Millennials Are Playing Games At Home. Why Do Sports Brands Enter The Electric Market?

Esports -- E-sports is a hot word that has just emerged in China in recent years.

In November 3rd last year, iG, the famous E-sports Club of China, defeated 3:0, Europe's first seed team FNC, in Inchon, Korea. It became the world champion of the League of heroes.

Nowadays E-sports have become an indispensable and very important part in the life of the global and Chinese Millennials.

The millennial generation that coincided with the formation and development of Internet computer science during its growth period has already been separated from computers and the Internet.

With the rapid development of game technology, e-Gaming and the e-sports derived from it have become the best outlet for this generation.

Even at the moment when the call for competition to enter the Olympic Games has intensified, the International Olympic Committee has not recognized that it is a "real" sport.

But now the major sports brands overseas and China have already started the layout in the field of electric competition. Just last week, Nike China and League of Legends Pro League (hereinafter referred to as LPL) jointly announced the establishment of a long-term cooperative partnership. From the start of the LPL season in 2019 to a total of four years in 2022, Nike will become the official exclusive clothing and footwear partner of LPL.

Why are the major brands interested in the lack of physical activity and the need for "home" to perform mental exercise in front of the computer without obtaining "legal status"? What is the attraction of E-sports to sports brands?

The prospect of E-sports being "certified"

Although the major sports brands are now frequently involved in various cross border businesses in the non sports industry, the greatest attraction of E-sports to brands is their potential or the status of "Sports" recognized by millennial consumers.

At present, apart from professional sports organizations such as International Olympic Committee, which do not give "legal status" to electric games, most of the time, this mental exercise has been identified as chess and bridge, which is no different from "real" sports.

From the point of view of participants and enthusiasts of the project, taking the League of heroes as an example, there is a high demand for teamwork in addition to the game's requirements for the operation of the players.

Being a top professional player or veteran player needs constant practice from the angle of teamwork.

Just from this point of view, the competition has been similar to many team sports events.

In theory, electronic competition is a combination of "Electronics" and "Athletics".

It not only has the nature of antagonism and athletics of traditional sports, but also relies on the carrier of new electronic.

In essence, it is different from "online games". For e-players and enthusiasts, winning E-sports is like winning the Olympic Games.

And it needs the coordination of competitors' reaction, thinking, mind and body.

If such a split is taken, the proportion of athletic parts is quite large.

It seems that, though last year's seventh Olympic summit in 12, International Olympic Committee decided that it would be premature to discuss the introduction of electric games to the Olympic Games.

But this problem can not be permanently shelved.

The Olympic Committee will not ignore the huge demand of players and enthusiasts.

At least in last year's 4 month, the Asian Olympic Council officially announced that the competition will be listed as the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou. Whether it will appear in the official stadium after 4, though it has not been confirmed yet, this is already a big step toward the mainstream.

It does not pay attention to the project if it is only based on the reason that the "competition is too violent and violates the spirit of sports".

Then the final game will solve this problem thoroughly from the technical level.

The competition and its projects are almost all born in the third industrial revolution of mankind. From this overall trend, the recognition and acceptance of electric games is irreversible, which may only be realized in a generation.

Advance layout of the brand ahead of time

Sports brands, which rely on sports as a profit point, are obviously more sensitive and long-term than most sports lovers and consumers. In this case, the early layout is very important when the decision makers of the brand decide.

In addition, the major financial institutions and investment banks are equally optimistic about this industry, and the capital that chasing interest may have already been unable to bear.

The 2018 sports industry report released by PWC shows that E-sports instead of football has become the most potential growth potential. It is also the only item that all sports industry leaders agree to need to focus on.

This is only a look at the past year, and the cooperation between the field of domestic competition and sports brand will start to see.

In June last year, Under Aromur and KPL "King glory" professional league reached a cooperation, began to sell the theme of the T-Shirt, KPL also spare no effort to invite the boss and other large traffic players for the UA platform.

In October of the same year, when S8 (2018 League of Heroes) global finals, Lining and LPL EDG club in China reached a cooperation and became the S8 official partner of the latter.

Just as Lining's brand spirit, the two sides set the slogan as "China Lining & China EDG". When the news came out, the young players and fans of China were praised.

Immediately after several days of cooperation between Lining and EDG, the Nike, the well deserved player in the sports brand, also came to the world's first competitor, Uzi, another champion of RNG. He then took part in the commercial broadcast by Nike for Lebron James products. At that time, Nike even sold the "DRIBBLE &CARRY" exclusive T-Shirt, and the team was also wearing 16 war boots.

Those who can enjoy this level of treatment in Nike's commercial activities are often the top athletes in other traditional sports events.

Although Nike does not explicitly say that Uzi has become the spokesperson of the brand, Nike, who has never signed a contract with a non professional athlete, has begun to test the water and cooperate with the competitors. It has already been able to feel that the brand is full of interest in the field of electronic competition. Once the competition is finally recognized by the Olympic Committee as a well established sport, then the product of the competitor's endorsement of Nike will probably be realized.

All kinds of actions of the brand show that the battle for competing electric industry cake is already in the layout.

Government support has provided green lights for sports brands.

There is another important reason why brands are involved in the field of competition in the light of certain risks.

The real development of the competition industry came from the turning point of the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

In South Korea, the Korean won depreciated, GDP reversed and the stock market plummeted. In order to readjust the industrial structure, South Korea increased the proportion of TV, animation and game industry in the national economy.

Unexpectedly, with the support of the government, the e-sports industry is developing rapidly.

The release of StarCraft in 1998 coincided with the economic crisis. The unemployment rate was high and morale was low.

South Korean broadcasters understand this phenomenon, taking into account the audience and cost scale, and other factors, making the game game program, thus excavating the huge potential of the electric industry industry.

I don't think this chance has made Korean electric industry. After all, so far, no country has perfected the competitive industry chain.

It is not surprising that the overall level of E-sports in Korea is ranked first in the world.

By now, more and more games can be divided into e-sports, and the impact on the lives of young people in every country is increasing.

Governments have given support to this project after the assessment, thus issuing a series of industrial support policies.

In 2016, the national development and Reform Commission of China clearly pointed out that under the premise of good protection of intellectual property rights and guidance for young people, enterprises should be the main body to organize national or international E-sports games.

The sports industry development "13th Five-Year plan" issued by the State General Administration of sport of China states: "focusing on sports events such as ice and snow, mountain outdoors, water, automobile and motorcycle, aviation and electric sports, and so on, we will guide the development of fitness and leisure projects with consumption guidance.

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In 2016, China's Ministry of Education announced the catalogue of Higher Vocational Education (specialty) in higher education institutions. The 13 specialties included in the catalogue include "E-sports and management", which belongs to "sports category". Eligible schools can officially recruit students from 2017.

This policy has opened up a channel for the training of professional talents in electric power industry. Obviously, based on such a judgement, the competition industry will expand rapidly, and all kinds of competitive talents are needed urgently, which could not be imagined ten years ago.

With the final match of the 2018 heroes League finals, China's iG team won the championship by beating FNC in 3:0.

The development prospect of this industry in China has become very bright. Whether the government or private capital has already tasted the sweetness in this field, with the support of the government, the expansion of the competition industry is obvious.

Just looking at the layout of the major sports brands in China's electric industry is easy to reminiscent of Nike's entry into China in 90s. The first thing that Nike did was to help Chinese Basketball Development -- holding grassroots basketball competitions, promoting street basketball culture, sponsoring high-level competitions, helping to create basketball stars, bringing NBA stars to China, etc. under such a marketing strategy, basketball became one of the highest public participation projects in China, and the "hook" on the pitch began to rise. Even once, Nike became a synonym for basketball.

Now Nike's decision is undoubtedly correct.

Let's look at the field of E-sports. The environment in China is better than that in the Nike era. When the stage is ready, all kinds of roles need to be put on the stage.

And this time, other brands certainly do not want to let Nike seize the initiative, so they will frequently launch.

The Nike basketball case model with the era label didn't even need to be copied completely.

In the development of incomplete or just emerging projects such as electric games, as long as we grasp the same era conditions, the glory of Nike basketball in China may not be impossible to reproduce.

The future and income potential of E-sports

The global E-sports audience will grow to 453 million 800 thousand in 2019, an increase of 15% over the same period last year.

This part of the audience will include 201 million 200 thousand E-sports enthusiasts (year-on-year growth of 16.3%) and 252 million 600 thousand temporary audiences (up 14% over the same period).

With the maturity of the e-sports market and the increase in the number of local activities, alliances and media rights pactions, we expect that the average revenue per fan will increase to US $6.02 by 2022.

According to the current development trajectory, the e-sports market will reach US $1 billion 800 million by 2022.

If any of these factors accelerate, the more optimistic scenario is the income of 32 billion.

In short, all kinds of authoritative data and analytical institutions, as well as the market, governments and consumers, are all optimistic about the prospect of the competition industry. I am afraid that the current known digital assessment of this competition industry is very conservative. Sustained blowout development may make the market reach an astronomical magnitude that can not be imagined.

The social attributes brought by the competition may be the ultimate goal of the brand.

In 2017, Newzoo, a global gaming market intelligence company, pointed out that the global game market report released by its subscribers pointed out that consumers are willing to spend more time in E-sports than ever before. This is especially true for the millennial generation.

This is because E-sports gradually cater to the growing interest, including active participation (serious or mild game playing), watching behavior (watching content created by peers or by professional game scenarios), creating content and sharing (on-demand or live broadcast).

Obviously, the term "gamer" can not fully cover all the behaviors of E-sports entertainment consumers. "E-sports enthusiasts" will be a more comprehensive term.

For young people, the Internet enables E-sports to create life experiences that can be shared or even shared by people of different identities and backgrounds. This is social experience, an experience that can be shared.

Such a common experience is quite difficult to achieve without E-sports.

Friends who haven't met for a long time can also reconnect with E-sports and know more new friends because of E-sports.

The social significance of E-sports has long gone beyond the e-sports itself. Watching the live broadcast or video of E-sports together, cheering and crying for the same team is the social experience brought by E-sports.

Those who are now regarded as the idols in the eyes of the competition fans, all of them are from the grass roots. They are also the first generation or the two generation of the second generation of professional athletes.

The gap between them and the huge competition fans is very small.

Last week, LPL and Nike announced the official launch of the official partnership. HYPEBEAST also interviewed MLXG, the famous RNG of the Royal electronic sports club in China. When asked about the most memorable pair of Nike shoes in his mind, he also gave his answer:

"The most memorable Nike shoe in my mind is Air Jordan 1, which I like very much.

RNG team MLXG

Another famous professional electric competitor, Clearlove of the EDG team, was asked what professional sports equipment he wanted as a professional competitive athlete.

"I hope that the appearance of the sports equipment for our professional competitors will be cool enough. At the same time, we have very frequent fingers in the competition, so it is very important for us to keep our fingers flexible.

If I can satisfy these two points, I think that's enough.

EDG team Clearlove

It is not difficult to see that these professional players who have certain influence or even the ability to carry goods, though they do not know much about all kinds of products launched by the sports brand, are actually the most basic and the most massive consumers. They can understand the real needs of most consumers through the entry into the electricity industry, and even train them to become senior Sneakerhead and sports fans.

In addition to being closer to the consumers of the millennial generation, they are sticky with the brand.

The high exposure of the competition industry has also become the best means of publicity for the brand.

On November 2017 4, the Seventh World Finals of the League of Heroes (S7) came to a close. On a social platform such as micro-blog, the topic of S7 competition was over 8 billion, live watching 110 million times, short games playing 6.5 billion times, more than 120 hot words on micro-blog hot search, competition quiz and voting products taking part in over 5 million times.

Data show that 9 million 600 thousand of the 80 million basketball spectators in the United States also watch the competition. With the participation of basketball stars such as NBA celebrities Shaquille O'Neal into the competition industry, maybe more basketball spectators will become fans in the future. This trend has also accelerated the pace of the traditional sports clubs to enter the competition industry.

Nowadays, a large electric competition may attract 4 people to watch the games on site, and tens of millions of people will watch the live webcast.

If the audience size of a single match is measured, the market is even bigger than basketball.

Such an exposure platform, even the propaganda without virus, can give the brand crazy chase.

Take the EDG team to work with Lining as an example. The EDG team also has LPL professional certificate number 001, the oldest qualified player Clearlove today, and the two star players of the Chinese team of the Asian Games Chinese team. The number of fans is very large. Even if it is normal in daily life, a lot of topics can be generated in social media.

Therefore, for their partner Lining, EDG, representing China's World Championships, is worthy of the original choice no matter from performance or traffic volume.

Lining has taken three familiar and effective ways of publicity and promotion after EDG's official cooperation.

1 the two sides micro-blog as the main channel to expose the cooperation.

2 the players wear the logo of "China Lining" in the competition suit, and wear Lining's dress and shoes in public places.

3 the two sides jointly take video programs, which are EDG Abu explaining the vision of S8 and reviewing the past Asian Games, which focuses on displaying Lining products.

These three familiar means are almost the same as commercial promotion in traditional football and basketball competitions, and are easy to operate for brands.

But at the moment, it seems that the same way of promotion is rewarded by the millennial consumers. Obviously, the competitive field is better than traditional sports.

There are various signs that nowadays, the big brands are involved in electric competition, not that they choose to compete in electric games, but that the millennials have chosen to compete.

Even though there are not many people playing video games today as a show of entertainment and ignorance, there are still a large number of people who can not imagine how prosperous the IT industry is today. It is impossible to imagine that their video games can become an industry that a country can adjust to the economy, and can not even imagine that they will develop into a competitive sport in the future.

After last year's iG victory, there was such a true story: "a mother reflected that when she saw her son crying out when she learned that iG had won the race, she was five mixed up. She didn't know how to educate her children.

This is the gap between generation and generation.

Millennials all over the world are carnival for electric games, and the older generation shows their concern.

Also facing the competition industry, the strong contrast and contrast formed by the two generations also attract sports brand.

When used properly, this shock and contrast can be reproduced by the brand "story", and, of course, over reading and deepening the impact or contradiction may also swallow a great deal of bitter fruit.

As in any field with commercial value, the coexistence of risk and interest is the last thing that all brands will face.