The first Australian Football League match "for premiership points in China" will be played in round eight of the '17 season, between Port Adelaide and the Gold Coast Suns, according to ABC. The match will be played on Sunday, May 14 in Shanghai and "will officially be listed as a Port Adelaide home game." Port Adelaide Chair David Koch said, "This is a moment many people thought would never happen, let alone as soon as 2017. The AFL will become the first elite foreign competition to play a regular season game for points in China, beating the likes of the NBA, English Premier League, Major League Baseball and NFL." Port Adelaide had "long flagged intentions to take the AFL to China, but had struggled to find a willing opponent." But Gold Coast Suns Chair Tony Cochrane said that the club was honored to be involved in the "milestone match." Cochrane: "This is a historical moment for our game and we are excited by the opportunity that awaits, not only in China but also for us on the Gold Coast" (ABC, 10/26). THE AUSTRALIAN reported AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan announced the date and said, "We are proud that Australian football will play a bigger role in deepening the historic connections between Australia and The People’s Republic of China. ... We have 1 million people of Chinese origin living in Australia, we have many students who chose Australia to live and study, and Chinese tourists are our number one visitors here, so reaching out to this community both here and abroad is critical for us as a game" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/26).
RISKY BUSINESS: In Sydney, Courtney Walsh reported the AFL’s decision to "push into Shanghai comes at a risk" but McLachlan believes it will "help the indigenous code strengthen its relationship with Chinese Australians." McLachlan praised Port Adelaide as "visionary and entrepreneurial." He added, "Obviously, the trading relationship and the commercial relationships between China and Australia are self-evident and significant. That is part of it." Koch said that the club "had worked to establish a business relationship with China over the past four years." Both Port Adelaide and the AFL "are planning to showcase the nation with a celebration of all things Australian ahead of the match." McLachlan said that Port Adelaide was "forced to satisfy several requirements before the AFL ticked off on the experiment." He said, "We have made it clear about the hurdles they have to go through, about minimal funding arrangements, an agreement with an AFL team, more serious things (like) clearly getting a venue to meet AFL standards." A local turf company "has been hired to grow and transport a surface that will meet AFL standards" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/27). THE LEAD's Andrew Spence reported Port Adelaide China & Government Relations GM Andrew Hunter joined the club in March '15 and "began shifting the club’s Asian focus from Hong Kong to Mainland China." Two Port Adelaide home matches were shown on CCTV in April, "with the second match viewed by 3.8 million people" in China to become the most watched minor round match in the history of the sport. The "rising popularity of the sport in China then led to games being shown on CCTV every week until the season ended in early October." Hunter: "That was an extraordinary outcome. Each week there’s two hits of AFL on CCTV5 and we’re seeing a consistency in the television audience, which suggests there is a level of interest in the game" (THE LEAD, 10/26).