Inside the NBA-China comeback: We talked to East Goes Global founder Andrew Spalter

East Goes Global currently works with 20 NBA players and seven NBA teams on international fan growth, localized digital ecosystems, and cross-border brand partnerships. EGG founder Andrew Spalter sat down with HoopsHype to discuss helping NBA teams and players like Jalen Brunson expand their brand and marketability worldwide, especially in China.

When was the first time you and your company began working with someone connected to the NBA?

Andrew Spalter: We had been heads down building a business focused on entertainment marketing and partnerships in China, only for the first three or four years in business. Then one day, we get a call from our friends at the Philadelphia 76ers, and they go, 'Hey Andrew, our China guy is moving back to China tomorrow, and he said he can't manage these accounts anymore. Can you and your team help us?' And so we just jumped into that. I was really fortunate that today, the person who leads our NBA division for China comes from NBA China, Tencent Sports, with a focus on basketball, super big NBA and basketball fan, player himself, the whole nine yards. Lives in Los Angeles and is originally from Shanghai. We were waiting for that opportunity, waiting for that moment to sink our teeth in. Once we landed the Sixers and did a lot of great work there, and propelled them into the top 10, at times top five, top three most engaged NBA teams in China digitally.

And that happened at a moment when there was a wall between the NBA and China after the famous Daryl Morey tweet. You saw an opportunity when everyone else thought there wasn’t one.

AS: Whereas that wall went up, we knew eventually it was going to come down. We knew that there was a world where that could have probably been avoided. With how big a market China specifically was to the NBA, we just assumed this would end and really pitched upon getting ahead of things. How are you the first team that comes back? What are you saying when you're coming back? Are you on more channels? Are you pushing out more content? Is it a more unique usage? And so for us, it was a combination of efforts in terms of being proactive, excited, having a bit of charisma and excitement towards bringing that sport back, and being a team to be able to lead that charge. Our teams are based in China and across the world. And so I think having a conduit in China was really imperative to the growth of the business and the growth of the NBA internationally.

Meta works in the West, but China is different. You have to find the right platforms to connect there, right?

AS: Just because you're an NBA player, the NBA is huge in China, or an NBA team even at that level, it's not 100% guaranteed that just because you're working this space, you're on the channels, you're doing local campaigns, that you're gonna have a business for yourself in the market. And so that's where we get a bit granular, and we're not trying to sell smoke at this stage in our careers. It's because we want to win at the end of the day. So, it's more about 'how you are known in the market? Are you already big in the space? Are you already doing the trips there?' I'm not saying you have to check all those boxes to be able to work with us and penetrate an international market, but there has to be some sort of demand on paper.

How was the process helping Jalen Brunson build his social media presence in China?

AS: There has to be some sort of demand, and what I mean by that, specifically for someone like Brunson, not only does he have a global deal with Nike, and he's really championed by the brand, but he's also on the global stage and global footprint with the New York Knicks. He's also an All-Star player, three seasons in a row. He's also someone who, I mean, you watch his videos, and you can't say like, if you were to define Jalen Brunson, it's wholesome, right? So he's going out there, and he's interacting with his fans. He's reacting to videos of them shaking their hand. He's meeting the parents, meeting the kids. He's like the guy that you want your kid to look up to, right? And so I think that sense of culture, honesty, integrity, ambition, within the league to be the best player is kind of a jack-of-all-trades. And when we approached him and his team, it's because we really saw an opportunity for him in China; we knew that he had a lot of fans there, because they love who he is both on and off the court. We thought that we could be a real catalyst for him making the All-Star game three years ago, right? And when we started to work with him, we did unique campaigns, shot exclusive content, got him in the room with influencers, and year-over-year, you see the growth in votes for the All-Star Game coming in from China. It's insane how active that market is, which contributed to a lot of his votes year over year. And that led us to do a continued campaign throughout the year, throughout the season, even during the offseason, to shoot content with him. We now work with Josh Hart as well. We work with the Knicks. We work with Josh, Jalen, and Matt Hillman's podcast, The Roommate Show. So, it really is a full-court press to grow him and his brand truly internationally with a focus on all of his assets from A to Z.

How challenging is it to work with Jalen Brunson and coordinate with his other companies at the same time?

AS: We really look at ourselves and our team, and when we stack it up against the competition, the difference is like we are a part of our client's teams. If you're Jalen and you're asking your agent, your team, your manager, so on and so forth. Do I have an international solution? They go, yes, it's East Coast Global. How am I growing internationally? East Coast Global. So, we're doing things and in the Slack channels, the text threads, the email exchanges, so on and so forth. Really is a conduit to the team to focus on international, whereas the agent is being the agent, and his team, the agency, and Nike are doing their job, and we're speaking with Nike International, we're speaking with global deal partners, we're speaking with local platforms and local markets to get amplification and marketing support. All the while, we're being that bridge between Jalen and the Nike China team, and the team out here, and the team out there, and so on, to position ourselves as that true international partner.

Which social media platforms should NBA players use to build their brand and presence in China?

AS: A lot of people will look at Weibo as the go-to platform. It's today's version of Meta's Facebook. It's been around almost the longest. It has the most, on paper, amount of users, but the engagement is still really minimal on the platform nowadays because you're actually finding more fans on Douyin, which is the TikTok of China. It's the equivalent of TikTok, same parent company, so on and so forth. WeChat channels, so not just WeChat, the communication tool, but their channels feature. And then Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), which is a platform that everyone went to after TikTok was gone in the States for 15 hours or so, people jumped onto this other Chinese platform, which is more for fashion, lifestyle sort of content, which shines a light into the inner workings of all these well-dressed, well-groomed NBA players. Which is a cool thing to see the background of. So it's normally between those three platforms, then when you extend it, and you're like, a podcast, you have long-form content, you have a YouTube channel, then we also look at platforms like Bilibili, which is long-form video content as well.

And that's China, but when you're getting into other markets like Latin America, non-English-speaking markets, you go, well, how do we penetrate those spaces? So with, for instance, the Phoenix Suns are in Arizona. They have a huge Latin American population coming to their games. They want to activate the Spanish-speaking markets. So, we're running their Spanish-speaking channels for them. The Boston Celtics are now diving into Spanish and Portuguese-speaking channels. So many things that happen left and right, where we're subtitling something for an F1 team that we work with in Japanese when the Japanese races are on. So, it really fluctuates, but the commonality is that just as you're working the US market and you're working Instagram and it's in English, and there's no subtitles and so on, you think, well, how do I grow in this other market? It's not native speaking. Well, I need to be on their platforms. Okay, they don't have platforms. It's Mexico. You use Instagram, so let's make sure it's in Spanish.

What's your take on NBA Europe in terms of a potential market for NBA players?

AS: At the end of the day, a lot of athletes today, depending on who you ask, are on the global stage as global entertainers. They play sports, and people watch them. You're an artist or a musician, you're on stage, people watch them, they're performing, they're an entertainer. They're really good at their craft, of course, but at the end of the day, there's something to be said about every NBA player's hopes. I would imagine a lot of them would look forward to their yearly China trip, and how exciting it is to get out to China, meet their fans, do campaigns, and meet some foundations. So there are so many things that you do in these week-long trips. That doesn't necessarily happen in the UK and Europe, in the Middle East, and even in places like Serbia, unless you're from there and actually make it a point to go there. Southern Europe, India, I mean, you can name it. It's really non-existent. And I think what excites us is the idea of something like a world tour to a certain extent. I think that there's a big opportunity in going to all of these major markets and maybe it's UK, then you do Spain, and then you're up to Northern Europe, and then you're down south to, the Middle East, and you're doing one or few big cities there and then you're over to China and Japan and South Korea and so on. There's something to be said about doing that from the player's perspective. From the league perspective, we're working with a lot of teams now to identify who their sister cities are internationally and seeing what we can do with different tourism boards to activate, whether it's from the foundational level or charity level.

So I don't think there's one right way on how to do this that the other but I do know that in other verticals whether it's music, art, film, TV, the reason why they're so perceived so well internationally is because people are going to all of those markets and going on press runs, tours, there's distribution into the spaces, there's ads... And I think that there's that opportunity as well.

Recently, we discovered how passionate NBA fans in Uruguay are about the Utah Jazz.

AS: The NBA is doing a really great job at hosting all these international games right, and I think that that's like a really smart lever to pull to get people into those markets and countries behind the sport. An exhibition game somewhere, let's see how it goes, and I think there's a reason you look at all these games and you're like, 'That's interesting. Shaq's in all of them. That's interesting. David Beckham's at all of them,' and you're wondering, 'Those are those types of people who crack the code. They go on these international tours. They do business in these markets.' They're at every one of those stops because they have a platform to speak to on a global level and can do that much more business and bring in that much more opportunity, because they're going around with the tour. People should look at that as a big opportunity.

What is the current state of the relationship between China and the NBA?

Andrew Spalter: I think today it's really strong, definitely. The Macau game last October between the Suns and the Nets was wonderful. We were there with the Phoenix Suns, a client of ours, and they had a blast. This upcoming year will be another game in Macau between the Mavs and the Rockets. We work with the Mavs, and we're really excited about this year. But long story short, the strength is good. The relationship is really strong. But to that point, and I say this when we're talking to the NBA, and we're speaking to the MLB, MLS, and EPL, ESL, all these different leagues globally, F1 even, the NBA is unique, where you have your favorite team. You say, 'My team is the Knicks. My team's the Suns, the Nets. And then you look, and you ask yourself, 'Why? Well, I've been following since they had Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, and Steve Nash, and that's when it became my favorite team, right? And Carmelo Anthony for the Knicks, and this is the other, and the Bulls because of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, and so forth.

I think a piece that is going to be amplified as time goes on is more James Hardens, more Steph Currys, more NBA players who are going into these international markets. Going back to China and create, and not just the classic tour of going for a week with Nike, call it a day, so on and so forth... They're going to do more, they're going to be out there. Victor Wembanyama went into the hills and studied with the monks for a week or two, and guess what, we were in China when that happened, and the shoe companies that we met with, and the brands, they were like, 'he never told us.' He's doing this on his own time, and we don't have things planned for him after this, like he's doing this on his own. I would hope that more people take that approach, and go, 'No, I've got to get out there. I've got to make something happen.' It's not just this quick little shooting opportunity. It's more than that. And that's a missing piece that if you are a top-of-the-top athlete, or not even top-of-the-top, just an exciting NBA athlete, and you make it a point to get out there, these markets will welcome you with open arms. And I think more should happen, especially since the NBA season is not entirely long; it's not like the MLB, where it's however many games every season. That opportunity is something that a lot of players should be looking at.

Companies now help NBA players build their brands, unlike in the past when many went broke. What’s driving players’ greater financial success today?

AS: Well, I think number one, you look at, when you're watching these mini docu series that have come out recently about the Bulls in their time, you see what their top athletes were getting paid compared to today's. And then there was just another one on the Dallas Cowboys, and you see how much they were paying their most valuable players, the money has multiplied by 10, 20, 30, 50. So, I think number one, there's a lot more money in the market. Number two, there are a lot of stories of how all these athletes went broke, and people want to avoid that and become just another number. And I think that falls into, okay, well, how do we diversify that money? How do we work with lenders? We have a $200 million guaranteed contract. How do I work with a new school's way of thinking? How do we work with a lender to get a lot of that money up front so we can deploy that towards capital and invest in different things? After this, I have a call with an NFL player's venture fund that he launched. Investments, private equity, and funds, everyone's looking towards sports and entertainment, and the names to promote their products and brands, and so on. And so I think in today's day and age, there's so much in the ethos of like so many brands, so many clothing businesses, fashion, lifestyle, health, wellness, etc., that a lot of these people can actually get their name to something, get some equity in it, and their name's a bit more protected. Their revenue is a bit more protected. And that's just one of so many ways to go about it.

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This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: We talked to the founder of the company rebuilding the NBA-China relationship from the inside