AFI’s Allan Price Hits Travel Wall With China Arena Football League
Allan Price has been traveling as a producer/videographer/photographer/editor/content producer (whew) with the China Arena Football League for the past few weeks, going non-stop as the league moves its “show” from city to city in China. The weeks and weeks of sleepless nights and never-ending packing and unpacking coupled with non-stop shooting and producing film seems to have caught up with him, if just briefly. He checks in after checking out of a hospital but getting ready to hit the road again.
It seems the past has caught up with me – realising the magnitude of the effort applied over the last 2 months of my life – as I awaken attached to a drip in a hospital somewhere in town….
Before then, I did enjoy some time in the first port of the southern half of the tour – Guangzhou – admiring the palm trees on the bus trip in from the airport, and enjoying the balmy warm humid air riding on the front bow of Typhoon Haima as it passed perilously close to us – the warm air reminding me of home (in Shanghai) and reminding us all that the heat is firmly on for all in the race to the championship; a race lead by the Beijing Lions, and a crucial week for the latest host as the Guangzhou Power needed to rally their season to have a chance to be fighting for the championship in 2 weeks’ time.
As is traditional for our media team, we spent our first couple of days consolidating everything from the last weekend which also included some major fallout worldwide in coverage of the league’s videos – notably for our open policy on touchdown celebrations. At a time when other leagues are facing criticism for stringent restrictions, the eyes of the world discovered the entertainment found on the fields of the CAFL, and our Groove of the Week videos (inspired by the players across the league) made their way in front of the eyes of almost 36,000,000 Twitter users and into articles posted by CBS Sports, ESPN, Bleacher Report, American Football International & many other major sports channels – for many people, discovering that China is hosting such an exciting new football league.
CAFL YouTube Channel
The first days in Guangzhou were also time for us to prepare and execute our weekly Super Challenge series – and in tune with our new-found dance fame, it was only appropriate to incorporate that into our challenges:
Guangzhou vs. Shenzhen
Shanghai vs. Qingdao
Beijing vs. Dalian
As for the real games, held at the Guangzhou Gymnasium indoor arena, I enjoyed a new seat for them – behind the computer screen back at the hotel, watching strictly in recovery mode.
Game Highlights:
Beijing vs. Dalian
Qingdao vs. Shanghai
Guangzhou vs. Shenzhen
As the rest of the media team continues their stellar effort in bringing coverage of the league to the world, I will be on the sidelines, awaiting a return during championship week as the convoy arrives in Shanghai – after they spend a week in Shenzhen first for the Naja’s homecoming tour. By then, we will have our championship games confirmed and it will be the pinnacle of our season’s work for the world to see, live from the Oriental Sports Centre in both English & Mandarin.
In the meantime, my focus shifts from video content management to taking care of myself and a new member of my house, a welcome recovery assistant:
