SHANGHAI - Fans of the National Football League (NFL) are now able to watch the game live online thanks to a partnership between the league and PPTV, one of the largest streaming websites in China.

In a bid to promote the games in China, the NFL and PPTV are offering free access to two games each week, as well as all the playoffs and the Super Bowl.

Chinese web users can now watch live broadcasts of games on Monday and Tuesday mornings (Beijing time). PPTV has also put in place at least three commentators, including retired Chinese professional soccer player Xie Hui, former CCTV anchor Huang Jianxiang and former Hisports anchor Zhou Liang, for the broadcasts.

"We have made a big investment to offer the Chinese audience the free viewing of the games, along with the NFL," Vincent Tao, CEO of PPLive Co, said at Monday's ceremony to launch the initiative.

The broadcast will be in high resolution to offer viewers a greater visual experience, and a 3D broadcast is in the pipeline, he said.

"Our agreement will become a milestone (for the game's development in China) this year and for the future," Zhou said.

The NFL has been cultivating an American football culture in the country since 2007. Other leagues, including the National Hockey League (NHL) and Australian Football League (AFL), have also made forays into the Chinese market.

But the major hurdles facing the NFL's growth in China, as its China managing director Richard H. Young identified, are that the game is not an event at the Olympics and it takes place on Monday and Tuesday mornings in China, when most people are not watching TV.

"The first one is hard to solve but we are working on elements of it," Young said at Monday's ceremony. But on the second one, he said, the cooperation with PPTV serves as a way to solve the time shift as on Monday and Tuesday mornings people still have access to computers, tablets and smart phones platforms to watch the games online.

"It's my true belief that it is not a cultural difference as to why the NFL is so popular in the US and not, at this stage, as popular in China," Young said. "I believe it's a matter of tradition, clearly of history and sport, but we believe very strongly in the product and in the NFL.

"Everybody knows that relationships work when each side complements the other," he said. "So we have the content, and PPTV is a wonderfully-led, technology-driven company. When you marry those two things together, you can get wonderful results."

Dale Largent, cultural affairs officer at the US Embassy in China, said the NFL - the most popular sport in the United States - will help Chinese people better understand American culture.

"As the United States and China become more and more integrated now and in the next few decades, it's important that we understand each other better," he said. "NFL football is one good way to understand some good lessons about the United States."

Also, the live broadcast of the event will not only benefit Americans living in China but also Chinese fans - especially students returning from US universities, who have adopted the habit of watching the games, Largent said.

According to the American Institute of Advanced Education (IAE) , there were over 150,000 Chinese students in American universities last year.

"All of them, or maybe most of them, will be back to China in a few years," Largent said. "They will be fans of the NFL and increase the audience in the country."

China Daily