan Shanahan was scheduled to participate
but canceled at the last minute, a team spokesperson
said. (The NHL and NHLPA announced forward Carter Ashton
was suspended for 20 games on Thursday after testing
positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Ashton said he
borrowed another athletes asthma inhaler.) MLSE
executives, the 27-year-old Hu in particular, have
quietly laid the groundwork for building the companys
profile in China over the past three years. Because
basketball is so popular in China, MLSE staff first
established relationships with companies interested in
sponsorship agreements with the Raptors. The basketball
team now has sponsorships with Chinese auto tire maker
Aeolus Tires and Asus, a laptop maker. MLSE has also
partnered with I.T. company Huawei on music-industry
projects. Its believed that MLSE garners more than
$300,000 from each of those sponsorships. Company
officials declined to say how much sponsorship revenue
they make from China-based companies. As MLSEs
relationships in China matured, the company landed
meetings with the Chinese government - meetings where
MLSE received an attractive offer. China is competing
with Kazakhstan to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. China
wants to have hockey teams that are competitive. But with
a mens national team thats ranked No. 38 — behind New
Zealand, Belgium and Iceland — China needs help getting
to that point. China wasnt a sports nation before the
Beijing Olympics in 2008, but it is now, Hopkinson said
in an interview. The president of the country attended
the Team Canada mens hockey games in Sochi and said he
fell in love with hockey. Whats important to the
president of China is important to China. Chinese
officials said in exchange for helping to develop grass-
roots hockey programs in China, the government would help
MLSE promote the Maple Leafs brand there. This is the
most storied and established brand in the game, Hopkinson
said. We were told that if they were going to partner in
the NFL, it would be with the Dallas Cowboys. If they
were doing a baseball deal, it would be with the New York
Yankees. And if theres a partnership in the NHL, its
going to be with the Maple Leafs. It doesnt hurt that the
Leafs are based in Canada. Tensions might appear if a
U.S.-based team tried to do what the Leafs hope to do.
The Chinese have told us they really appreciate what we
are doing, boots on the ground, helping them to develop a
hockey competency, said Hopkinson, who has made four
previous trips to China. In March, the Leafs converted
all of their rink boards to Chinese to welcome Chinese
viewers. In August, the team sent staff to Beijing and
Shanghai to stage hockey camps for young amateur players.
In coming weekks, the Leafs will aid in the production of
a 10-part Hockey 101 series to be included in NHL
broadcasts on CCTV in China to educate
viewers.dddddddddddd We arent the only team in China, Hu
said. The Canucks and Islanders are there, too, but we
really have a plan to become the biggest hockey brand
there. We want to keep holding camps for kids, building
grass roots interest, and eventually take our Maple Leafs
players there. This is the Manchester United model. The
worlds most famous soccer club says it has 108 million
fans in China, where it has played almost a dozen times
since 1975. Hu said because the NHL prevents teams from
promoting themselves outside their local territories,
MLSE has been targeting Chinese companies such as Air
China and the Bank of China that want to expand their
business in Canada. There are a lot of Chinese mining
companies that have investments in Canada, although we
just signed an agreement with a Colombian mining company,
Hu said. Hu confirmed Chinese officials have told the NHL
they are interested in hosting an NHL game as soon as
next season. As any seasoned marketer knows, the payoff
for a team to break through in China is huge. In its
recent filing for an initial public offering, Alibaba
reported just 45.8 per cent of Chinas population uses the
Internet, far lower than Canada or the U.S. In 2000, four
per cent of urban households in China were considered
middle class; by 2012, more than two-thirds of those
homes had gained that status, earning between $9,000 and
$16,000. In 2022, Chinas middle class may eclipse 630
million consumers. There already are signs that China, a
non-traditional hockey market to be sure, is open to a
new sport. Last year, the state broadcaster CCTV began
showing four live NHL games every week. This is CCTVs
second year of a three-year deal with the NHL. NHL games
broadcast on the weekend in China have attracted an
average 800,000 households - airing at 7 a.m. local time.
By comparison, televised Leafs games in Canada with
national distribution this season have attracted about
1.5 million viewers. This year, Beijings 150 registered
teams have 2,300 players between the ages of six and 15,
MLSE says. Still, there are challenges to growing hockey
in China. For starters, its an expensive sport, Hu said,
thanks to 30 per cent import duties for hockey equipment
shipped from the west and expensive ice time. There are
politics to consider. In 2005, the newspaper Beijing
Today accused western soccer teams of gold-digging, using
their tours of China solely to build their brand and
commercial presence. Some efforts simply dont translate.
Manchester United closed a pair of theme restaurants
after fans didnt see a connection between soccer fandom
and eating out, The New York Times reported in 2007.
Also, its unclear whether the NHL sees a big upside in
China. The league does not have a senior vice president
in change of expanding its international business, a
position common in other pro sports leagues. Moreover,
the NBA has a long head start in China, where it began to
lay a toehold during the 1990s. Now, the NBA attracts
some five million viewers a game in China. In the U.S.,
NBA broadcasts on cable TV get about two million viewers
per game. Its doubtful that the NHL would ever grow
business through the sale of team jerseys. While
authentic jerseys now sell for $330 in Canada,
counterfeiting has flourished in China, bringing down the
price of knock-off jerseys to $5 or $10 in some cases.
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Topic: 5 million viewers. This year, Beijings 15
