The format of our popular sports variety program, “Beat the Champions” was successfully exported to China and the Chinese version of the program started broadcasting nationwide on Zhejiang Satellite TV on Sunday, April 3, 2016. The title of the program is “来吧！冠军(Come on! Champions).” It will be aired regularly at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday and 12 episodes will be aired in total.

“Beat the Champions” is a sports variety in which the members of a comedian duo, TUNNELS challenge top professional athletes of various sports following its own unique rules. Many world famous professional players including Kei Nishikori, James Rodriguez and Tiger Woods have appeared in the program. And since its start in 2000, it has become very popular among a wide range of generations as big New Year and summer specials.

In the Chinese version, a young actor, Jia Nailiang (贾乃亮) and a Taiwanese actress, Ella Chen (陳嘉樺) who is also a member of a popular girls unit and a MC of TV programs will team up with other celebrities and challenge top athletes in various sports games. Based on the games which are used in the Japanese program, new ideas are developed to create innovative games in the Chinese version. Billiard, boxing and volleyball are new additions which haven’t been adopted in the Japanese version. In the Chinese version they will take up different sporting event every week and the program will be aired regularly. In its first broadcast on April 3, they competed in volleyball games and members of the Chinese national team of women’s volleyball who won the Asian Volleyball Championship in 2015 joined the program with their coach, Jenny Lang Ping. They enjoyed volleyball games in various forms against the celebrity team.

TV Asahi is actively promoting the sales of the program format of “Beat the Champions.” China is the second nation to air its overseas version following the USA where it was broadcasted last year.