The Global Marketplace

Jimia Avery

11/09/14

BUSN 115

Professor Tucker

The Global Marketplace

Have you dreamed of traveling to cities like Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro, or Moscow? According to the writers of the book Understanding Business, “Today, over 90 percent of the companies doing business globally believe it’s important for their employees to have experience working in other countries” This reason is not surprising because although the United States is a market of over 310 million people, there are over 6.9 billion potential customers in the 194 countries that make up the global market. With all these customers and countries there should be a time to take advantage of the global marketplace.

In the past our American teams were comprised of primarily only American athletes or American trained athletes. But now as the U.S. sport franchises try and go global they are scouting and recruiting foreign athletes, which makes not only that team but also it might make that sport popular with that country of which these foreign players come from. Just like with any business wanting to go global they have to be willing to adapt to that countries customs and rules, for sports it might mean how they play the sport or the rules of the sport and the over all sportsmanship. One of the potential problems of expanding into other countries is overcoming the cultural barriers. Just because something is popular in the United States does not necessarily mean that it will be popular in other countries. Every country has its own culture, and you may not be able to accurately predict what people in that culture will enjoy. Before getting involved in another country, it makes sense to do some market research so that you can minimize this risk.

For many leaders of international franchise systems choosing the next international opportunity can be exciting, challenging and potentially rewarding depending on the vision for the future. Committing to a new country requires an extraordinary amount of...