“Nothing but massive growth ahead”—Global Exposure of Sports Takes Center Stage at the CAA World Congress of Sports
At the CAA World Congress of Sports, industry leaders highlighted how global exposure is redefining the sports business landscape, with executives like Michael Rubin pointing to unprecedented growth potential beyond domestic markets.
The next frontier of sports isn't competition; it's expansion. With the rising charts of fans waking up in the middle of the night to catch a game that is happening thousands of kilometers away, businesses have now started prioritizing the profit potential of global sports expansion; an example being the GOAT tour in India, which generated over ₹500 crores alone.
At the CAA World Congress of Sports, held in Los Angeles, league commissioners, network heads, and key decision makers gathered together, to discuss current sports trends. One such important topic was the revenue potential of sports expansion internationally.
At the CAA World Congress of Sports in LA, global events like the World Cup and Olympics took center stage 🌎
— Sports Business Journal (@SBJ) April 17, 2026
Industry leaders pointed to international expansion as a key driver of growth across sports.
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Sporting tycoons on the revenue potential of sports expansion
“In reality, the biggest sport in the world should be a multiple of what we do in baseball or the NFL,” CEO of Fanatics, Michael Rubin said. “Today we have big businesses with the federations, big businesses with teams like PSG or Juventus or Chelsea or Inter Milan. The World Cup coming here is massive. … Today our global business is between 10% and 15%. I’m not sure why it couldn’t be half of the business long-term. We think there’s nothing but massive growth ahead of us.”
AEG’s Dan Beckerman said, “I start to wonder, maybe we’ve been too focused on reaching the 10 million people in Los Angeles or maybe the 350 million people in the United States, not realizing there are 8 billion people in the world and these streaming platforms have the ability to reach that audience. As we’re all wringing our hands over what’s happening with the RSNs, I think the solution is there for us, and I think that audience is there.”
“The challenge, truly, still is live games in the middle of the night or the morning elsewhere. But if you can start to figure out a way to solve that, I do think you’re going to see exponential growth. We view international as the R&D of the NFL. There aren’t a lot of places in the NFL you can spend R&D money. International right now is certainly one of them," said Kevin Demoff, president of team and media operations for Kroenke Sports.
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