Dusting off Beijing's Olympic venues
Tuesday, 13th October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
It's rare that venues built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics actually host events—but in the past week, three of these white elephants were actually in use. The China Open tennis tournament came to the Olympic Green Tennis Center from October 2-11; the Bird's Nest played host to a Zhang Yimou production of the Italian opera Turandot on Oct. 6 and 7; and the NBA brought a preseason game to Wukesong Basketball Arena—a facility that the league designed and now operates.Here's a quick look at each of the events:
Wukesong Arena, October 11, 2009
NBA Games at Wukesong Basketball Arena
The Denver Nuggets played the Indiana Pacers in the second NBA preseason game played here. As expected, the NBA put on a good show—Carmelo Anthony poured in 45 points; breakdancers, cheerleaders and mascots kept the crowd in their seats during breaks; and hoops activities (sponsored, of course) and a small NBA retail outlet continued the action in the arena's outer ring.
Wukesong is decades ahead of any arena used by the Chinese Basketball Association—the seats are comfortable, the jumbotron is jumbo, it actually has built in concession stands, and I doubt that "benchwarmer" will be a literal term here in the winter.
A common sight outside Beijing sports venues, scalpers were hard at work.
Its 18,000 seats were nearly all taken Sunday, but the event still seemed to suffer from some of the ticketing woes faced by other sporting events in China. In a country full of NBA fans, and a city of 17.4 million people, there should be no empty seats for the only NBA game that will happen here this year. Face values on tickets being sold on the street right before the game ranged from 600 to 2,800 yuan, but scalpers offered steep discounts. Asking prices (before any haggling) for those two ticket prices were 200 and 1,000 yuan.
I'll save an examination of the problem with getting butts in seats in China for another post, but it's safe to say that any money that the NBA is making in China does not come from ticket sales. But they do entertainment with a flair and on a scale rarely seen in China, and an event like this is primarily for branding and sponsor exposure.
On another note, what was Mike Dunleavy Jr. thinking? Does Beijing have a secret Silk Market for Blind People where he had this suit made?
China Open at Olympic Tennis Center
The China Open came to Beijing for the sixth year in a row (its history reaches back to 1993, and includes events in Shanghai). Being on the post-season Asia circuit keeps it pretty low-profile, but big purses for both the men and the women this year attracted some big names. Novak Djokovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova cruising to the men's and women's titles. Djokovic took home $500,000 for his win, and Kuznetsova $775,500. The event lacked marquee matchups in its late stages, a common problem at the Asian tournaments where the biggest stars tend to lack motivation.
Taking advantage of some of that laziness was Zhang Shuai, who beat world No. 1 Dinara Safina in the second round before losing to Marion Bartoli. Overall, China's women had a strong showing, with the best performance coming from Peng Shuai and Taiwan's Su-Wei Hseih, who took the women's doubles crown.
In singles, Peng Shuai beat Jelena Jankovic and Maria Sharapova to make it to the quarterfinals, where she lost to Nadia Petrova. Li Na went out in the third round to Elena Dementieva, and Zheng Jie lost to eventual champ Kuznetsova in the first round. Full results are available at ChinaOpen.com.
As noted in this earlier post on the event, the matches were pretty poorly attended but the 30-yuan grounds tickets attracted crowds that enjoyed concessions and interactive entertainment provided by the sponsors. The tournament was heavily promoted through ads on CCTV-5 (China's sports channel) and in various sports publications, as well as billboards all over Beijing. Despite this, and the fact that it kicked off on a holiday weekend with great weather, Beijingers stayed away in droves.
Curiously, event organizers seem to think that a brand new stadium will somehow spike attendance. "The existing facilities cannot meet the needs of a commercial event," said China Open senior organizer Zhang Yabin, according to a recent piece in the Washington Post (New court shows ambitions of revamped China Open). The piece quotes another event organizer as saying that sponsorship (from the likes of Mercedes, Kappa and Sony Ericcson) accounted for 70 percent of revenue, whereas 50 or 60 percent would be a healthier target.
Turandot at the Bird's Nest
The most expensive and most celebrated of all of the Olympic venue constructions, the Bird's Nest is also the games' most embarrassingly dormant showpiece. Talk of bringing Chinese Soccer League games there broke down because, well, the league is famously mediocre. "We don't want to put any shame on the Bird's Nest," said Luo Ning, vice president of the company that owns Beijing Guo'an of the CSL, according to this translation in a Reuters story.
Since the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, the Bird's Nest has hosted a Jackie Chan and Friends concert last May (apparently, shame was not an issue anymore), and the Italian Super Cup Final, a soccer match between Inter Milan and Lazio on the one-year anniversary of the 2008 opening ceremony.
The latest event to hit this 91,000-seat stadium was a production of the Italian opera Turandot, directed by Zhang Yimou, who was also responsible for the opening ceremony. Blogging for The Beijinger, Anthony Tao sounded pretty underwhelmed (Turandot Turn-off). Opera, it seems, is not best enjoyed in a stadium with a red Olympic track between the audience and the stage.
Tags: Bird's Nest, China Open, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, NBA, tennis, Wukesong
Zhang knocks off world No. 1 Safina at China Open
Monday, 5th October 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Zhang at the 2009 US Open, where she was eliminated in the first round
Rafael Nadal plays his first match of the tournament Tuesday, opening up against wild card Marcos Baghdatis. The China Open Web site is a little slow and scattered with the scheduling information, but expect Nadal to play late in the evening session, which starts at 7 p.m.
If you're in Beijing, tickets are available—lots of them, from the looks of it inside Center Court on Sunday. You can purchase online in advance, walk up to the box office, or try your luck with the scalpers outside the National Tennis Center. Getting strong attendance is a challenge at sporting events in China—even an event like this that has taken place here for several years, and features Chinese players with a good chance of going deep in the tournament. At Sunday's daytime session, on a beautiful fall holiday weekend, the arena wavered between about 15 percent and 30 percent capacity at Center Court, where Zheng Jie, Dinara Safina and Serena Williams all played.
While crowds were pretty thin inside the arena, the sponsors who purchased booths on the grounds enjoyed steady foot traffic. With some tennis-themed games to play, and concessions supplied by Papa John's, Element Fresh, RBT (Chinese fast food) and Heineken (Murphy's Stout on tap!), spectators at the China Open have a lot more to enjoy and choose from than they would at most Chinese sports events.
To get to the National Tennis Center, take the Line 8 subway (the Olympic line) to Olympic Park and look for a shuttle bus or ask a taxi driver to take you to the National Tennis Center (国家网球中心) on Aolin Xilu (奥林西路).
Tags: China Open, Dinara Safina, Li Na, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, tennis, Zhang Shuai
China to hold its first international minigolf tournament
Wednesday, 22nd April 2009 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The city of Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan province is known for being one of the top golf cities in China, but it is also soon to make a name for itself as the center of minigolf in China.
From May 8 to 10, the China Open minigolf tournament will be held in Kunming at the Haigeng Olympic training facility, which is also home to China's largest minigolf course, owned and operated by Hello! Minigolf. The company's Haigeng facility is also home of the Chinese national minigolf team.
The 2009 China Open tournament will feature top minigolfers from more than 20 countries including China, the United States, Germany, Thailand, France, Japan, Czech Republic, Vietnam, Turkey, Malaysia, Ireland, Singapore and more.
Competition will take place on May 9 and 10 on Hello! Haigeng's fun course and challenge course, with a total of 25,000 yuan in cash prizes up for grabs.
"We are very excited to be hosting the tournament here in Kunming," Mike Medcalf of Hello! Minigolf told GoKunming.
"Not only is Hello! Haigeng Minigolf the first place in China to really bring the complete experience of minigolf to the public, but also the venue of the first Minigolf China Open Tournament in history. The open is both international and local, and we are honored to be hosting."
The tournament will feature professional and amateur competitions, both of which will be divided into three age groups: 6 to 13 years, 13 to 59 years and 60 and older. Amateur competitors will be charged a 188 yuan entrance fee.
The registration deadline for the 2009 China Open is this Saturday, April 25. All interested parties can contact Marissa Yang at 15987153350 or contact Hello! Minigolf directly via their contact form.
Tags: China Open, Kunming, minigolf, Yunnan