Copy Editor's Note: This piece is over 4,000 words long. Some might say that, in today's digital world, such length is outlandish. But we've built an ethos around the idea that 4K words – or any length, really – can be just as engrossing as something short and punchy. It all comes down to the subject matter.

Joseph is a talented wordsmith, adept at capturing the natural voice of his subjects, with a finesse for weaving in the organic nature of a conversation. It just flows. This is an engrossing read, not just because of our communal connection to Cages, but because – this is a story that's never been told. And beyond that, there are layers here you just don't expect.

Read on. Enjoy. And maybe send this to your favorite buddy who's always dragging you down there.

You love to see it, a Shanghai F&B Cinderella story, just a great group of guys, creating something from nothing, coming together, putting in the work, giving 110 percent, going out there and doing what needs to be done to get out on top.

You couldn't write a better script.

… Sometimes, cliches ring true.

From casual sports fans to sports fanatics, the cornerstone venue for sporting triumph and defeat in this city is Cages, a massive sports bar, restaurant, entertainment, everything-under-the-sun venue with multiple locations in Shanghai and the beginning of what looks like expansions all over China.

A dynasty even.

With just over a decade of operations under their belt, one more sports cliché applies: It's a marathon, not a sprint. On the cusp of one of their biggest parties of the year – the NFL-endorsed Super Bowl screening – we caught up with one of the Cages founders and managing partners, BT, at Cages Jing'an to hear the story of the venue's blood, sweat, and tears meteoric rise to the top.

Game on!

CNS: Walking in here I was thinking, this might be the biggest single bar I've ever been to in my life. It's just so massive. Was there always a plan to do a really big place?

BT: I mean, originally, we just wanted a venue where our friends could go and hit a baseball and have a beer. That's it. There used to be a pretty big, robust softball league in Shanghai, so it was coming from that. This was back in the expat glory days in 2014.

So in 2014, we had been looking for almost a year. But my partner Dan, who's from the US, was working in interior construction.

And he was like, Hey, look, I just got shown this space, and half of it is still available.

CNS: He was renovating properties around Shanghai?

BT: Yeah, exactly. So he's like, This place doesn't have any pillars. It's got high ceilings. It's in Jing'an.

And I'm like, OK. It's cheap. It ticks all the boxes. Let's do it.

So we cobbled together what we could.

Back in the day, 2014, I mean, in Shanghai, you could do whatever. If you thought about it and conceived of it, you could do it.

CNS: That was before Jing'an really blew up as a food and beverage kind of place too, right?

BT: For sure. I mean, when we looked at the location, we were like, "Oh, is this too far north?"

Now, through the years, as the city center expanded, it's right in the heart of it.

CNS: This wasn't the first Cages, though, right? How did you go from there to here?

BT: Right, our first space was about a block north of here. And yeah, we just wanted the batting cages. We figured we needed to pay rent, so we needed F&B. So that's why we ended up doing that aspect of it. But then, once we opened, it was a lot of fun to have the community growing around it.

Not only were the expats adopting it, but the local customers coming in, trying baseball for the first time, getting active, trying dodgeball, doing these different things that, you know, where normally their night out would be, you know, just going eating, drinking, or maybe KTV later. It gave something different.

And so it made us think about, Oh, well, maybe there is opportunity. There is an opportunity to grow. There is an appetite and a demand, at least in Shanghai.

When our lease was up, and we were looking for space, we were lucky enough to find something a block away with the support of the government, landlords and sports bureaus, who really liked what we were doing and really bought into the idea of how do we get people active in their community.

CNS: Yeah, I was going to ask how that partnership came together. Because you guys also have partnerships with local sports bureaus.

BT: Yeah, well, when we were trying to reach out to see if we could do something together, they told us it has to be a sports concept, not F&B.

We're like, No, no, come and see it.

To their credit, they did come. They came, sat down, saw what we were doing, and we told them, "Hey, we have this for baseball. But we want to add more sports, more activities, and expand on what we're doing in this great forum."

Lucky for us, they also saw the vision. The building operator has been instrumental in creating different community events.

CNS: Like inside of Cages and outside of Cages?

BT: Of course, inside and outside. But for us specifically, they drive groups and different leagues, especially for the kids in the area, getting active, getting athletic, and trying different things. We're lucky to be able to use Cages as a forum for them to host these events.

CNS: What kind of stuff do the building operators do?

BT: During the daytime, local community kindergartens and younger groups will participate. It's an introduction to sports – anything. It can be jumping rope, races or different things.

It's so important to get active from a young age. We're lucky enough that they've been supportive in aligning us with the local community here.

CNS: So you pitched them the idea, and they liked what you were doing…

BT: Yeah, because this is the sports bureau, right? So you have to be doing something around sports, around that aspect of things. But it was a natural fit for them and us. It's all about sports culture, right? It's about mixing.

And this is really what the Cages ethos became: We're about mixing the sport and the social, right? Because everyone thinks of sport as, oh, you have to be a top-performance athlete. You have to be doing all those things on a professional level. Where I grew up in the States, it was something more communal. It didn't matter if you were good at it or if you were bad at it. There was a social aspect of knowing about sport, knowing the players, knowing the games, and then participating, even if you're not that good.

And what we wanted to do was create a place where you didn't have to be an expert. You can try basketball for the first time. You're doing a friendly competition where there's nothing on the line. You don't have to go find a team and sign up for daily practice or weekly games. You just come in, have some food, have some drinks, and go play.

CNS: Speaking about your own background with sports in the States, maybe you could take a step back and introduce yourself and tell us where you're from and what brings you to Shanghai.

BT: Sure, my name is Ben Terry. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the US. I played baseball growing up and then on to university in North Carolina.

CNS: You played university baseball, too? That's kind of a big deal, yeah? What position?

BT: I played center field, leadoff center field. Played with a bunch of future and current Hall of Famers now.

CNS: Really?

BT: Your Buster Poseys of the world. The last person who was in the league that I played with just retired this year. I'm officially old!

So, Charlie Blackmon, he's the last one remaining.

CNS: Did you keep in touch with your former teammates and stuff?

BT: I did.

CNS: Did you hit them up for investment money?

BT: [Laughs.] No, no, no. We keep it social. But a lot of those guys, it was a lot of fun seeing that and them playing at a high level.

When I came to China, I was pleasantly surprised to see the softball league and get involved.

CNS: You must have murdered that league, though, right? You're a ringer…

BT: We did pretty well, but there were a lot of very good players here. There are local teams, teams from Japan, teams from Korea, and teams from a mixture of different countries. They all kind of came together and made this league. So, it was a really special thing.

It's important to have some kind of feeling from home while you're here. And baseball was really adopted and accepted locally.

CNS: What about your professional background outside of baseball? Were you always looking at food and beverages? Or is this something you came into later in life?

BT: Well, as a lot of people did growing up, I worked in the entry end of the industry. Washing dishes, waiting, bar-backing, that kind of thing growing up. So, that was always part of my teens.

But professionally, when I came out of school, if you told me I was going to China to open up an F&B establishment, that wasn't in the plan.

But I came over with my company at the time, which was a landscape construction and design company. We had some opportunities to work on some projects, consulting, and doing master planning in different places. Some in Shanghai, but a lot around China.

So, I came over to help build that office. And really, Cages was a side project. It was something that was a passion project. Something that I loved, and I found a few other people who also loved it. I wanted to share that aspect of my life with Shanghai, with China. And see if it was something that we could sustain.

It wasn't ever really about, Oh, this is going to be my future. This is going to be my career. It was more like, Hey, this could be a cool thing.

CNS: Can you introduce who else is behind Cages?

BT: So, there were three original founders. My partner Dan and I are still operating partners.

And then our third partner moved back to the US 9 or 10 years ago. Since then, we've brought on different operating partners. We brought in Jason Oakley as a chef a few years ago. And some other operating folks to help improve as we grew. And it became the beast it is today...

CNS: How many tables are in here?

BT: So, we have 680 seats. And if it's a big game, those are always filled. Saturday night we have the English Premier League going. We're showing the football. Those are always the big nights. And of course, you have all of your World Cups and Europeans, where we like to throw big festival-type events surrounding the matches. We try to make a festive atmosphere as if you're at the games in person.

CNS: How many staff are working on the big nights?

BT: Over 100…

CNS: So, going back again, what's the timeline here? The very first venue opened in 2014…

BT: We opened in 2014. And then, after two and a half years, at the end of 2016, September 2016, we opened here. And that was a big change for us. That was a big scale-up.

At that point, we had our failures too. We tried out in Gubei, and that was something that just didn't work. We had some issues. You learn your lessons. Everyone's had an issue, especially when you're dealing with big and non-traditional spaces, with getting all your licensing and landlords on board and all that stuff.

But moving from our first venue to Cages Jing'an, we figured if we could do 30 percent more than what we were currently doing there, then we were going to be okay. So, we took that leap – and it was a big leap. I mean, it was essentially just pushing all the chips back in. And if it hadn't worked, we would have gone home.

CNS: What was the reception like when you upscaled here?

BT: It took us a little bit to build. We were cash flow positive during our second month of opening in this location, but we really didn't hit our stride until we made investments into our food and beverage program.

And really, what we tried to do was take a serious approach. The same way that we would in a fine dining restaurant or anything else. At the time in Shanghai, in 2018, there were a lot of people really upping the bar for quality – particularly for fine dining. Paul Pairet and such. Putting Shanghai on the map. The city began a whole culinary renaissance. So we were looking at that, and we wanted to take our food just as seriously and take our drinks just as seriously in that way.

And we wanted to have very high-quality chefs doing humble food. That was something that we were lucky to do with Jason Oakley back in 2018. His background speaks for itself, coming from Three on the Bund and everything he's managed to do in this city. That was a big game-changer for us.

CNS: Did you feel that people shifted away from coming for specifically the games and the batting cages to coming for the food?

BT: Well, the established community we had and the local community really appreciated that upgrade. We saw the narrative around our place change from "Go there for some games" to "It's a great place to eat and drink. The food is amazing. And you've got a bunch of games to play." In some ways, this helped expand the business, because now we had a new customer coming. The one who heard about our burgers or club sandwiches, or people coming for the Chicago deep dish pizzas. They came for the food, then tried out the games, and eventually, we started seeing them more often. Our food introduced some people to sports.

We saw more revenue going towards food and beverage. We really made our shift in 2018, with the World Cup. We got a lot of notoriety in 2018, and then we took that momentum, reinvested, and redid all the games.

And from there, that's when it really took off.

CNS: Let's talk about the games. Apart from the traditional sports stuff–baseball, volleyball, dodgeball, and everything else – you've got the state fair-type booth games, arcades, pinball, skeeball, and mini bowling. I was wondering how that all came together. There's a crazy amount of stuff in here. And really diverse...

BT: When we were growing into it, our big thing was always trying to reinvest. And, even now, we also want to add new games and new activities. The key was always asking ourselves, Well, what were all the things that we would want to do? What are all the different games that we would want to play?

As we grew, we realized that people were less there to get better at sports. It was more about entertainment. So, actually, that's when we got into building our own games down in Guangzhou. We built our own tech system from the ground up for our app and all of our game scanning systems.

Wait, so you developed your own games? What kind of games did you develop?

BT: All of the batting cages themselves, with the scoring and everything else. We went down to Guangzhou, where actually most arcade games in China are made. We went right to the factories. One of my acquaintances up here in Shanghai introduced me to that world. And they were interested in what we were doing. Because they thought that it might have applications for the rest of the world.

A lot of our games have actually gone on and sold outside of China.

CNS: Really?

BT: We developed the batting cage games. The Big Poppa Shots that we have over there. We have a soccer kicking game over there…

CNS: Really! I'm super impressed by this. How does that work? You just go to your guys in Guangzhou and say, Let's invent a soccer game?

BT: It was a lot of work. We would take aspects of other games. And we would say, Okay. You know skeeball. Skeeball exists. We want the equivalent of that for football. For American football. So we'd go down there and say, This is the length that we want. It needs to be this wide. Because this is how much space we have.

So we kind of help them talk through it. These are our requirements. This is what we need. This is how scoring is going to work. But you really have to actually get down into all of the details to give them exactly what you want.

CNS: That's amazing. That seems like such a China thing. Like you can have a design for something scratched on paper, and then you just bring it to someone to fabricate out of the air...

BT: Yeah. That is definitely one cool thing about China. So that was what I did for three years. Some have been really successful and some less successful.

To be honest, what I was so excited about was how open all those suppliers were to doing something new at a prototype level. When it wasn't going to be a big run for us right now, they just kind of saw the vision.

CNS: Where did you get pinball machines? Because those are like the holy grails in China. I know from experience. Those are not easy to come by.

BT: Pinball we had to import. One of our partners imports them.

CNS: Maybe you can get me a deal?

BT: I wish I could get myself a deal. I'm still waiting for my deal!

CNS: So when things started to take off, the idea for expansion must have quickly entered come up. It seems like that's the China dream, to get a winning concept off the ground and then try to replicate it in other markets.

BT: That was always on our mind. It was, okay, you know, with a venue of this size, how many can we really put in Shanghai? So we were always looking outside, but also it was about... what cities are ready?

We're aware that Shanghai is different from many cities in China, and the world for that matter. Shanghai is truly a cosmopolitan place with sophisticated tastes and a thirst for new things. And so, you know, we saw this market maturing in other cities.

And when we thought it was ready, that was when it was like, Okay, operationally, we're tight here in Shanghai. We're ready to look outside truly. So that was always the thought, you know, that we can go to other cities.

But it was always about where and when. And with whom.

CNS: So it was a second venue in Shanghai and then a new venture in Changsha?

BT: Yeah, right. So initially we opened a second location in Shanghai. In Huangpu. So we have been looking at 2021. We really made a conscious decision in 2021 that we were going to expand to other cities. We wanted to try it in another first-tier city and a second-tier city at the same time. And those were our two targets.

CNS: What cities were you looking at at the time?

BT: We were looking everywhere. We were looking at Wuhan, Changsha. We were looking at Chengdu, and Chongqing.

And then of course in the south, in Shenzhen.

So we wanted to kind of test whether or not the second-tier city was ready for it. And then in the first tier, we were confident that we were going to be able to do pretty well there.

So we wanted to target those two things. Just because of timing and everything else going on, 2023 at the beginning of the year was when we were actually able to pull the trigger on pushing forward with one of those projects.

So we opened in Changsha in June of 2023. It was a great venue. We had great partners that we were working with. It was a venue we were very confident in. But sometimes just the timing doesn't work out. The concept doesn't fit the market. And we found that for where it was…

CNS: It just wasn't the right fit?

BT: Right. We tried a lot of different things. We tried to adjust. We tried to localize. And in the end, it wasn't something that we could adjust into the market.

CNS: It just didn't click with the city?

BT: It didn't click with the city. It didn't click with the vibe of the people, the sports community. Changsha is a great music and entertainment city with TV and all of these different things. But the sports aspect didn't click with the people there.

So it was something that we learned from.

For us, we've experienced a lot of success. At the same time, you have to be realistic about things when they aren't going your way. As difficult as it was, as much as we loved the venue and still loved the city, it just wasn't the right fit for us.

After nine months of operation, we decided to move on.

CNS: But you still moved ahead with Guangzhou? That just opened this past year in 2024?

BT: Yeah, at the beginning of 2023, it was the city we selected as part of our tier one city and tier two city approach for growth. So Guangzhou, given the struggles that we were having in Changsha, we tried to slow down the opening in Guangzhou a little bit. And so we did.

We finally opened this last August in Guangzhou, and it's been doing very well. It's growing every month, and every month has been better than the last, so that's great.

CNS: Congratulations. Cheers to that! [clink] Do you think Guangzhou's just more of a sports town and it fits better in Guangzhou?

BT: Yes, there's a lot more interest in sports there. There are a lot of youth programs and a lot of youth leagues for all different types of sports. From American football, soccer, and baseball, a lot of these different communities are for families. There are a lot of people visiting for fairs and different expos. So we get many international people coming in for these types of things. And it mirrors a lot of what we have in Shanghai. We also tailored the venue specifically to suit certain unique aspects of the city. Guangzhou, it's a city where people enjoy being outside, the weather is warmer all year, and we wanted to embrace that side of Guangzhou culture. That's why we found a rooftop location with games and a football pitch on the rooftop overlooking the Pearl River.

So I think that being similar allowed us to have this similar jumping-off point.

CNS: And here's the question: How are things going post-COVID, in the post-COVID era? What are your thoughts on living and running an F&B business in 2025?

BT: So I think that we've arrived at kind of a new normal…

CNS: Is it different demographics? Are you finding different people coming to Cages?

BT: Is the audience shifting? I would say the new normal has a lot to do with – it's been 4 or 5 years since 2019. So you have a whole new generation of people who are now the consumers. It's a different generation, a new generation.

A lot of the people who were coming to Cages before, have families now. So we're working with a completely new generation. Their tastes are different.

We're continuing to see food as very important. People are also consuming more event-driven activities. Instead of just going out every day, people go out for a specific reason.

CNS: Speaking of shifting generations, I should ask you about how you guys do your marketing. How are you trying to reach people who are communicating on new platforms and such?

BT: That's a really tough nut to crack. I would say that for a long time because our venue is so unique, the nice thing for us is that when people take photos here, people know where it is. So for us, the reason why we took off in local circles wasn't because of all of the people who love baseball so much. It was 2014. This is when WeChat moments were really becoming a thing, and that aspect of WeChat wasn't as saturated as it is today.

And so there was only one place. If you post a picture like that, you must be at Cages, right? So that naturally helped us with word of mouth, and keeping our brand, front of people's minds.

And so we've been able to add more things and create new activities to do, we still get that. We're still unique to the market. That's something that we've been able to benefit from.

CNS: Finishing up, I was going to ask, thinking back to 2014, 11 years later now, right? So do you have any favorite milestones you want to bring up? BT's Cages highlights?

BT: Highlights. I would say in 2021 we hosted a really fun, really fun Euro Cup summer. And it was a time when the world, things were crazy in the world, you know? And there weren't people in the stadium. There weren't people anywhere gathering.

CNS: Right. Was that when the soccer games were played in empty stadiums?

BT: Right, right, right. But was surreal at the time, in China, our lives were normal compared to the rest of the world. That short, but strict early containment, allowed us to go out and have a big party like that. So we hosted what we reckon is the largest watch party in the world at that time.

During the Super Bowl that year, it was the same thing. People couldn't gather in other countries. And an acquaintance of mine who works at the NFL told us that "the largest Super Bowl party that's happening right now is at Cages in Shanghai."

CNS: That's a big shoutout.

BT: Right, right. So I think that you know, I would say that that moment was really cool. So giving people an authentic experience that, you know, it was memorable to them and was really, really important to us.

One last highlight, this one is just more general. I remember; it was 2019; we had just completed a big upgrade and renovation. All the games that we had been designing and working on, we had installed them all. We built our tech system and had been working with our team, and it had all been completed.

And then, coming in and seeing more and more people coming in.

And I just remember kind of sitting and watching people interacting with the space. Having fun, laughing. You know, having their groups of 8 or 10 friends that are coming out and eating and drinking and playing. Cages was community building, on its own as a venue.

This is what we designed it for. And for them to actually interact with the space in the way that we wanted it to, that was awesome. And so, really being able to see that...that makes all the work and all of the hard stuff that goes along with building your own business worthwhile.

CNS: Love it when a plan comes together.

BT: Right. And the last thing, I think, is being able to work with so many communities and groups in Shanghai, you know, and building different leagues. Like we have the Dodgeball League. It happens every Monday and Thursday. We do a ton of children's camps and different community events.

CNS: How do people get connected with you guys and find out what's going on?

BT: They can always reach out through our social media – WeChat and all the other platforms. They can also give us a call, and we'll connect them directly with our official accounts, so they're always in the loop about what's going on.

For us, staying connected with the local communities has always been key – it's how everything started. It's always been about word of mouth, with people telling others to come try something new.

So, to still be doing that 11 years later? That's pretty cool...

If you go...

Opening hours: 11am-2am

Address: 3/F, Jing'an Sports Center, 428 Jiangning Rd 江宁路428号

Tel: 5299-5273

Average price per person: 158 yuan

WeChat ID: cagesofficial

Website: https://cages.cn