Welcome to Sports Marketing, Cross Country Growth. This will be the agenda. I'll talk about why sports is, by nature, international. I'll talk about the market selection process. I'll talk about market configuration. I'll talk about the importance of market landing in sports and I'll finally finish it off with cross country sports opportunities. So, let's get started. Okay, why is sport international? Well, the answer is, because of all these different reasons. Because things like promoting competition and promoting peace are universal concepts. And more and more, talent is becoming internationalized. If you look at, for example, major league baseball, you have a lot of not only South Americans playing but also Central American players playing and more and more Asian players are playing, including players here from Korea. And even when they're not international, when they're let's say just Michael Jordan, their appeal transcends national boundaries. And because you have economic development in other regions more and more you're finding that the ownership is becoming foreign. Such as in the EPL (English Premier League). And a lot of it is driven by technology because of the global reach by media or medium such as satellites and the Internet. And last but not least, people wanted to own licensed merchandise such as a Manchester United shirt. So merchandising, I think, helps in the creation of this global appeal. Okay, so the question that we'll deal with here is if you're in Country 1 and in sports, how to go to Country 2? And again, Noon Nopi matters because you want to make sure that the Noon Nopi of sports. Or a star match of that in the home country and if it does, well then it creates this opportunity to expand both the sport and the star. It creates sponsorship opportunities. But if the Noon Nopi doesn't match, well then you have localize in some manner. So let's look at an example, and let's talk about Jordan. No, I'm not talking about Michael, but instead, Jordan Spieth. Who last year won two Majors. He won the Master's and also the US Open in 2015. But I think maybe for a lot of my learners, your response may be, Jordan who? Because if you're not a serious golfer, you will not know who Jordan Spieth is. So he is an example of an athlete, despite being very successful in his given sport, has a limited appeal across borders. Specially compared to the other Jordan, Michael Jordan. Okay, so what this implies is that not all sports can or should be exported. Or can't be global. It does require this more strategic mindset of whether or not you want to go abroad. But if you decide to go abroad, well then you have to have this whittling down process where you have to decide on the region, you have to decide on the country, and you may even have to decide on who the segment that you first want to appeal to, is. So this gets at the market configuration of your sport or star, in some cases it can be very broad, it can be universal, and that can be true for sports like football or soccer as it's called in some regions. It could be true of the NBA. It could be true of maybe the Olympics. But for other sports, it could be more limited such as being limited to regions B and C. And it some cases, with some sports, it can be just limited to maybe one country. Such as is the case with Kabaddi in India. And as I emphasized, who will be your initial target. And that's what I mean by market landing. So you want to have some key influencer, whether that's in a region or in a country. And it doesn't have to be just limited to athletes. So I will interview the CMO or the Vice President at Adidas, where they talk about influencers. And influencers even for a sporting brand such as Adidas doesn't have to be just an athlete. And let's look at example of the NFL where they want to expand the popularity of American football to Europe. And I think it is a no brainer, I think it is perfectly reasonable choice that they have considered the U.K because after all they are English speaking. So there's no language barrier to speak of at least not a serious one. And also the history of American Football in the U.K is rather long. And I also recently learned that France is also a big American football country, so both the UK and France might be good landing countries to start off with. Also in Korea, the demographics that you thought of may not be the same so Noon Nopi could be very different. So, for example, with baseball in Korea, what's driving the recent growth of the sport aren't men. But rather, young women. They've discovered how fun baseball is. Not as a participant but as a spectator. And they go in groups. And that's driving the popularity, the growth, the innovations taking place in the KBO. Okay, so here is this matrix so that you can consider when you want to grow. And here, we can think of sports not only as a product but also as a media, especially if you are a sponsor. And also in terms of the international dimension, you don't have to be global, you can be local as well. So I think the examples that I've listed here are, for the most part, self explanatory. So as you can see, you will have different strategies that apply depending on the quadrant that you are in. Okay, so some examples. I talked already about the National Football League, so I won't mention that again, but anyway. So that is seriously now being considered, and I think the first team, if and when that happens, we'll be in London. And there is some talk about that happening in 2017. Kabbadi, which I said, is a very Indian, local sport. Well they want to globalize it a little bit more, and they're doing that slowly but surely by importing foreign players and maybe they learn that strategy from the Indian Premiere League which is a cricket league where they had imported many foreign players to play in that league. Okay, an example of localized sponsorship using sports as a medium. That would be Samsung. And, they sponsor not only big sports but they also sponsor local, small sports. And I wrote this HBO online article with John Davis about how you may actually differentiate your brand by sponsoring less popular sports. And that's I think what Samsung did very well in India when they sponsored stars in badminton and shooting such as Abhinav Bindra who fortunately won a medal in the Olympics, so it paid off handsomely. Okay, so these are the takeaways we've learned in the segment. That sports is by nature very international. And becoming even more so. You learned about the importance of market landing. We've learned that growth can be both as a product or as a medium in sports. And we also learned that you don't have to be global in sports. Some sports are better suited to be regional or even local.
