What happens when you put Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade in a Chinese restaurant and then throw in Yao and some gigantic shrimp. Comedy of course! Here are all four in a new ad for T-Mobile....

The napkin part had me rolling. Good times!

So what did you miss while going to bed early last night? Just a ridiculous finish in the Portland-Houston game that included a three-point play by Yao to put the Rockets up one followed by a ridiculous Brandon Roy three to win it with .08 left on the clock. And that was just in overtime. Let's go to the videotape!

YES! God you gotta love Marv Albert, even though he was about 20 seconds slow on the Yao Ming foul call. I can't emphasize enough how fun the Blazers are to watch. I know I'm about the 100,000th person on the bandwagon, but I'm officially on checked in.

Brandon Roy Will Not Be Denied (Fanhouse)

Pats versus Colts - Largest audience during the game 33.8 million
Super Bowl XLI- Largest audience during the game 93 million

Add those two audiences together, mix in every Friday Night ESPN game EVER televised, and you might come close to tonight's international behemoth of a game. That's right folks.....

It's Yi versus Yao I!!!

I know you're laughing right now, but seriously check out these statistics surrounding the to Chinese Superstars' first meeting.

- The game will be telecast on a total of 19 networks around the world
- The game will also be simulcast on 2 internet outlets in China
- The channel CCTV-5 in China is available in 210 million households

Via the Houston Chronicle......

Yao's first game against Shaquille O'Neal in 2002 drew an estimated audience of 220 million and the largest cable television ratings in the United States for a regular-season game since the 1995 comeback of Magic Johnson.

"I heard there were close to 200 million people that watched," Yao said. "But come on, in our country, we have (1.3) billion. That's still a small part of it." Yi's first televised NBA game drew an audience estimated at 100 million, but it went up against a Rockets game that was available on other regional cable networks.

So here's the question I have for you.....David Stern is obviously succeeding in his dream to globalize the Sport of Basketball, but do us as Americans (most of you readers are) even care about this game at all? One of, if not the, most watched sporting events ever will go unwatched by probably 99% of the United States. How crazy is that?

250 million other people will be watching this game, but not you.....because no outlet in America will be covering it.

UPDATE: Via Hardwood Paroxysm comes the news that ESPN isn't even carrying this game. I could have sworn they were, but I guess that answers my question. America doesn't care.

Yikes! Yao vs. Yi is huge (Houston Chronicle)

For some reason (unbeknownst to anyone at Disney/ESPN, or anyone in America for that matter) ESPN has been removed from programming in the oh so wonderful country of China. So what does that mean for those in Singapore.....well no more Yao Ming for starters.

ESPN and Star Sports have gone off the air in China after the authorities refused to renew their permits last week.

They were the only channels among a group of foreign nets not to be reupped by China's State Administration for Radio, Film and Television. No reason was given for the refusal.

Channels are operated out of Singapore by ESPN Star Sports, a joint venture between News Corp. and Disney, and were already restricted to broadcasting to hotels with three-star or higher ratings and to compounds for foreign nationals.

The logical explanation according to Variety is the lack of Soccer Programming on the network. A group of local channels apparently show Engligh Premier League games. It's all very govermental and confusing, but bottom line to my friends in China.....No Berman for you!

China Yanks ESPN (Variety.com)