Full-Court Press: Promoter Envisions NCAA in China
On a dingy basketball court in the center of a sprawling university campus here, 6-foot-6 freshman Wang Yangming's attempt at a three-point shot was smothered in a tangle of elbows.
From the sideline, Leonard Bloom forced a smile. "Well, let's just say there's a lot of room for improvement," he said.
Dr. Bloom, a sports promoter and former dentist, has made a modest name for himself in second-tier leagues. He owned the now-defunct American Basketball Association's San Diego Conquistadors, where Wilt Chamberlain briefly coached, and the short-lived Los Angeles Sharks of the World Hockey Association. Now, he's trying to pull off a long shot in China. For the past five years, Dr. Bloom has been working on building a modern basketball league -- with televised games, logos, sponsorships, even cheerleaders -- from the rubble of China's ossified college sports system.
A humbler version of Dr. Bloom's grandiose vision is scheduled to tip off, perhaps as soon as May 8, with the opening game of the Friendship Basketball League -- an eight-team university league. Most of the teams hail from China's frigid north, home to China's tallest people, where basketball, or lanqiu, is now played with a fervor once reserved for table tennis.
But Dr. Bloom's drive to Westernize China's sports culture isn't a slam dunk. His dream has already cost him more than $1 million, and he could wind up being on the hook for much more. The big-time sponsorships and TV deals he hopes will one day turn this into a money machine have yet to be sealed. His league's balls and uniforms still aren't ready.
Dr. Bloom, who declines to give his age, has built stadiums, concert venues and clubs from Florida to California. He says he first went to China in the late 1990s, after state education and sports officials got wind of some promotional work he had done in Russia.
China's sports system is still rooted in a socialist-style program that plucks promising gymnasts and divers from elementary school, and then secludes them in special academies where they train for the next decade. Though this has produced a fair share of Olympians, and some professional exports such as Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, it hasn't helped nurture home-grown amateur and professional leagues that produce a regular crop of world-class stars.
China's professional basketball league, the CBA, has been struggling since it was established in the early 1980s. Many university games are so haphazard that official scores or rankings sometimes fall by the wayside.
At one game two years ago, Mr. Bloom was stunned to find a 7-foot-6 center. "He could have been Shaquille O'Neal," Mr. Bloom recalls. But after grabbing one defensive rebound, the giant "ran out of gas," he says, and loped breathlessly down the court.
Dr. Bloom couldn't get universities to sign up for his league until he met Pei Haihong, director of the Public Physical Education and Research Institute at Jilin University in Changchun. With five campuses and 52,000 students, it is the country's largest school. A former guard for the Jilin Tigers, a CBA team, Mr. Pei had long been trying to raise the profile of university teams in China.
Dr. Bloom speaks no Chinese and has a hard time distinguishing between common names such as Chang and Zhang. But with the Mr. Pei as his guide and translator, he got to work. He handed out Chinese training manuals with daily exercises for stretches, endurance and the toning of fast-twitch muscles. He gave out copies of a 109-page rule book that he compiled by blending European and U.S. basketball rules and then had translated into Chinese. He made some changes: His rules allow for six fouls instead of the usual five, to make for feistier play. He also told the coaches that if their teams had mascots and better uniforms, they'd draw more fans to games.
Soon Dr. Bloom, a teetotaler, was being toasted with fiery sorghum wine at banquets by dignitaries and school deans eager to get their schools into a league that the American promised would lead to trophies and eventually royalties.
Dr. Bloom came up with new names, logos and uniforms for each school, a change for the Chinese players accustomed to shabby, ill-fitting game garb. Most of those changes went over well. But not all.
When he proposed that one university team be called the "Dynamos," Song Guangfa, the school's highest-ranking communist official, protested. Although in English the name seems fitting for a sports team, in Chinese it translates as "Driving Force Team." That, Mr. Song informed Dr. Bloom, "sounds like the name of a factory" from the era of China's now-discredited Cultural Revolution. Mr. Song suggested a proper Chinese name that has no English equivalent: "Pili," or "quick as lightning." Dr. Bloom accepted it.
Dr. Bloom plans to recoup the money his closely held company, Marquee Corp., has spent. He has signed on as the exclusive agent for all 80 league players for five years after they graduate, ensuring him a 10% cut of their contracts if they go pro. That share would be high, though not unheard of, for an NBA promoter. University officials have agreed to let Dr. Bloom sell league merchandise on campus -- including about 100,000 of the regulation Friendship balls he designed -- for half the profits.
The balls come in eye-catching red-and-yellow, the colors of the Chinese flag. But though they're manufactured in China, they're weeks late in delivery. Not all of the uniforms have been ordered because at least one university hasn't settled on four players in its lineup. "Sometimes things like this will happen when you're doing something for the first time," he says.
体育赞助人倾力打造中国NCAA
在某大学校园中心一个破旧的篮球场上，身高6.6英尺的大一学生王洋明(Wang Yangming，音译)正在尝试投一个三分球，但因肘部动作变形而没有投中。
场外的伦纳德?布卢姆(Leonard Bloom)勉强挤出一个微笑。"唔，还有很多要改进的地方，"他说。
以前当过牙医的布卢姆是一名体育赞助人，在二级联赛中小有名气。他曾拥有美国篮球协会(American Basketball Association)的"圣地亚哥征服者"－－威尔特?张伯伦(Wilt Chamberlain)曾在该队短暂执教，但目前该队已经不复存在。他还曾拥有过世界冰球协会(World Hockey Association)的洛杉矶鲨鱼队(Los Angeles Sharks)，但该队也是昙花一现。现在，布卢姆医生正在中国进行一项大胆的尝试。在过去五年中，他一直尝试在中国僵化的大学体育制度中创建一个现代化的篮球联赛－－电视转播、标志、商业赞助、甚至拉拉队样样都不能少。
但布卢姆要西化中国体育文化的决心可不是扣蓝那么简单。到目前为止，他已经为他的梦想付出了至少1百万美元，而且很有可能要继续烧钱。他希望通过一流的赞助和与电视台的合作使他的努力变成一颗摇钱树，但这些现在还为实现。他连联赛用的篮球和服装都还没准备好。
布卢姆拒绝透露自己的年龄，他曾建过露天运动场、演唱会场馆和俱乐部场馆，从佛罗里达到加利福尼亚都有他的杰作。他说他头一次到中国是在90年代末，之前中国国家体育教育官员已经对他在俄罗斯推进当地体育事业发展的工作略有耳闻。
中国体育体制仍然植根于社会主义的体系：从小学生中挑选有前途的体操运动员和跳水运动员，在专门的学校封闭训练十年。这种做法培养了相当数量的奥运选手，当中包括一些出口到国外的高水平运动员，如休斯敦火箭队的中锋姚明，但尽管如此，这种体制却无益于培育出土生土长的业余和职业联赛，而联赛体制却能定期培养出世界级的明星。
中国职业篮球联赛(CBA)从80年代初建立以来一直不尽如人意。许多大学比赛充满了随意性，正式计分和排名时常无果而终。
在两年前的一场比赛上，布卢姆吃惊的发现了一个高7.6英尺的中锋。"他本可以成为另一个沙奎尔?奥尼尔(Shaquille O'Neal)，"布卢姆回忆道。但在抢到一个防守篮板球之后，这名"巨人"就气喘吁吁，迈著大步上气不接下气地走下球场。
在遇到吉林大学公共体育教学与研究中心的负责人裴海宏(Pei Haihong，音译)之前，布卢姆一直没能和大学篮球队签约。吉林大学有五个校区，52000名学生，是中国最大的高校之一。裴海宏曾是"吉林虎"队(CBA成员)的后卫，并曾长期致力于推动中国大学篮球队走向更高的水平。 布卢姆不会说汉语，常常分不清普通话里"成"和"张"等一些常见的姓。但有裴海宏作他的向导和翻译，他可以顺利开始工作。他把中文的每日训练手册分发下去，上面涵括了拉伸、耐力以及肌肉拉伤恢复等各种日常练习内容。他把自己编制的长达109页的规则手册－－综合了欧洲篮球和美国篮球的规则，并翻译成中文－－发给球员。他对规则做了些修改：为了让比赛更活跃，他允许犯规6次，而不是通常的5次。他还告诉教练们说，如果他们的球队有更漂亮的吉祥物和球服，就能吸引更多的球迷。
没过多久，很多大学的高层人员开始争相请客，本来滴酒不沾的布卢姆被高粱酒灌得面红耳赤。这些人都想让自己学校的篮球队能加入联赛，因为布卢姆许诺，加入联赛就意味著奖品和特殊的地位。
布卢姆给每个校队起了新名字、更换了标识和球服，一改中国球员穿著糟糕的面貌。大部份改革进展都很顺利，但也有美中不足的时候。
当他建议把一个校队命名为"Dynamos"时，学校党委高层宋光发(Song Guangfa，音译)提出异议。虽然在英语里这个名字很适合一个球队，而翻译成中文却"像是文革时候一个工厂的名字"。宋提议采用一个地道的、英语里没有对应词的中国名字--霹雳，即"像闪电一样快"。布卢姆采纳了他的意见。
布卢姆计划补偿他的持股公司Marquee Corp已经花掉的钱。他已经跟所有80个联赛球员签约，作为他们毕业后五年内的独家代理；如果他们成为职业球员，他将获得其10%收入。尽管这个比例并非没有先例，但对于一个NBA赞助人来说则是比较高的了。学校领导已经同意让布卢姆在校园里出售联赛的相关商品，包括他设计的10万个友谊赛指定篮球，所获双方利润均分。
这些红黄两色的球－－中国国旗的颜色－－非常醒目。可尽管它们都在中国生产，发货却要在几个星期之后。并不是所有的球服都收到了订单，因为至少有一个大学还没有对四名球员的去留作出决定。"当你第一次做某件事情时，有时候会发生这样的情况，"他说。
