The NBA Targets International Growth

With 450 million people playing basketball worldwide, the NBA is going global. The league’s senior vice president of merchandising partnerships Lisa Piken Koper highlighted an assortment of initiatives in a talk with WWD’s senior editor for men’s Jean E. Palmieri. The recent opening of the NBA store in Beijing, its largest outside of North America, is one example of its international reach. Operated by Topsports, a leading sports retailer in China, the NBA Style store sells replica NBA uniforms, personalized jerseys, Beijing hyperlocal T-shirts and has the largest NBA Hardwood Classics section in mainland China. To try to build its fan base, the NBA starts with growing the game and improving participation worldwide. Working closely with the Ministry of Education in China, the league is trying to help make basketball part of the everyday curriculum. There are also select preseason or regular season games in such locations as Mexico and Europe. Next year a regular season one will be held in Paris — and pre-season games will be held in India and Japan going forward. With 300 NBA brand dealers worldwide, most of the growth stems from abroad, with China leading the charge, especially in the summer, Koper said. Explaining how Nike is the

Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Read More...

from WWDWWD http://bit.ly/2FTzgMz