Li Ning Acquires the League of Legends Snake Team

2018 is the age of e-sports.

Earlier, the Ministry of Education set up an e-sports major and e-sports for the Asian Games. At the end of the year, iG won the championship and accelerated the e-sports circle and capitalization. From the policy, capital to the industrial chain level, this “seemingly less serious” industry is experiencing a massive increase in scale.

According to Whale's data, the size of China's e-sports game market reached 76.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46%. There were more than 70 financing incidents in the industry throughout the year, and many companies such as B Station and Jingdong also participated in the wave of acquisitions of e-sports clubs.

Recently, Li Ning acquired the Snake Club, a member of the LPL Alliance. It learned that Li Qilin, who led the acquisition, is an executive director of Li Ning, an extraordinary Chinese sports CEO, and a nephew of Li Ning. The cash portion of the acquisition involves several hundred million yuan. The team has been officially reviewed by the LPL and has permanent league seats with a total of 19 teams. The expected investment is tens of millions of yuan per year.

Extraordinary Chinese sports are mainly engaged in sports event operators and sports brokerage businesses, and are subsidiaries of extraordinary China. It is not the case that China holds Li Ning's shares at the same time.

Prior to the acquisition of Snake, Li Ning once tested the industry through sponsorship and other forms. Li Qilin revealed that the previous team's cooperative clothing was sold out in 7 minutes, and the store sales increased by 6 times, which enhanced their confidence in entering the e-sports industry to a certain extent.

Why did Li Ning open up new fronts outside traditional sports events?

Overall, the market is on the eve of the outbreak, the population base is large, and the threshold is relatively high is a few core factors. From the traditional events to the experience of electric competitions, the continuity of industrial resources, etc., is Li Ning's advantage.

Li Qilin told 36 that extraordinary Chinese sports are mainly engaged in sports related industry management. He started to pay attention to electric competition two years ago. "The 2018 LPL audience has surpassed the NBA. From the perspective of the next generation crowds, e-sports will Opportunity will become the mainstream of the mainstream sports related interest in the future. LPL itself is also very good content, there are many online and offline combinations, as well as entertainment forms of upgrade play, such as AR, holographic projection, etc. Unlike casual games, League of Legends The difficulty of the game's operation is relatively high, and the talents and hard training of the players are indispensable. This is highly compatible with traditional sports and also enhances the competitive viewing of the event."

Embracing e-sports is also the extension of Li Ning, the extraordinary Chinese sports around the horizontal competition of sports events, and the next growth point of reserves.

Extraordinary Chinese sports in the field of basketball, table tennis, badminton, marathon and other events are also running in the same period. Li Qilin said, “Li Ning Group has been doing sports and fitness products for nearly 30 years. The insight into consumers is a long-term basic skill – user preferences are closely related to derivatives and events. We have to comply with consumers, especially the next generation. The consumption logic of the crowd fills its portfolio with recent and long-term investments."

Although the surface form of e-sports and traditional sports events is different, the structure of the industrial chain is compatible and related.

Li Ning Group, the extraordinary market resources of China Sports in the sports industry, the talent reserve of the Olympic champion level, the training camp and training system, the operation of various events, the operation of venues, and the production and sales channels of professional sports equipment, etc. Resources and experience in e-sports. According to Li Qilin, the Olympic champion and the top national coaches have begun to introduce psychological training and rehabilitation training for Snake.

In particular, the "professional experience" of the e-sports industry, due to the beginning, the industrial experience in traditional sports competition has certain reference value. Li Qilin believes that professionalism not only means full-time competitions, but also that there must be a professional training system and screening mechanism suitable for the national conditions, and there are other career channels for those who have not become e-sports players after retirement.

We can find that in addition to game development, content production and supervision, Li Ning's business and resources can be matched to almost every link.

Li Qilin mentioned, “Now there are many popular head sports events on the market, but there is still a lot of commercial potential worth developing.

As for the commercial value of the event, Li Qilin believes that there are three main factors that influence the public participation, the degree of internationalization of the sport, and the openness of the event alliance ecology.

“The first two points determine the threshold of commercial value, and the third point determines the upper limit of commercial potential. Ecological openness, it is necessary to take into account the interests of all parties, athletes, coaches, sports brands, etc., and the rules that match them, The way of participating in the competition, the way of distributing benefits (the elements of the production relationship level), this is why we are optimistic about LPL."

It is not difficult to feel that Li Ning is getting younger and younger.

In addition to e-sports, there have been many new attempts around the sports industry and the big health industry. Bringing China's Li Ning and Enlightenment ACE series to New York and Paris Fashion Week, they set off the banner of "national tide rejuvenation". In the face of the aging of the brand, how to be new with the proposition, Li Qilin said that only four words are unchanged - such as walking on thin ice, keeping observation and being sensitive to new things, adjusting strategies at any time.

However, once we start embracing young people and taking the trend, it means that supply chain efficiency, response from the back end to the front end must be accelerated, and the new product development cycle is shorter. Li Qilin told 36 氪 that the company has made a lot of adjustments.

“By relying on the words “China Li Ning” can support the annual sales of tens of billions of dollars? The design alone is definitely not good, the industry needs coordination, and the product team holds the consumer behavior analysis data to communicate with the designers. Design must also consider whether mass production can be scaled up.

At the company level, we must consider more, how to shorten the supply chain and increase the consumer experience without increasing the cost. Can every profit be rolled to the next product development and marketing after selling one product?" Say.

Innovation is by no means a one-off. This is also the catwalk, the selling, and the rapid growth of performance (in the first half of 2018, Li Ning Group's revenue reached 4.713 billion yuan, up 17.9% year-on-year, the fastest growth rate since 2010). Li Ning is step-by-step and continuous. Micro innovation.

In the future, around the sports industry and the big health Footaction Promotion Codes industry, Li Ning will have more new moves. Next year, Li Qilin will also focus on the improvement of the Snake team's performance, as well as the comprehensive level of e-sports related business linkages, business performance and other attempts.