What the Playbook Gets Wrong About International Expansion
With over 25 years in global sports—co‑founding ONE Championship, helping launch The Snow League into China, working on the Commonwealth Games, and now building EPIC—I’ve written these articles to share practical insights for the next generation of sport builders and leaders.
Most “expansion playbooks” assume that if a sport works in one market, you can copy‑paste it into another. That mindset kills more international projects than bad luck ever will. From working on the Commonwealth Games and multi‑country tours with ESPN Star Sports, to helping take snow sports into China and now launching EPIC as a global pickleball platform, I’ve learned that real expansion is less about exporting product and more about importing perspective.
The first mistake is treating new markets as distribution, not co‑creation. Too many rights holders fly in, run an event, and fly out, leaving no local equity behind. Our most successful expansions started by building ecosystems—local athletes, local storytelling, local sponsors, and local host‑city partners. In China, for example, winter sports needed to be positioned not only as competition but as a driver of regional tourism and youth participation. Fans rally around athletes and narratives that reflect their own identity, not a logo that arrived last month.
The second mistake is underestimating regulatory and political complexity. The Commonwealth Games and other international events taught me that every jurisdiction has its own expectations around visas, safety, media control, and commercial rights. In Asia, those layers multiply. A one‑size‑fits‑all legal or broadcast strategy is dangerous. Instead, long‑term success comes from patient relationship‑building with sports ministries, tourism boards, city governments, and broadcasters—finding where your property advances their strategic goals.
The third mistake is expanding the brand before the infrastructure. You’re not “in” a country because you ran one event there. True presence requires local operators who understand both global standards and local nuance. On projects spanning everything from combat sports to winter sports and now pickleball, we have relied on hybrid teams—people who can negotiate a sponsorship in Beijing, manage a broadcast truck in Kuala Lumpur, and still understand how the global brand fits together.
For entrepreneurs, the lesson is simple: global ambition is good, but global humility is essential. Ask three questions in each new market—who are the local heroes, who actually controls access, and how does your sport help them win? Once you answer that, you can throw away the standard playbook and start writing a strategy that actually works.