Turning a Love of Sports Into a Broadcasting Career

Turning a Love of Sports Into a Broadcasting Career PAYTON FU '14

It’s almost 1:00 a.m. on a Monday in China, and Payton Fu ’14 downs a coffee and adjusts his tie. Fu is in a Beijing television studio about to go on camera to call back-to-back National Football League (NFL) games as a play-by-play sports television announcer for NFL China and Tencent, the Chinese media/ tech company.

It’s a tough gig because of the hour — but it’s also a dream come true for Fu, a diehard sports fan, who participated in basketball, cross-country, track and lacrosse at Masters. He also helped run the Football Club on campus, which meant organizing flag/touch football games and Super Bowl watch parties. “I was known as the guy who would stay in and watch games, while others would go to the city,” he said. “I even missed prom because of this, so safe to say I was hardcore.”

His allegiance to athletics continued at the University of Richmond, where he majored in film and played on both the intramural and club basketball teams. As an intramural captain whose team went to the playoffs three years in a row, he fondly remembers one game-winner: “One guy tried to foul me, but the ref didn’t blow the whistle. I drove down to the baseline, did a pump fake to get a defender out of position and knocked down the shot. One of the best feelings I’ve had on court.”

Off the court, he pursued his passion for music at WDCE, the college radio station, where he worked as a DJ playing extreme metal and punk music and interviewing bands. “It was fun to be on air and play music I liked,” he shared.

For the kid who wanted to be called Payton in middle school because of his admiration for former professional basketball star Gary Payton, working behind a mic in college gave him his first taste of what was to come.

LEFT: Fu, right, has taken his passion for sports to the small screen as a sports television announcer.

BELOW: On Chinese New Year's Eve, Fu, right, was on camera calling the NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams. After college, Fu returned home to China to seize an opportunity to volunteer for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. “That kick-started my sports career in general,” he explained. “I didn't know the organization and business part behind sporting events. I just had a lot of energy and passion, and wanted to contribute to the greatest international basketball competition outside the Olympics.”

The experience proved to be a major career turning point for Fu: “Even as a volunteer, I did a lot of work above and beyond my status, which helped me learn tremendously behind the scenes, and see how the whole spectacle worked.”

Though the pandemic shut everything down in 2020, Fu’s diligence and perseverance paid off. When Tencent was looking to hire more announcers for both football and basketball, Fu put together some practice material and landed an audition. He did enough to impress the director, and the rest, as they say, is history. “I have now called two seasons’ worth of games,” Fu said. That coverage includes AFC (American Football Conference) and NFC (National Football Conference) Championship games and he was an on-camera strategic analyst for the Super Bowl. The NFC Championship game when the San Francisco 49ers faced the Los Angeles Rams was memorable. “The game was on Chinese New Year’s Eve and we had to wear traditional Chinese jackets, or tangzhuang, on camera,” Fu recalled. As a big 49ers fan, he said, “Calling my favorite team’s game on New Year’s Eve, that was special for me.”

Beyond adjusting to time zone differences, the job involves prep work and research throughout the week leading up to game day. During some games, he was required to stay in the studio to do even more: pre-game talk, a halftime report, between-quarter analysis and a post-game summary. “I’d spend four to six hours doing the research the day before sometimes just to enhance my knowledge,” he explained. “I’d also write my own game reviews and sync them on multiple platforms, so that takes time as well.”

Around 8:00 a.m. when he’s done with his on-air work, he heads to his other job as content operator at ECO Sports, a Chinese sports media platform. “It’s not easy to make the schedule work, but again if you love what you do, you find a way,” he said.

Someone who has cheered him from afar and witnessed his journey in real time is Fu's former teacher, John Chiodo, Masters’ director of innovation, engineering and computer science, whom Fu calls “a father figure.” “Payton has always been passionate about sports; in fact, on his first day on Masters’ campus, I remember we spent much of the day talking about basketball.”

As Fu tackles his future in sports broadcasting, his family has been nothing but supportive and are, he said, “making an effort to learn more about the sports industry and American football.” He calls his four years at Masters “some of the happiest of my life”: from great English and history Harkness discussions to the close-knit JV boys basketball team with its 14-8 record his junior year and the Great Gig salute to Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

Fu has even been known to sport his purple Masters tie on the air. “Do it with thy might, and I wear it with pride,” he said. “For a long time, my passion in sports was compartmentalized, and I wasn't really driven to do something with it. The transition happened when I understood that passion goes beyond personal enjoyment, and I feel very grateful and lucky that I get to do something I love.”