Duke game to be broadcast in Chinese

Tomorrow’s home basketball game will feature something never done before at Duke or any other NCAA school.

When Duke and Virginia tip off in Cameron Indoor Stadium at 2 p.m. Saturday, Duke will broadcast the game in Mandarin Chinese. The free broadcast—the first of its kind —will be available live and on demand at GoDuke.com Inside Access. ESPN has also agreed to feature the broadcast on their showing of the game.

“This is an experiment, and we thought we’d give it a shot because there’s a small but obviously growing number of Duke alumni in China, but more importantly, the University has a strong interest in raising its visibility in China,” said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. “Basketball is very popular in China... so this is a unique opportunity to present something that is widely known and widely followed in the U.S. in a different language for a Chinese audience.”

Jon Jackson, associate director of athletics for university and public affairs, said it is difficult to target viewers in China given the time difference. Since the game is on at 3 a.m. China Standard Time, the University hopes that many of the broadcast’s viewers will be members of the Duke community who speak Chinese.

“Because of the time difference, I don’t think we’ll get a lot of folks up at 3 a.m. to watch the broadcast, but it is on demand after,” Jackson said. “I think you’re looking at mainly Chinese-speaking Americans, but hopefully we’ll get some folks to watch it after.”

Three Duke undergraduate students— senior Jesse Sun and juniors Yunze Chen and John Sheng—were chosen for broadcasting duties based on their involvement with the International House and the Office of Global Communications, and their familiarity with Duke basketball.

“We spent a pretty good amount of time with them on the front end making sure they were comfortable with what we were asking them to do,” Jackson said. “All three of them have a passion for Duke and have a passion for basketball.”

Jackson and Schoenfeld said the idea has been in place for a couple of months but had not been possible until now because of space constraints in the press box.