FV E-Sports Club.
Wu Yue, who had just received the news, was fuming speechlessly.
“Is there a need for the official platform to do this? Our FV Club’s participation quota was given by the official platform. Our first seat was obtained based on our own capabilities. In the end, there are a total of three teams. The other two teams were arranged to go to Los Angeles for training, but there was no news for us?”
“You really don’t treat us as your own?”
“Just because you have some conflict with Boss Pei, you’re messing with people’s mindsets?”
These E-Sports clubs were all well-informed. FV E-Sports Club quickly received news that the other two teams from Long Yu Corporation would be going to Los Angeles to train in advance and had already applied for urgent visas. It was said that Long Yu Corporation would cover all of the accommodation fees in Los Angeles this time. They would even pull strings to help arrange for teams from Europe and America to compete in mock competitions.
In the end, all of this information was obtained through other channels. Long Yu Corporation had no intention of informing the FV Club at all. They did not even bother to explain hypocritically!
That could only mean one thing: Long Yu Corporation deliberately did not want to bring FV Club along to Los Angeles.
Manager Lu quickly tried to persuade him. “Boss Wu, please calm down. This is indeed too much, but we don’t have a good solution.”
“Long Yu Corporation must have organized the mock competition in Los Angeles in advance. It’s not part of the international competition process organized by Finger Games.
“Therefore, it can also be said that it’s not Long Yu Corporation’s duty to bring us along. They can bring whoever they want with their own money. Many teams in other zones would not enjoy such treatment either.”
“This is discrimination! It’s preferential treatment! We should appeal or just post it on Weibo and let everyone see the true colors of the Long Yu Corporation!” Wu Yue exclaimed.
Manager Lu quickly shook his head. “Boss Wu, that’s not appropriate!”
“Long Yu Corporation did not publicize this matter in an official capacity. If we expose it, Long Yu Corporation can immediately say that it was a spontaneous act by the other clubs. Long Yu Corporation is only responsible for connecting the dots and playing a small role. That’s because the truth of this matter is very easy to cover up. If we are to start an attack rashly it would be very easy to cover up as long as Long Yu Corporation plays Tai Chi with us. It would instead make us seem petty and narrow-minded.”
“As for making a complaint, that would be even more useless. Wouldn’t that be equivalent to ‘who would sue me’?”
“What’s more, at the end of the day, results speak for E-Sports. What if we are to blow this matter up on the internet but we don’t play well in the international competition? At that time, public opinion would definitely backfire and we wouldn’t be able to justify ourselves.”
“Just think about it. What would netizens say when we lose the World Competition: Such a lousy team still has the cheek to ask the officials for money to go to Los Angeles to attend mock competitions? They should have just given up their spots to the SUG initially then!”
“In any case, as long as we lose, the tempo would definitely skyrocket. We can’t ignore the consequences now.”
Wu Yue’s face darkened as he nodded. “Yes, it looks like Zhao Xuming knew this well. He thought that we would not be able to get anything out of it even if we revealed it. That’s why he acted so brazenly. He wanted to make an example out of us and teach Tengda a lesson.”
“Then… We can only suffer in silence? Long Yu Corporation did such a disgusting thing and we can’t even say anything?”
Manager Lu thought for a while. “Of course we can, but not now.”
“Only an idiot would jump out to attack before the results of the competition are out. On one hand, it would increase the pressure of public opinion on our own team members and affect our performance. On the other hand, if we are to lose the competition, the other party would take the opportunity to hit us while we’re down and the bystanders would not stand on our side. That would really be digging their own graves.”
“The best way is to settle accounts after the game. If we win the competition, we can make use of the momentum of the victory to clarify all of these things. The best option would be to attack with the wind on our side.”
“Therefore, the best choice for us now is to endure the humiliation and bear the heavy burden. Try not to let this matter affect the mentality of our own players and actively prepare for war. Once we achieve good results in the international competition, we can use the pressure of public opinion to fight back against Long Yu Corporation.”
“As long as we do better than the other two clubs, we will have a voice even if we don’t win first or second place.”
“At that time, we can say that the official preferential treatment caused the results of the entire competition zone to be bad. If we get the same treatment, our results might even be better. We should wait.”
“In short, everything depends on results. Without results, everything would be useless.”
Wu Yue was silent for a moment before he sighed softly. “That’s difficult!”
“Our current lineup might look good on paper, but judging from the qualifiers, our strength is only about the same as the other two teams. What’s more, we’re basking in the glory of the competition schedule. Who knows, we might not be able to beat them if we play another round.”
“The benefits of going to Los Angeles to train are obvious.They’ll be able to meet the stronger European and American teams and adapt to the game better, they’ll definitely improve in Los Angeles.”
“We can’t just rely on our imagination if we want to defeat them.”
Manager Lu nodded, feeling that the situation was indeed dire.
E-Sports could not be won with determination and perseverance alone. It also required scientific training methods and good facilities.
Many players were extremely talented, but they could not achieve results in certain clubs. This was often because the management of the clubs was not good, the training methods were wrong, and the facilities could not keep up.
Wu Yue asked, “Should we go to Los Angeles as well?”
Manager Lu was silent for a moment. “Long Yu Corporation organized for them to go to Los Angeles because they could get in touch with Finger Games. Once they get there, they can get high-end accounts for European and American servers. They could use their official identity to get veteran European and American teams for the training tournament. Looking at Long Yu Corporation’s attitude towards us, we definitely won’t have these things even if we pay out of our own pockets!”
“We can’t possibly travel all the way to Los Angeles, for our team members just to play Rank in the lower parts of the European and American servers all day long, right? Wouldn’t that make them worse?”
“What’s more, we have a large group of people. Our expenses are huge as well. We have to take care of our own meals and accommodation in advance. We have to give our team members good food. On top of that, we have to include our entourage… Based on the calculation of eight people, we would need at least 200,000 yuan. If we consider the training situation and bring our second team over, we would have to double the amount.”
“Of course, our club can afford it. The problem is that even if we spend money, we might not be able to guarantee the effect of the training. The price-quality ratio is too poor.”
Wu Yue pondered for a moment. That was indeed the case.
Long Yu Corporation had organized the other two teams to go to Los Angeles for training because they had high-end game accounts and could meet the teams from Europe and the United States for training competitions. If they did not, there was no need to spend hundreds of thousands just to adapt to the environment.
After much consideration, Wu Yue said, “It doesn’t seem appropriate to disturb Boss Pei over such a small matter. How about this? I’ll give a call to Boss Zhang from Tengda’s E-Sports Industry Department and ask him to give us some advice.”
“If there’s really no need, we won’t go. We’ll stay in China and play mock competition with the local teams. We’ll arrange for the other training competitions during the international competition.”
…
…
December 17th, Saturday…
There was a routine meeting for the Manage Loss Trainees today.
The Lunar New Year this year was relatively early. It was January 23rd, so the examination week was slightly earlier. The Manage Loss Trainees spent a lot of time revising while working.
There was not much information to pay attention to at the Management Loss Ceremony this time. After all, most of the products were still in the final stages of research and development. Even products such as Fully-Automated Smart Bickering Machine had not shown any signs of backstabbing. Naturally, there was not much useful information here.
Pei Qian knew very well that a tough battle would start next month.
In the end, the settlement cycle happened to coincide with the examination week. He had to admit that this feeling was very sour.
Whether or not he could beat Old Ma in this exam depended on his hard work before the exam.
The Manage Loss Trainees reported the situation of their respective departments as usual. Soon, it was the Manage Loss Trainee from the eSports Division’s turn.
This Management Loss student had been following Zhang Yuan. He was originally in charge of the DGE Club, but after forming the E-Sports Faculty and the GPL league, he naturally entered the internal circle. At the moment, no matter if it was DGE Club or other clubs, or even the entire E-Sports Club, nothing could escape his eyes.
“The pre-season GPL competition is about to enter the latter half of the competition. Everything is going smoothly at the moment. We have coincidentally encountered some bugs in the game and the equipment problems but they have been resolved. That should be able to accumulate a lot of experience for the spring competition.”
“Currently, the main forces of the various clubs in GPL have basically been fixed. Those teams that did not participate in the GPL season’s pre-season competitions are also playing training competitions and actively preparing for the spring competition.”
“The new members of DGE Club have been wiped out. They might be slightly weaker than the first batch of members but they are talented after all. They have also undergone special training from the older members. Thus, they are still the main force in each new team…”
Pei Qian’s hand that was holding the teacup trembled.
He might have been mentally prepared for this but his heart still trembled when he heard the news.
Ten more players. How much would that sell for?!
This group of players was the second group after Huang Wang, Jiang Huan, and the others. They were still selling very well. The transfer fee was enough to make Boss Pei suffer.
There was a reason why DGE’s players were selling well.
First of all, DGE Club had a good reputation. Newbies with potential tended to come to the DGE Club to raise their value. The other clubs also felt that the players from DGE Club would not lose out, so they bought them rather straightforwardly.
Newbies with real potential were all willing to join DGE Club because once they achieved results, they could immediately jump to other clubs to get big contracts. DGE would never do anything fishy with the contract. Newbies had a greater sense of security. On the other hand, for other clubs, DGE Club would not directly participate in the competition. It would not pose a threat to their own results. Instead, it would help train members. Thus, they were happy to buy people from DGE.
The older members who left DGE would come back every now and then to give pointers to the new members of DGE. As time went by, “every member of DGE would be able to hold their own” became the impression that the entire league’s audience and club had. DGE’s operations entered a virtuous cycle.
Thus, the new members of DGE were like a bunch of leeks. Every once in a while, they would be sold off and realize a considerable transfer fee for DGE.
Pei Qian was helpless about this.
He pretended to sip his tea calmly and asked, “So, how much is the transfer fee?”
The Manage Loss Trainee said, “The performance of each of the ten players are different. Some of the C-rank players who are good at operations or have the ability to command are more valuable. The highest transfer fee is more than 1.5 million yuan. If they were ordinary, they would probably only fetch seven to eight hundred thousand yuan or about one million yuan. All of these players added together were probably sold for 13 million yuan.”
Pei Qian: “…”
He almost cursed out loud.
This number had exceeded his expectations!
Before this, Huang Wang, Jiang Huan, and the others’ transfer fees were about two million yuan. That was why Pei Qian thought that one million yuan each would be the maximum for these young players.
However, that was obviously not the case!
At the beginning, Huang Wang and Jiang Huan’s transfer fees were a little too high. After all, the various clubs were aiming for GOG’s international invitational competition results to increase their bonuses and exposure.
However, as GOG’s global market share increased, GOG’s international invitational tournament became successful, and the GPL league became more popular…
After this series of operations, the net worth of star players like Huang Wang and Jiang Huan also increased rapidly as more and more capital entered!
Their transfer fee was no longer two million yuan.
As the value of the top players increased, the value of DGE Club’s second batch of potential rookies would naturally increase as well.
Ten people might not seem like a lot, but the transfer fee added up to thirteen million yuan.
What made Pei Qian feel like vomiting blood was not this number but time!
Boss Pei was someone who had seen much of the world after all. He had already invested hundreds of millions of yuan into the company several times, let alone ten million yuan.
In any case, it would not end up in his hands. It was just a figure.
The key was how much time he had spent earning those ten million yuan!
This group of players entered some time in September. It was December now. They had only trained for three months and yet they had sold them for 13 million yuan!
Based on this calculation, the DGE Club earned about four million yuan a month on average. It was a piece of cake.
Not to mention DGE Club’s commercial sponsorship and live-stream contract!
On the other hand, the daily expenses of DGE Club were not much. The training base was rented from Boss Li, and Manager Cui of Ming Yun Villas who wanted to treat Boss Pei like their own father. The rent, utilities, and other daily expenses did not cost much.
The only place to spend money was probably the daily expenses such as meals and fitness.
However, how much money could be spent since they were taken care of by Fish-Catching Take-Out and Deposit Fitnes?
Pei Qian was exhausted.
Other people would burn money if they opened a club. His original intention for opening a club was also to burn money. Yet it became profitable in the end!
A club that specialized in buying and selling players to make money, a club that could not compete but was even more famous than the champions, just thinking about it was ridiculous.
It was said that DGE Club would earn over ten million yuan if they groomed them well. However, the problem was that these players were good seedlings!
That was because all the potential newbies were trying their best to enter the DGE Club. They treated this place as their first choice. Thus, any random trainee would be considered newbies with potential.
It was just like many super secondary schools. The best students around applied, would their results be bad?
Pei Qian sipped his tea quietly to adjust his mentality. “Continue.”
The Manage Loss Manager continued, “At the moment, many clubs have already received sponsorships. The numbers are different and they cannot rely on sponsors to maintain the operations of the clubs for the time being, but this is a good start.”
“Some teams’ uniforms should have the logo of sponsors before the Spring Competition begins. It’s not good to have too many sponsors, it’s not good to have no sponsors at all. It would make the audience feel that the popularity of the league is not enough.”
Pei Qian nodded slightly. If the sponsors want to give money to the club, just do it. It has nothing to do with me.
The Manage Loss Trainee changed the topic and said, “In addition, many sponsors have expressed strong interest in the exclusive title sponsorship of the GPL, including computer manufacturers, external manufacturers, sports clothing, digital products, cars, and other manufacturers.”
“However, the specific price has not been finalized. We are still in negotiations.”
“At the moment, the exclusive partnership price for a single type of business is about five million yuan a year. The exclusive title sponsorship price is about 20 million yuan a year. We are still discussing it because it involves some details in the sponsorship.”
“As for the live-streaming platform, the rights to broadcast the GPL’s Spring and Summer Competition will be given to three live-streaming platforms. The starting price is 10 million yuan, and the current bidding price should be above 12 million yuan…”
“All these are still being negotiated. Boss Zhang is also summarizing all sorts of information. He should be reporting it soon.”
Pei Qian felt his limbs turn cold as he listened to the figures. His mind went blank.
He had thought that it was bad news for DGE Club to be selling people like crazy. Now, he realized that the real bad news was yet to come!
Recently, Pei Qian’s attention had been completely focused on the IOI Qualifiers and the Cold-Faced Lady. He had not paid much attention to the GPL. He had not expected the situation to be so serious!
In fact, he should have thought of this earlier. With so many sponsors looking for teams to work with, there would definitely be more people looking for official partnerships!
At the moment, there were different levels of sponsorship for the GPL league.
A single type of exclusive collaboration meant that a certain brand would monopolize a certain type of product after sponsoring it. For example, if a certain sportswear signed an exclusive collaboration with the GPL, then the GPL would no longer collaborate with other sportswear in the future.
Of course, this did not affect them from looking for computers, cars, digital products, and other manufacturers to work with.
As for the exclusive title sponsorship, it could also be regarded as the chief sponsor. That meant that the official platform would have the best recommendation resources. Naturally, the price would be the highest.
As for the live-streaming platform, the competition was even more intense. All the major live-streaming platforms were burning money at the moment. If they could not obtain the GPL broadcasting rights, they would give their users the feeling that this platform was not very good. Thus, the bidding price was very high.
Speaking of which, this amount could not be compared to the hundreds of millions of yuan sponsorship fees that Pei Qian remembered.
But the problem was, how was that even possible at this juncture?
GOG had only been created less than a year ago, and the country had not recognized E-Sports at all. To be able to get such a high sponsorship fee was already ridiculous to Pei Qian!
However, on further thought, this made sense.
Due to the popularity of the GOG World Finals, everyone could see the huge potential of the E-Sports competition. On top of that, the GPL was so well done that there were almost no competitors.
What’s more, Shenhua and the other big companies had entered the scene one after another. News of the sky-high prices of GPL spots had been constantly stirring the audiences’ senses. When the sponsors saw the advertising effect brought about by the huge popularity and compared it to the price of traditional sports, they felt that it was very worth it and naturally entered the scene.
Pei Qian silently calculated in his heart that the GPL would most likely be able to earn hundreds of millions of yuan through various sponsors and broadcasting rights for the spring and summer competitions.
The good news was that hundreds of millions of yuan would be earned throughout the year. It would be easier to accept if the money was distributed every month.
The bad news was that the sponsorship fees would be higher next year.
After some consideration, Pei Qian realized that he could not push the money away.
Since that was the case, he had to let Zhang Yuan know that the sponsors had to pay in installments and distribute the money each month. He could not transfer all of the money at once, especially not at the critical juncture before settlement.
Otherwise, Boss Pei would die on the spot.
“Is there anything else?” Pei Qian felt a little tired.
The Manage Loss Manager pondered for a moment. “Oh, there’s another small matter. It’s about FV Club. I heard that Long Yu Corporation has arranged for domestic teams to train in Los Angeles, but they left FV team behind…”
Wu Yue called Zhang Yuan to discuss this matter. The Manage Loss Trainee knew about it since there was no need to keep it a secret.
Pei Qian’s eyes lit up when he heard that.
How could this be a small matter?
Spending money was no small matter!
This Wu Yue and Zhang Yuan, both of them should be severely criticized! Why didn’t they report this to me immediately? What were they thinking?
Long Yu Corporation had brought two teams to Los Angeles, leaving only FV Club behind?
That’s great!
This is giving me a very precious opportunity to spend money!
If they brought more people and set the highest food and accommodation standards that the system allowed… That would probably cost a lot according to Los Angeles’ expenses!
After hearing so much bad news, he finally had good news.
Pei Qian called Wu Yue immediately after the Manage Loss Trainee meeting ended.
…
At FV Club, Wu Yue was feeling conflicted about team training. He quickly picked up the call when he saw that it was from Boss Pei.
“Hello? Boss Pei, what’s the matter?” Wu Yue asked.
Boss Pei seemed unhappy. “Why didn’t you tell me about the other clubs going to Los Angeles?”
Wu Yue was stunned for a moment before he quickly explained, “Oh, Boss Pei, you don’t have to worry about such a small matter. I can handle it.”
Pei Qian: “What can you do? Can you make the decision to arrange first-class tickets and five-star hotels for all the team members, or can you find opponents for the team to train?”
Wu Yue: “I…”
He thought about it and realized that he really could not. He might have enough money on FV Club’s accounts but it was really difficult for him to make the decision to spend hundreds of thousands of yuan to get to Los Angeles in advance.
Pei Qian said, “There’s no need to think about this anymore. Get everyone an urgent visa immediately! How many people are there in FV Club?”
Wu Yue pondered for a moment. “Team One has five members, Team Two has five as well. In addition, Manager Lu, the rest of the team staff, and so on…”
“Ah, but we don’t need so many people. We can just get Team One and Manager Lu to go. Three rooms would be enough for six people.”
Pei Qian was very unhappy after hearing that. “How can you only have six people?”
“As the saying goes, the provisions and fodder move before the troops. How can we fight if the logistics and supplies can’t keep up?”
“You are not familiar with Los Angeles so you have to find a translator and a local tour guide who is familiar with the place. You have to have someone make arrangements for meals and accommodations.”
“We can’t be sloppy when it comes to food. Go over there and check if there are any Chinese cuisines with better flavors. Make sure that there are no problems with the team members’ daily diet and that nothing affects their physical condition.”
“We’ll hire four more bodyguards. I heard that security in the United States is not good. We have to ensure the safety of our team members.”
“Bring a team of sparring partners… I think SUG is not bad. How about this, I’ll fork out money to bring the team members from the SUG along with you.”
“How about this, a total of 30 people. We’ll budget 3,000 yuan per person per day for food and accommodations alone until the end of the competition. That would be about five weeks, right?”
“Just the food and accommodation standards alone cost 3.15 million yuan. Yes, when you arrive in Los Angeles, you might have to do some shopping, buy some local specialties, some cheap digital products, and so on. On top of that, you might also have to pay for a tour guide and a bodyguard, and consider some possible emergencies…”
“Let’s round it up to four million yuan.”
Wu Yue was flabbergasted.
Spending four million yuan on a trip to Los Angeles?
The entire FV Club was not worth that much money!
Wu Yue quickly said, “Boss Pei, there’s no need for that, right? Finger Games will provide food and accommodation after the main competition starts. That’s why the money we really need to spend is just a return flight.”
“Even if we go a week earlier, we don’t need to pay 3,000 yuan per person to take care of our food and accommodation. We can stay at a decent hotel with a double room near the venue for less than 1,000 yuan.”
“The accommodation arranged by Finger Games is better, but a double room only costs 200 US dollars a night. That’s about 1,400 yuan…”
Pei Qian did not like hearing that.
What do you mean? You don’t want me to spend money?
According to your minimum requirement, six people will stay in standard rooms costing 1,000 yuan a night, moreover, we are only going to pay for the first week?
It will be impossible to spend much!
Pei Qian immediately interrupted Wu Yue. “Must we use the accommodations arranged by Finger Games for us? What if Finger Games’ accommodation cannot meet our requirements?”
“Do you think you can shoulder the responsibility of having your team members meeting problems after traveling all the way to foreign countries to compete? As the saying goes, prepare for a rainy day. It’s quite worth it to spend some money to eliminate these hidden dangers!”
“Do as I say. I’ll transfer the money over soon.”
Pei Qian hung up.
Wu Yue looked at the screen of his cell phone that had been hung up and fell into a daze.
30 people?
FV Club’s Team One, Team Two, and the five main players of the SUG only consisted of 15 people.
Where could he find 30 people?
