David and Leif discuss the business they have built helping sports brands enter China and Chinese corporate brands enter the US, the latter of which we dive into a bit more to learn more about how purely China-centric brands look at market entry into North America. We also discuss the different aspects of relationship building with their North American clients vs. their Chinese clients.

After asking Dave and Leif to talk about the secret sauce that makes Red Phoenix so successful, it segue’s perfectly into the next topic of why it’s so important to leverage the help of agencies or experts who know how to do business in China at a granular level who’ve experienced not just the geography but also the culture.

We then move onto the topic of sports in China and the opportunities that lie in that industry, beyond sports, in general, to include health and fitness in general. We discuss their 5 tiers to success in brand building for sports brands, which includes boots-on-the-ground initiatives like camps and grassroots development as well as government relations. We also discuss where the money is flowing in sports in China, where David cites a very deliberate effort from the top down in China’s culture that clearly understands how important sports can be to a country’s economy.

Near the end, we do bring up the now-famous tweet from a prominent NBA executive that got the NBA in hot water in China in order to discuss the importance of understanding cultural sensitivities when entering a new market especially when you don’t have a good grasp of its native language nor its history. Now more than ever it is important to understand what topics one should avoid and issues to let lie.