Illinois launches Chinese broadcasts of football games
Illinois launches Chinese broadcasts of football games
(AP) — Standing in a small, sterile booth high above the turf at Memorial Stadium, David He's voice reaches a near-shout any time Illinois' football team makes a big play against Kent State.
[...] they're a small piece of the University of Illinois' effort to reach a large segment of their student population and perhaps help crack a problem at colleges around the country: how to get students back into football stadiums on Saturdays.
Student attendance across college football has been dropping in recent years, and a look at nearly-empty student section at Illinois every week last season indicated the problem might be particularly acute in Champaign.
The campus has more than 10,000 international students, almost a quarter of the total enrollment of 44,000.
With the combination of "Football 101" events for international students and the new Chinese-language broadcasts, the school hopes to start getting more of those students to games.
While foreign-language broadcasts of pro sports are nothing new and other schools such as Texas and Texas A&M broadcast football in Spanish, Joe Ferreira of Learfield Sports isn't aware of anyone doing games in Chinese.
Lu says the Chinese students he knows are a solid potential market, for football and other sports.
