The T1 League’s Taoyuan Leopards sold out 60,000 tickets to its four home games this month and next month within 10 minutes after they became available on the KKTIX Web site on Thursday, following the franchise’s announcement that former NBA superstar Dwight Howard would play for them this season.
The “Dwight Howard effect” has led the franchise to issue tickets for special courtside seats for fans who want to see the eight-time NBA All Star up close, with details to be announced at a news conference today, the Leopards said on Facebook.
Howard, nicknamed “Superman,” landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at about 10:30pm on Thursday.
Photo: CNA
He is to attend the news conference prior to a team workout.
He signed autographs for fans before posing for photographs with representatives from the Taoyuan Leopards at the airport.
“I appreciate each & every one of the people that genuinely want to see me win,” Howard wrote on Instagram before boarding his flight to Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
“My goal is to put smiles on faces all across the world & spread positivity, so being able to play the sport I love while accomplishing that goal is a blessing. Taiwan superman is on the way,” he added.
Howard would wear his signature No. 12 shirt for the Leopards this season, Taoyuan Leopards general manager Bret Su told reporters on Tuesday.
Howard is planning to play in the Leopards’ opening game of the season on Saturday next week against the New Taipei CTBC DEA at the National Taiwan Sport University Arena, the Leopards’ home court.
“He wants to play. He wants to bring something very different to Taiwan’s basketball scene,” Su said on Tuesday, adding that Howard had agreed to play for the whole season.
Asked whether Howard’s arrival would create something similar to the “Manny craze” in Taiwan in 2013 — referring to the whirlwind stint in the CPBL by the then-41-year-old former MLB slugger Manny Ramirez — Su said: “I definitely believe Howard would have a bigger effect than him [Ramirez].”
While Su refused to specify Howard’s salary, he said that the franchise has ensured that he felt “quite satisfied” with the amount, which would be more than US$200,000 per month.
Ticket prices for games would not be increased despite Howard’s addition, as a way to thank fans for their support, he said.
In a prerecorded video released in tandem with the Leopards’ announcement on Tuesday, Howard shouted out to Taiwan “with open arms, big hug and big smiles,” saying he “can’t wait to touch down in Taiwan and start playing for the Taoyuan City Leopards.”
Howard, who has visited Taiwan four times, is the biggest signing in Taiwan’s professional basketball history.
Standing 2.08m and weighing, 120kg, Howard has had an illustrious career in the NBA.
Su said that Howard’s addition could “turn the Leopards into Taiwan’s strongest team and boost the overall level of play in the league.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier