In Beijing in the mid-1980s, you needed a permit just to enter the building of China Central Television. Visitors had to queue outside. One day, a CCTV functionary was sent out to find a visiting American. The official approached the queue and shouted: “Comrade David Stern!” And Stern, commissioner of the US’s mighty National Basketball Association, shuffled forward. He had come to give the NBA’s All-Star Game to CCTV for nothing, simply to promote basketball in China.

Stern, still the NBA’s commissioner today, was possibly the first missionary in the new Anglo-American struggle to colonise the world of sport. British soccer and American basketball lead the competition, but other sports are hopeful, too. American football’s Super Bowl has so far barely been watched outside north America, but tomorrow’s game in Glendale, Arizona, will be shown live on the BBC. This is a struggle between two very different types of empire: the British (which, contrary to popular opinion, still exists) and the American (which, contrary to popular opinion, may not exist). Emerging from the struggle is a new breed of sports fan.