Tom Brady has five Super Bowl rings, two league MVP awards, and he should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. There’s one thing the quarterback hasn’t accomplished in his career, and that’s playing a game in China.
Tom Brady wants the Patriots to play a game in China before he retires
Brady has accomplished much in his long career, but there’s one thing on his list he hasn’t done.
Tom Brady
Jeanna Kelley has been covering the Falcons for The Falcoholic since 2011 and the NFL for SB Nation since 2015.
Brady would like to change that.
“My dream is to play a game here in China someday,” Brady said via CBS Boston during an Under Armour promotional tour.
While in China, Brady seized the opportunity to throw a football on top of the Great Wall:
He said the reason he wants to play in China is because he loves the game so much.
“To bring that here and to bring the discipline and to bring the incredible strategy involved, it’s just a great event and hopefully a lot of the Chinese people would enjoy it,” Brady said.
Brady’s Patriots were scheduled to play in China during the 2007 preseason in an exhibition game against the Seattle Seahawks dubbed the China Bowl. The game was cancelled by the NFL so that it could focus instead on building its presence in London. Now London games have become a fixture of the regular season.
The league considered rescheduling the game in China in 2009, but it didn’t come to pass. It wasn’t possible in 2008 because of the Beijing Olympics.
The NFL has flirted with the idea of expanding its International Series to include a regular season game in China in 2018. Nothing is official yet, but according to the Sports Business Daily, the likeliest matchup would be between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers.
American football is growing in popularity in China, and last year NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, “The size and the influence of China in the global marketplace is obviously something that you can’t ignore.”
But playing a game in China would be difficult for NFL players. It takes over 14 hours to fly from New York to Beijing, and there’s a 12-hour time difference between the East Coast and China.
Those things aren’t likely to deter the NFL, though, if it wants to host games in China. It’s a good thing that Brady wants to play until he’s 45 years old, because maybe he’ll actually get the opportunity to play in the Far East.
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