ANDREW SPALTER – CEO OF EAST GOES GLOBAL – EPISODE 1216

Website – https://www.eastgoesglobal.com/

Email – andrew@eastgoesglobal.com

Instagram – @eastgoesglobal

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Andrew Spalter is the Founder and CEO of East Goes Global, an international operating partner that helps the world’s leading teams, talent, and brands expand, operate, and monetize across global markets.

East Goes Global serves as the international operating partner for over 20% of the NBA, supporting teams including the Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, and New Orleans Pelicans, as well as a roster of elite NBA talent spanning multiple eras of the league from legends like Dwyane Wade and Tracy McGrady to today’s international superstars, including Kevin Durant, Luka Dončić, Cooper Flagg, Devin Booker, Jalen Brunson, and many others.

On this episode Mike & Andrew discuss how NBA players, such as Cooper Flagg and Dwyane Wade, can effectively penetrate diverse international markets and the critical importance of cultural relevance in the global marketing of sports talent. Just being a prominent figure in the NBA is insufficient; a deeper understanding and connection to local cultures and languages significantly enhance an athlete’s marketability. We also explore the operational dynamics of East Goes Global, which serves as a vital link between NBA teams and international markets, facilitating partnerships and marketing strategies that resonate with local audiences. Spalter emphasizes the necessity of adaptability and cultural insight in the pursuit of global brand expansion within the competitive landscape of professional sports.

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Grab pen and paper as you listen to this episode with Andrew Spalter, CEO of East Goes Global.

What We Discuss with Andrew Spalter

• The importance of cultural relevance for athletes seeking opportunities in international markets
• Establishing East Goes Global, focusing on international marketing for NBA teams and athletes
• The complexities of navigating different social media platforms in various countries
• Building strong relationships between brands and athletes are crucial for successful marketing campaigns
• The significant role East Goes Global plays in international marketing and partnerships for NBA teams and athletes
• The challenges of navigating different regulatory environments when promoting brands across global markets
• The strategies employed by East Goes Global to enhance the visibility of NBA players in diverse cultural settings
• The necessity for NBA teams to engage in local marketing strategies to capitalize on international growth opportunities
• The evolving landscape of sports marketing, particularly in relation to the increasing globalization of the NBA
• Brands often prioritize bilingual athletes for endorsement deals over even the most famous stars

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THANKS, ANDREW SPALTER

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TRANSCRIPT FOR ANDREW SPALTER – CEO OF EAST GOES GLOBAL – EPISODE 1216

[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

[00:00:20] Andrew Spalter: Let’s say you’re Cooper Flagg, you’re crushing it in the league, everything’s working for you.

And you’re trying to work in Spanish speaking markets, a brand’s not necessarily going to look at you just because you’re Cooper Flagg. They’re going to go to the guy who might be bilingual in the BA, who speaks Spanish, who comes down here working with local Spanish speaking celebrities, loves that type of music, so on and so forth far before they go to even a LeBron, right?

So our goal and our mission is to make and help these people become culturally relevant. At top of the food chain,

[00:01:01] Mike Klinzing: Andrew Spalter is the founder and CEO of East Coast Global, an international operating partner that helps the world’s leading teams talent and brands expand, operate, and monetize across global markets.

East Coast Global serves as the international operating partner for over 20% of the NBA. Supporting teams, including the Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings, and New Orleans Pelicans, as well as a roster of elite NBA talent spanning multiple eras of the league from legends like Dwayne Wade and Tracy McGrady to today’s international superstars, including Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, Cooper Flagg, Devin Booker, Jalen Brunson, and many others.

Coaches, you’ve got a game plan for your team, but do you have one for your money? That’s where Wealth4Coaches comes in. Each week, we’ll deliver simple, no fluff financial tips made just for coaches. Whether you’re getting paid for camps, training sessions, or a full season, Wealth4Coaches helps you track it, save it, and grow it.

It’s time to stop guessing and start building. Subscribe now at Wealth4Coaches dot beehive. Dot com slash subscribe and follow us on Twitter at Wealth4Coaches for daily money wins. Your money needs a coach. Start with Wealth4Coaches.

[00:02:24] Bob Quillman: Hi, this is Bob Cullman, host of the Q Cast, and you’re listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

[00:02:32] Mike Klinzing: Are you or an athlete  planning to go D3? Check out the D3 recruiting playbook from D3 direct. Their playbook gives you a clear step-by-step roadmap to the recruiting process. What coaches value key milestones from early high school through application season?

And how to build a targeted list of schools that fit your needs. The playbook demystifies, researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase the modules. Cover things like writing emails to coaches. Building an effective highlight tape using social media, well planning camps and visits and navigating application strategy.

You’ll get templates, checklists, and an outreach plan to communicate confidently. Learn how to compare financial packages and avoid common missteps. By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best fit opportunity. Click on the link in the show notes to get your D3 recruiting playbook from D3 direct.

Grab pen and paper as you listen to this episode with Andrew Balter, CEO of East Goes Global.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my cohost Jason Sunkle this morning. But I am pleased to be joined by Andrew Spalter, CEO of East Goes Global. Andrew, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:03:52] Andrew Spalter: Thank you for having me, Mike. Really appreciate it.

[00:03:55] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely thrilled to have you on. Looking forward to learning more about you and your business. So let’s start with the business side of it. Just give people an overview. Maybe you aren’t familiar with East Coast Global. What are you guys all about?

What do you do?

[00:04:07] Andrew Spalter: I’d be, first of all, I’d be surprised if a lot of people are familiar with us. We are a small but very, very mighty team. We lead international marketing and partnerships across sports, entertainment, and brands. Obviously Mike, I’m chatting with you, so this is Sports Focus.

I’ll keep it really inclined with that and where your listeners want to hear from. But just to give everyone a high level, we represent about seven OUTTA 30 BA teams internationally, both across marketing and partnerships. We also represent, I would say, close to 20 BA athletes again on marketing and partnerships.

So we’re running international channels for them. We’re running international marketing campaigns for them, and we’re also leveraging and bringing them branded opportunities, partnership ambassadorship, sponsorship, et cetera, from international markets.

[00:04:57] Mike Klinzing: Perfect. Well said. Gives us a high level overview of what you’re doing.

Thanks, and we’re going to dive into the details of what all that means in just a second. But before we do that, take me back in your life and walk me through the steps of how you got to where you are. What was the genesis of East Coast Global? Yeah. How did you get this thing started? Just take me through your background.

[00:05:19] Andrew Spalter: Yeah, so I be a big music guy. I was always involved in the music industry, even in college and going to Syracuse University. I was in an entertainment management program there. And it, it that world just always fascinated me that there was a business behind the music industry. Just as today and being so heavily ingrained in sports, I’m fascinated that there’s a business behind what you watch on tv.

So, kind of similar ball game, obviously different at the core. But long story short, I was in music management for a few years. I was working with an artist named Jesse J. She was randomly on a TV show in China in 20 17, 20 18. And what we thought was just going to be a quick run in the mill.

We’re going to get out there, shoot the show, she’s going to perform, compete against a handful of competitors in in vocal talent ranges. Really turned into four and a half month stint in the middle, middle of China in a city called Changsha, which has about 8 million people. So the size of Manhattan. No one’s ever not many people outside of China have heard of it.

And I could not believe that when I was there, I’d call the record label. I would speak to agency’s, C-A-A-U-T-A endeavor, et cetera and really get to this point where I was like, guys who can help us? Like we’re here, we’re an international performer. On this TV show who can help us with marketing on local channels because in China you don’t have access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even TikTok, which is Chinese own two totally different platforms between China and the us.

And then also leverage this growth on and being on TV towards branded and paid opportunities. And at the time, and still to this day, there virtually is no one. That does what we do at the scale that we do it on and truly, and what started in China now are global markets across the world. But that entertainment, that kind of light bulb moment that Genesis was, no one’s really doing this.

No one really understands the western way of doing business as well when you’re just working with China. And there were very few teams like us who are based in the US being able to do sales and landing these clients and then take them out into market.

[00:07:26] Mike Klinzing: That learning curve look like Once you realized, hey, there’s a market opportunity here, how long does it take you then to go from boom, that light bulb moment to, okay, we have to put together a strategy Oh man.

For how to take advantage of that?

[00:07:40] Andrew Spalter: Yeah. I remember in 2018, in like March I was, or April, early April, I was flying back to the states, drawing up a, a business plan, obviously before chat, GPT and  things like that. And actually putting my thoughts to paper. And really hit the ground running.

Built a super terrible Wix website. You myself, a deck myself. Did all the things and, but what was unique was after the success of this program and when I sent this blast out, at the time I was thinking small. I was thinking, let’s just do music in China. That’s it. And I wasn’t thinking about entertainment agnostically or anything like that.

Really overnight when I sent an email blast out to a few hundred people, a lot of people responded and went, Hey guys, we want to work this market. We saw the success. This is opportunistic for us. We’re seeing streaming revenue come in the world of sports taking off over there. So it was really quick to our first three to five clients and then from there really quick to 10, to 20 to 30 to 50, and so on and so forth.

[00:08:44] Mike Klinzing: How do you bridge the gap from entertainment? To sports. So to get to the NBA and representing teams. Yeah. That eventually rep representing players. What’s the leap across the bridge for that?

[00:08:57] Andrew Spalter: I think  a lot in business and in life comes with luck right timing, right place. And you prepped enough to be at that right time and right place to be able to take it on and say yes to something.

Our story was super similar. Four years in, we were super close to someone at the Philadelphia 76ers in a, in a decision making role over there when it comes to social and digital and international. He, he calls me one day and he goes, Andrew, you’re never going to believe this. Our guy who’s running our Chinese channels came into the office today, said he’s moving back to China tomorrow and can no longer do this.

We don’t, we’re not, we don’t have time for RFPs. We need someone to jump in in 24 hours. Is this something you want to do? Right time, right place. I had someone on my team who used to, who’s from Shanghai, used to work with NBA, China and Tencent Sports on the basketball side, one of the biggest basketball fans you’ll ever meet.

He started as a project manager in music and entertainment with my team, and today he’s the director of our entire NBA division. So he’s been with us for almost five years, but that was the catalyst and the genesis to the world of MBA. One team led to another, led to five more led to Allstar campaigns, really successful Allstar campaigns.

And then that’s when I think a lot of teams said, holy cow, we this could really help us and our clients. And then when you have the team side of things, it’s a lot easier to go to individual players and go, we’re already working with team. We should be working with you. Because by far out of all the players on the team, you’re the most loved in this market.

This.

[00:10:28] Mike Klinzing: So when you work for a team and you’re creating campaigns, give me an example of something that you do for the Sixers or one of your other teams and where you do it. On which channels, because I know that from looking at the research of what you guys do, that a lot of the social media platforms that we have here in America are not available in China and clearly the NBA as a league.

Yeah. Teams, players, the number of people in China, the potential market that is there for them to be able to utilize, to sell product or do whatever. Right. Just walk me through again, what you’re actually doing. What does a campaign look like for a team or for a player?

[00:11:07] Andrew Spalter: Cool. Yeah, great question. So for with every one of our clients, it’s different and just like you said, like.

This team wants China. This team wants latam, Spanish, just Spanish speaking markets. This team wants Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets. This team’s going to play a game in the Middle East, so they want to activate the Middle East market so everyone looks a bit different. Some markets like China in particular.

You don’t have without a VPN, you’re not getting access as a Chinese consumer to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, Google, Spotify TikTok, so on and so forth. So we run the equivalent types of platforms in market. WeChat way about Doan, redly, Ky Netea, qq, I mean, the list goes on. We run about, I think it’s like today we’re running 700 international channels on a global scale.

And what it looks like is what you’d imagine comes with social media management, marketing and overall offline and online campaigns. Everything from ad spend to giveaways to q and as to fan events, to even we work with the Phoenix Suns, we love them as a partner. Have worked with them for a few season now.

We were in Macau in China with them. What, just recently at the chin, at the China NBA games, right? Or the NBA Macau games. And so we’re really from, some of our teams were just posting on socials, right? Some of our teams were running the Spanish speaking Instagram account for them and so on and so forth.

Others, we are full blown in their arena, in their venues, shooting content with their players doing collaborations, brand collaborations. It really just depends. That’s why it’s like.  when I started this I was like, we’re agnostic across end-to-end marketing solutions, partnerships, but really the hat that we wear is the international operator for a team, a player, an athlete, et cetera.

That’s how we’re looked at

[00:13:01] Mike Klinzing: how do you deal with the potential regulatory issues in different foreign countries. So obviously every country has different parameters, different things that you’re allowed, not allowed to do. How do you deal with that?

[00:13:16] Andrew Spalter: Again, like different with every client, every type of sport, right?

So here’s a great example on within the NBA. You’re running a team channel. You can’t share an in-game video highlights on the channels that you’re managing for them during a game or after a game. It’s just it. It’s something that they have written in stone. You can’t do it. Distribution on different platforms, and one platform has the rights to that.

Because that obviously creates the most buzz and awareness, whereas the NFL just a handful of years ago, teams were awarded international marketing rights. So nor the New Orleans Saints can only actually really work in France. The l the Rams can only work in China and Japan and South Korea and so on and so forth.

These bid for those rights make case.

Leagues every league’s different, every team’s a bit different. And it’s never like a one size fits all, but we have to be agile, proactive, progressive, and understand where, and where we can and where we can’t, like implement ourselves. And it really helps. Look, I’m just one guy behind a team of 30 people on East Coast global.

And all of our people on our team are NA native and local too. This one grew up in Shanghai, but now lives in Los Angeles. This one grew up in Puerto Rico, but now lives in New Jersey. This one grew up here and so on and so forth. South Korea and lives in Toronto and Tokyo, and lives in la Right. So it everyone’s different, but we need to, I mean, that’s a huge proponent is we need to understand the nuances both culturally and on paper.

[00:14:56] Mike Klinzing: Tell me about building that team. Of talent. You have to get people that have not only the ability to work and communicate, so you have to be, I’m assuming, bilingual and have an understanding of the country where you’re from. The country Absolutely. Your thing. So, so tell me, how do you build that team? What does that recruiting process look like for you to be able to get those people in place?

[00:15:17] Andrew Spalter: Yeah, so I I was lucky the first, the first person that I ever hired was an graduate student at USC coming here for internationally from China. We, again, we only work China for the first amount of years. The second hire her best friend, the third hire her other friend, the fourth hire her other friend.

It’s so, so poor. It really helps when you’re working, living in la  and present people an opportunity.

But then over the years, it gets a lot granular, right? How do you find who runs the leading Twitter or X Channel for this team and that language? Who’s a super fan, who would be great to have in the organization and things like that who have worked with other companies internationally, but have never had this, this kind of like grand stage working with a US team.

[00:16:07] Mike Klinzing: How do you keep on top of the latest. Social media trends, what’s hot, what’s happening? How do you work the algorithms, what’s the process for that? Do you have somebody that specifically is looking at that for, is it the person who’s sort of your liaison for each country, or how does that process work?

[00:16:25] Andrew Spalter: It it’s, it’s like I was saying earlier, hiring way, smarter way more native people that are on these social platforms every day.

Because to me It’s been years since I’ve had apps from other countries on my phone. For the sole reason that I was bogging my team down, I’d be in my own algorithm not thinking to myself, I’m a westerner who’s using this platform. My algorithms could be all over the place and versus a local team member native in that market using their phones, their algorithm, their community it’s like there’s not a ton, I would argue if you’re native to China or South Korea or this, that, the OR, or China In specific China specifically.

Chances are you’re not, you and your friends are not all on Instagram, just matter of fact. Right. So for me to use a an Eastern platform, you have to have people that are from that market actively using on a day-to-day basis who get the top trends in that space.

[00:17:24] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. All right. Let me ask you a little bit about your work with specific.

Players. So when you have a player that you approach or that approaches you to, to get involved in this, when you sit down with them and meet with them and their team, their agent, whoever it is that is kind of figuring out what you guys want to do, what do those conversations sound like? What are players looking for from your company?

Yeah. What are they, what are they hoping to accomplish?

[00:17:50] Andrew Spalter: Yeah. A number of different things. Some people, they just, they just want their reach on socials domestically to reach their international bands, right? So that, and that’s easy. That’s, hey, we’re theses into campaigns, request exclusive content, so on, and things are locally driven and, be seen, like really be put in a good light and put you in a good light. Others are, Hey, we do want that, but we also want it to lead to something. Why am I paying to grow into this market if I’m not seeing any of revenue or dollars coming in? And so it, but that’s, our business is built around marketing and partnerships and we’re really firm believers that they go hand in hand after all in a country, any other international country.

And you are. Let’s say you’re Cooper flag, right? And let’s say you’re coop and you’re, and  you’re crushing it in the league. You have everything working for you, like so on and so forth. You’re globally recognized if you’re coop and you’re trying to work. Latin in Spanish speaking markets, a brand’s not necessarily going to look at you just because you’re Cooper Flag.

They’re going to go to the guy who might be bilingual in the BA, who speaks Spanish, who comes down here, who has family in markets, so on. And so like all of these things working with local Spanish speaking celebrities, loves that type of music, so on and so forth far before they go to even, even a LeBron, right?

So. That our goal and our mission is to make and help these people, people become culturally relevant to be able to be looked at, at at, at top of the food chain.

[00:19:33] Mike Klinzing: So once they become culturally relevant, then that’s where you can go in and start to sell shoes or sell, get endorsement deals, that kind of thing.

Is that what we’re talking about here?

[00:19:44] Andrew Spalter: Yeah. You nailed it. So you look at someone like Dwayne Wade, who’s been an amazing client of ours for the past couple years and hit. He is known to have a huge shoe deal with Lean right brokered, however many years ago, selling so many shoes every year. And really a fa  one of the big faces of the brand globally.

Lean Ning has a huge presence across Asia. So how do we tap in, shoot content with him locally post more about his shoes, post more about his brand, his clothing with the company, so on and so forth. And really make him stand out amongst the rest and showing that he’s the guy who’s willing to promote products that he believes in.

Yeah,

[00:20:21] Mike Klinzing: that makes sense. I mean, I think when you start looking at the ability to go cross-culturally, right, it has to be something that the player is invested in, correct.

[00:20:30] Andrew Spalter: A hundred percent. because we can’t sell smoke, right? So like, if you’re a player and you want to work the Middle East, but you’ve never gone there, right?

You never, you, you don’t know what’s going on there. You’re not in partnership with any businesses there. You have no money coming in from that market. That’s a ground up build. And that’s going to be a lot more difficult then if you were going there and had business entities in market and had partners in the space and invested in companies in the space and so on and so forth.

[00:20:57] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. So what’s, what do you see as being the biggest challenge in working with a particular player or working with NBA players in terms of penetrating some of these foreign markets? To be able to get them, yeah. To reach the goals that they’re looking for.

[00:21:13] Andrew Spalter: I think that’s always like a conversation that we’re having with ourselves.

But I think it really boils down to. The, the dichotomy between the league, the teams, and the players, right? So the NBA course they’re so fixated in, in crushing it in international growth from the league level. But no one’s telling the teams, Hey guys, we’re working these international markets.

You should, you should probably get local channels up and running. You should probably do these local marketing campaigns. It’s really then shifts onto the team and someone on the team to go. Okay, we have a game coming up in the Middle East, like, how are we going to do this? And there’s no, there’s no playbook, there’s no, this is how you’re going to do it.

This is how you’re going to succeed. And then the team has to go, okay, we’re trying to work the market, but what do you fans love? They love players from the team. Sure. They might have their team that they’re the the super fan of and so on and so forth, but what’s the catalyst that it’s going to be the players?

So, so I think at the core, and you see this across different leagues, not just the NBA. It’s, it’s this dichotomy between we’re the league, we’re super excited about international growth. We’re the team, how do we, how do we fit into that international growth? And then from the player side, well, I’m just going to take a flight there, play a game and call it a day.

And so we’re, we’re trying to, that’s I think the hardest thing is to fit ourselves into position where we’re between the players and teams and also between the teams and the league. And that’s where I think we’re able to work agnostically across teams and do that great work, but also with players directly and do that great work too, to those who understand that and see those differences.

[00:22:55] Mike Klinzing: It makes sense. I can see. The value for the league, right? In spreading their reach, right? Internationally, big, bigger market, potential TV deals, all social media, all the things that go along with the league being able to market itself outside of the us. I completely see that. I completely see it from the player standpoint too, right?

If you can penetrate and get into a foreign market and then you have some type of endorsement deal or partnership, there’s obviously revenue and benefit there. The team is the one that I guess I see. I have a harder time picturing what the benefit is necessarily to a team. Obviously if you have more fans, maybe they’re buying more merchandise and that kicks back to your franchise.

Sure. But you’re not necessarily trying to sell tickets, like when you’re marketing to your team in your hometown and you’re trying to sell out, that kind of thing. Right. So gimme a little bit better idea of, from, from a team perspective, what are the teams trying to gain from what you guys are doing for them in terms of the, the marketing piece.

You

[00:23:52] Andrew Spalter: know, Mike, I think that’s like, that’s a really great question and point to make, and I think a lot of people don’t like they, for, they, they forget, like I would say like the general population, general fans of the NBA forget teams are businesses at the end of the day, right? So at the end of the, when they’re coming to us, or a third party agency or non-exclusive agent or things like that, how do we make the most revenue?

How do our players put us on that stage? We’re one of the best teams of the league to then go out and get brand dollars. Do we have people in different markets who are helping us get those brand dollars? How are we bringing more revenue into the organization to then funnel that money into making better draft picks into making higher trade or giving like a higher salary cap towards our players so we can go and bring in the best talent to then make us a better team.

And  we found that over the past few years when we started to work in the, the world of soccer where. Every one of these teams, it’s really interesting. A lot of them could not care less about marketing because they know that the more money that they generate from a partnership’s perspective allows them to bring in the best of the best players, to make them the best teams, that they’re the leaders in getting the deals.

And that’s where I think. It, it really boil like blanketed statement, partnerships, partnership dollars with teams. The longer story is partnership dollars that they can get more money so that they could bring in more amazing talent so that they can be the leading team in that space.

[00:25:23] Mike Klinzing: Sense, right?

If you’re a global brand, you think about in the NBA, right? If you’re the Los Angeles Lakers compared to the Memphis Grizzlies internationally, yeah, you’re much more recognized as, as the Lakers, which allows you to bring in more revenue, as you said, and then that just continues to feed upon itself. So the more you can capture the attention of those overseas markets, the easier it is then for you to be able to generate revenue from that partnership.

That part of it definitely makes sense to me without, without question. What are you, are you hearing anything at all? I don’t know how tapped in you are to, obviously the NBA has talked about potential overseas expansion at some point. There’s been talk of, again, starting in a, a completely new European League that’s sort of under the NBA’s umbrella, right?

There’s been talk at different points about maybe putting a franchise somewhere outside of the United States, other than Canada. I don’t know how much you’re tapped into that kind of talk, but what have you heard, if anything?

[00:26:20] Andrew Spalter: I’ve heard that, I’ve definitely heard that. That’s something that’s oftentimes in discussion.

I’m a firm believer, and I say this on almost every call that I’m on, and I leave it with, you’re not going to grow another 10 million fans domestically. You’re not. It’s just matter of fact. And so when they look towards international games and international markets, it’s if.

To make it easy for them to get stateside or every team has to fly over there every once in a while or whatever. It’s, I think it’s great for the program and league to launch an entirely new version of the sport is entirely new entity. I could see why that makes sense because in other markets, like why is the big three so successful?

Right? Like, why are different leagues within the world of basketball and the sport of it so successful? On the main stage with the best players in the world, there’s only one NBA. So I think we’ll see. I definitely think in our lifetime we’re going to see a shift. I think the people demand it. Do I know exactly what it’s No, not a clue.

[00:27:30] Mike Klinzing: Every time I think about the international piece of it, right, unless you’re talking about Mexico City or, or somewhere that is relatively easy to get to in terms of flights and time zones and all that stuff. I just think about the logistics of putting, even putting an NBA team in Europe and just the travel that that team would be forced to undergo.

And then you think about just all the teams that would’ve to fly there if you’re still going with the same 41 home games, 41 away games. The challenge to me of adding an international team. From somewhere in Europe or Asia seems pretty daunting just from a travel standpoint, unless we’re going to revive the Concord and get back to Supersonic.

I was just going to

[00:28:12] Andrew Spalter: say that.

[00:28:13] Mike Klinzing: Supersonic travel or something. Right. It’s, it’s kind of crazy.

[00:28:17] Andrew Spalter: Yeah. And I and Mike like, to that point, I also think that there’s a beauty in. The realization of like the max potential of things, right? And

[00:28:29] Bob Quillman: Yep.

[00:28:30] Andrew Spalter: Like if I were, if if I were to ask you and you were sitting in this decision making chair for the NBA, do you want another 10 million fans across international markets?

Are you good with the however many fans that you have today? And just pour more into that versus like trying something new. It’s just going to be okay and it’ll never be the equivalent to what we’re seeing today. Right. I would probably err on the side of we’re great here. Let’s double down here. What can we think of that’s outside the box versus replicating what we do internationally?

[00:29:08] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that makes total sense to me. I mean, I, that’s one of the things that I’m sure you as a business owner. I think about that all the time. I know I think about it in terms of the podcast or my basketball camp business or anything that I do. Yeah. Part of it is, Hey, I’m good at this. This is working. Do I really want more?

Do I want the added time responsibility? Just challenge. That’s right there in front of me.

[00:29:34] Andrew Spalter: Right,

[00:29:34] Mike Klinzing: right. For sure. That maybe distracts me from the main thing that I’m trying to do, and I’m sure you see that all the time as a business owner, right? You see an opportunity and you have to look at it and evaluate, is this something that we want to bring into our portfolio?

Does it make sense or is it going to distract us from the main thing that we’re trying to do and continuing to grow that all the time where all the time. Yeah, I can only imagine.

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Tell me about something. When you go back and you look at the history of your business, what’s a decision? Somewhere along the way that you made, that you agonized over in the moment that ended up to be the right decision and really went in a direction that propelled you forward. So a decision that you thought, yeah, maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t, and you ended up saying, Hey, I’m going to make this decision, and then it, it worked out in your favor and really took you in a, in a great direction.

[00:31:11] Andrew Spalter: Yeah. For. The entirety, the entire length of the business to date. Every time we get on a sales call, it’s what markets do you guys work? And at the time when we were just selling China, it was, what other markets do you guys work? And I had always erred on the side of we just want to be the pros in one market.

That’s us. And then that, that mindset slowly started to reframe itself to. Well, if they’re all asking for it, something like, something’s here and I couldn’t see, I didn’t understand. I wasn’t thinking big enough. I wasn’t thinking like, well, they’re asking because they have an international budget for these select markets, not just China, China’s piece of it.

Why don’t we do more and become more ingrained within their team versus just one agency behind, like one market for them that. Reframe in my mindset, helped propel the new business to entirely new heights, entirely new rooms, entirely new conversations. And that to me has been a really exciting and fruitful thing.

[00:32:15] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. Completely makes sense, right? Yeah. That you take it and you look at it and you just, I think that there’s a tendency for all of us to it. It’s almost the opposite of what we just talked about it a minute ago, right? You kind of just see your core business. You look at it, you see it, that’s what you’re picturing, and then something that’s outside of it, maybe you don’t see the opportunity to take what you already have and scale it in a different way into a different market, or just, again, something that’s tangentially related, but maybe not exactly the same.

I think that definitely makes sense.

[00:32:46] Andrew Spalter: Yeah, and throughout the years too it’s going back to what you were saying about like getting on those tangents, the bright and shiny objects, and trying to leap after those, it’s. Really being methodical and like I said, right place, right time. And  for us, had I started with truly global markets eight years ago when I launched the business, I don’t think we’d be anywhere where we are today because we cracked the code with China, which is arguably one of the hardest markets.

And then to be able to take that go, Hey, we’re going to do this in 10 other countries, territories, et cetera, it that could not have been like. Tomorrow sort of business launch. And so yeah, so we we mastered that leaders when it comes to China sports and entertainment marketing and partnerships.

And now today with the expansion to other markets, it, it’s just, again, like I said, like we’re speaking with bigger teams, bigger leagues, bigger clients, bigger opportunities, and could not have done that had we had taken that tangent in that road eight years ago.

[00:33:48] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. It makes total, total sense, right?

Yeah. You had to ma, you had to master one thing, figure it out in that environment, and then that allowed you to take that framework and move it to other places, and that’s completely, totally,

[00:33:59] Andrew Spalter: yeah.

[00:33:59] Mike Klinzing: Completely understandable from you. On a personal level, thinking about your growth as a business person as a CEO, starting out with a small company and.

One client and you’re doing your thing and then all of a sudden you get this light bulb moment and now you’re overseeing a much bigger entity. I’m sure when you first started, you never could have imagined that, hey, I’m going to be working with X number of NBA teams and all the people in groups that you’re working with at this point.

So how have you personally, what’s something that you feel like you have grown in, improved in an area of being a business person that you have improved upon? Of the circumstance of kind of how your business grew,

[00:34:48] Andrew Spalter: I would say letting people be the best that they can be in the roles that they’re in, right?

Like I can’t, there comes a point in whether you’re two employees, 5, 10, 20, 30 like us, or even a hundred, like a ton of different companies today, or a thousand or whatever. There comes a point where you just have to let people do their thing. I let them live, give them KPIs, give them goals, what your strategy is, what’s the overall goal of the business, how can you help me get there and have them be the best leader that they could be, and kind of like let off the reins a little bit knowing that it’ll be successful.

For, just as an example, yesterday, our team to of our team members, they were with Dwayne Wade, shooting content with him. I still have never met him.  like, like my team’s been with him a ton. Like I shooting content and the other time before that it was Chris Paul, then it was Luka Don, and then Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart and all that sort of stuff.

And like, it’s so fun. I rarely meet these guys anymore and just because I’m not. It’s not my to do otherwise I’m standing there shaking their hands saying hi. I run this company. ? And then it’s like, alright, cool. Alright man. Yeah. But so I think, I think with that be like being a perfect example of this is literally happening yesterday.

It’s, it’s giving off those reins, trusting your team, executing on your vision, and now it’s shared vision alignment.

[00:36:23] Mike Klinzing: It’s so funny that you say that because Andrew, I’ve had so many conversations on this podcast with basketball coaches who is typically who we’re talking about and who a large portion of portion of our audience is, yeah, that I’ll have coaches when they’re young, that they want to manage everything.

And I think when you’re a person who has had success in your life. When you’re young, oftentimes that’s related to your ability to get things done right, and to understand and know, I have to do X, Y, and Z, and that’s why I’m successful. And so you equate your success with what you do and rightfully so. But I think what I’ve found in my conversation with coaches and.

It dovetails with exactly what you just said, which is when I’m young, I want to have my hands in every single aspect of my basketball program. I want to coach the offense. I want to coach the defense. I want to be in the locker room. I want to be doing the budget. I want to be organizing travel because I feel like I have to control it.

My name is on the record, my name’s on the program. And then I’ve had so many coaches that have 15, 20 years of experience. Inevitably get around to the fact that they’ll say to me, Mike, I became a much better coach and my program became so much better when I hired my coaches. I knew what they were capable of doing, and then I handed off the offense to them, or I handed off this aspect of the program to them and.

Yes, I guided them in how I want them to do it, but then I stepped back and allowed them to do their job. And then I have one coach on that comes on the podcast all the time. He a high school coach in Illinois. He says. He’s on this giant ship and he’s just the rudder in the back. Mm-hmm. And there’s all these people working on the ship and doing all these things.

I love that. And they all have roles and he’s just in the back just kind of steering and making sure the ship is going in the right direction. And that’s exactly what I hear you saying is that you have to trust the people that you hire to be able to do their job.

[00:38:20] Andrew Spalter: Yeah, a hundred percent. Or  because you are at the times, there’s so many euphemisms you can throw at this strength in numbers, but you are your own worst enemy.

And  the list goes on. And I think it’s a good combination of the realization of all those things kind of put together. And what makes the team,

[00:38:38] Mike Klinzing: when you talk to players and whether it’s you or whether it’s your team, do the players have an understanding of what. They want to accomplish? Or is it more they hear, Hey, I’d like to get into these markets.

Yeah, tell me what I’m trying to accomplish. In other words, does what they’re trying to do come more from them or does it come more from they approach you and then you say, Hey, here’s what you should be doing.

[00:39:08] Andrew Spalter: Yeah, it, I think it’s a bit of both, right? It’s like you can’t, in our space.

Can’t work at an ice cream shop and sell ice cream to someone who doesn’t want a cup of ice cream. Like, it’s that. It’s, it’s, it’s consumerism. It’s, it’s, if they want something, you’re, in today’s day and age, you’re going to go out and buy it. You could order it on your phone, it’s going to be on your doorstep in 10 minutes.

Like, that’s the world that we live in. And for us  how do you train a sales team to.

It really is what you were saying. It’s going after the people who do want what we provide and that that’s when it’s going to be the best because they’re looking for something that we provide, we provide it, we’re filling a gap, and that’s it. But otherwise we got we, we can’t pitch to a wall.

[00:40:05] Mike Klinzing: Makes, makes sense.

Makes sense. Yeah. Have you, have you been approached by any college athletes with. All of the NIL stuff. Is that a world that you’ve looked at, been approached by anybody in the college space or is that something that Yeah. You haven’t dipped your toe into yet?

[00:40:23] Andrew Spalter: It, it has been from the agent side of the business.

They’re all curious, Hey, can we activate this in international markets? But the fact of the matter is that the international distribution of the broadcast of games and just following along is really tough comparatively to that of a major league sport. So we haven’t, we’ve never worked with a collegiate athlete in eight years.

And I think it just largely due to distribution awareness, you have to be a real fan or from an international perspective, went to that school. It’s your alma mater, you still follow along. But that’s, I mean, internationally, it’s, it’s an uphill battle.

[00:41:02] Mike Klinzing: I could see that. Right. Again, we, we think of the the, whether it’s the NFL or the NBA, even Major League baseball, just being a much more international brand that’s recognizable all over the world as opposed to what we see here with collegiate athletics during Yeah, an Olympic year.

And have you seen, how, how do the Olympics play into, again, the, we think back to obviously the dream team in 92, which kind of was the, the genesis right of, of the beginning of distributing the NBA globally. Totally. But how important are the Olympics when you think about. The next Olympics coming up, the previous one again, where you have the game with the United States, beats France and the gold medal game and Weby and the whole thing with that, just how, how has that played into, in any way, shape or form?

Again, marketing the game globally and affected your business.

[00:41:54] Andrew Spalter: It’s really exciting, but predominantly from the brand side of things. Like so many brands are coming to us now because the World Cups in just a few months and they’re like, we want to activate with soccer players and teams and how do we do that?

And so on and so forth. So that, I think that to me is like when you look at a global stage, it’s when the most eyeballs are on it from an international perspective and where our services really come into play and are really appreciated. So yeah, I don’t, but. To your point, it’s, it’s an interesting because we haven’t done much, like we will do a lot with our athletes that are going to play for the team, so on and so forth in the next few years.

But I think from the team, it’s, it’s, it’s a short window. It is a really short window that these guys are on the global stage and, for us, development and growth is about continuity. So yeah, I would love to broker a deal where we if we do something with all Team U usa on the NBA side of things, but it, the, those are long term Delta is still the official Olympics partner and has been for however long.

Right. How are, who’s going to come in there and bring another airline deal to that table? How many airlines do you pay for that? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:18] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let me, let me flip this around. Yeah. We’ve been talking about it from the perspective of what athletes teams leagues are looking for. On the other side of it, do you have it flowing the other way where brands are coming to you and saying, Hey, we would like to connect with Athlete X or this league

[00:43:37] Andrew Spalter: all

[00:43:37] Mike Klinzing: the time.

Do you have it coming in the, so what does that look like for you?

[00:43:40] Andrew Spalter: All the time? It, so we have a partnerships team now, thankfully, which are. The ones in offices beating the pavement, meeting with these platforms, these teams, these brands, et cetera. And it’s all about understanding their businesses. At the end of the day, hey we’re in the middle of q1, so what are your q2, q3, q4 and year long goals?

What are you looking at next year? What’s the growth over the next five years and how could we implement ourselves in a growth market like the BA and international markets and so on and so forth, and pitch our clients for those opportunities. Just like a great example of this would be the other day, Josh Hart posted a electric car on, and I think he did a deal with Lucid.

We’ve worked with Josh Hart, he’s awesome. It’s great. We work with him. Nick’s Brunson, the roommate’s podcast, so on and so forth. And we were thinking to ourselves, we’re like, huh, lucid is only sold in these markets. Who’s his European? Asia partner for a car company and so on. So we reached out to a car brand number of them and said, Hey, guy loves cars in the global stage, new Knick, so on and so and he doesn’t have a deal for these markets.

You guys saw in these markets, is there a campaign that you want to do with an NBA athlete? And a handful of them we’re like, yeah, this sounds great. So it’s chicken before the egg sometimes, and whether the chicken’s, the brand or the client’s, the brand or that, that chicken. But it is a combination of being really, really, really proactive as much as we can, and putting ourselves in the right rooms at the right times when they’re discussing their plans for the next upcoming quarter and or year.

[00:45:23] Mike Klinzing: That makes total sense. Again, like Yeah. I just was curious again how it goes back and forth, that obviously you have two sides of it that could be approaching you to be able to make, you guys are the connector between those brands Totally. And athletes, teams, leagues, however you want to, however you want to phrase it.

[00:45:37] Andrew Spalter: Yeah.

[00:45:38] Mike Klinzing: Final two part question.

[00:45:41] Andrew Spalter: Yeah.

[00:45:41] Mike Klinzing: Part one. When you think about what you get to do every single day. Okay. What do you see as being your biggest joy? Then when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? So your biggest joy, what you love, what you love about what you do, and then what do you see as being the biggest challenge, opportunity, however you want to look at

[00:46:01] Andrew Spalter: that.

Yeah. I don’t to answer your question to, to part one, I don’t necessarily see like a specific thing. The biggest, like there’s like, I could point to that all day long. I love my morning coffee, right? Like that gives me a lot of joy. I love what I have for lunch and the, and the walks that I take and my walk with in the morning with my wife and dogs and all that sort of stuff.

But when it comes to summing up work, it’s just like work in general. Like I think what I do is really. Freaking cool. Like I’m super excited. Buy it. I’m super jazzed by it every single day. It makes me really excited. The people when I I didn’t even know a shoot with Dwayne was happening yesterday, and I get, and like my director of NBA texted me a photo and he is like, look at the boys.

I’m like, this is awesome. Right? And so I think those little moments, the business in itself, I’m excited about growing the business, more international markets, more partnerships, more RFPs, more brand deals, so on and so forth. Every part of it, to me is exciting. Even the challenges and hurdles, which gets to what are the challenges that we see over the next two years?

It’s staying in our lane. It’s like that NBA example, should we stay in our lane or should we grow internationally? Should we launch a new league? So on and so forth. The next two years, the amount of bright and shiny objects that are going to be coming at us and  in the head are probably going to be a lot.

The how do, how do we stay focused, how do we stay focused, but also be smart enough to jump at the right things? How, how do we prep ourselves to be able to be open to jumping at the right thing? Does the right thing even potentially look like a bigger company? Kind of similar to us, but needing a global solutions partner and us working directly in house with them is, and so I don’t know, and I don’t have those answers.

The fact of the matter is, is like we’re just going to stay doing what we’re doing and chugging along. And if we strike gold and hit that moment, that makes a lot sense for our company. We’ll try.

Hopefully everything else is just noise and we have some pretty large headphones on.

[00:48:20] Mike Klinzing: That’s what makes day to day fun. Andrew. I could tell, yeah, I could tell. Just trying to figure out what’s next. I can see the joy from that every single day, without question.

[00:48:31] Andrew Spalter: Yeah,  it’s a great time.

[00:48:33] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. All right. Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how can people connect with you, find out more about what you guys are doing, share social media, email, website, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[00:48:47] Andrew Spalter: Thanks Mike. Just honestly, our company, just eastgoesglobal.com handles @EastGoesGlobal. We check Instagram, LinkedIn. We’re only on those two platforms in the western world. So that’s where you can follow along, shoot us a note, reach out, et cetera.

[00:49:02] Mike Klinzing: Awesome. Andrew, cannot thank you enough for taking the time outta your schedule this morning to join us.

Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on our next episode. Thanks.

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[00:50:05] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.