With its own distinctive brand identity, e-sports clubs can attract advertisers to spend their energy on themselves.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Sleeping Bear Sports” (ID: Lanxiongsports), author Jin Chengzhou.
Recently chat with a friend who hasn’t seen you for a long time. After three rounds of drinking, he began to complain about the dissatisfaction at work. He works for a new e-sports club in China. Although he also has a seat in a domestic head-to-head event, the club has never been able to open the overall business development, so that in the past more than a year, Their commercialization results are bleak and they are difficult to move.
This can’t help but remind me of a lot of similar remarks. In the past two years, the popularity of e-sports marketing has been rising, and we often hear which e-sports sponsored by a certain brand. Reports issued by major consulting companies have also said that e-sports marketing has a strong mining value.
But as an important part of the industrial ecology, I often hear people say that many e-sports clubs are struggling to survive, especially those new e-sports clubs. On the one hand, they lack the capital of the rich second generation or mature enterprises to provide blood for them; on the other hand, they are difficult to produce excellent transcripts and stable incomes in commercialization, so the pressure for survival is quite large.
As we all know, the current e-sports clubs, income mainly comes from four directions: sponsors, live broadcast platforms, sales of peripheral derivatives, as well as alliances and tournament bonuses provided by the tournament parties. Part of the club that opened the main operation, as well as the name, lease and ticket-related income of the venue.
Simple calculations. At present, an e-sports club can get a bonus + bonus from the beginning of the league, which is about 10 million yuan. In terms of derivatives, this revenue is small because each family has not yet formed a market size. According to the information given by most clubs, the current annual operating costs are mostly around 30 million yuan. If you want to cover these costs, you must get at least 20 million sponsors’ income – according to the average sponsor’s contract of 3 million. If so, then at least 7 must be signed.
▲ This year’s LPL Summer Championship FPX has five sponsors, which are well-developed in the club.
But looking at the entire market, it’s not hard to find that there are very few clubs with this number of sponsors. Even for LPL clubs that are now recognized as having high commercial value, nearly 90% of club sponsors have no more than seven. Not to mention, small and medium-sized e-sports clubs, sponsors’ resource quotes are still less than 3 million, and the investment pressure faced by the club can be imagined.
At the same time, although they tried various ways to promote investment, the reality is very difficult.
On the one hand, there are race parties and manufacturers on the club, and the rights related to the event belong to which one. This is not the industry practice when the professionalization of e-sports is not fully regulated. The unclear division of interests has, to some extent, restricted the space for clubs to engage in business.
On the other hand, in the eyes of brand owners, the e-sports club plays the role of media resource flow. As a result, the brand’s main consideration is the number of fan groups, how much exposure can be, and how much sales can be brought to the brand.
But it is clear that from these three points, the e-sports club is not yet competitive enough compared to other media resources. The average amount of fans, the amount of exposure is not their own control, the goods are not effective at present – for the brand owner, instead of spending the budget on the e-sports club, it is better to spend more on a game anchor.
A friend and I gave a case. A club has invited a well-known clothing brand in China to seek cooperation. After the two parties negotiated the terms, they launched a series of joint-name clothing and opened the pre-sale. However, all the media channels that have been owned by the club have produced a handful of sales, and the brand and the club have not cooperated since.
In the view of another advertising industry person who has been engaged in IP commercialization for a long time, this is actually because the club and the brand have misled the concept of e-sports marketing, and the e-sports club should not become a media resource. The consumer concept of e-sports users is still far from being formed. It is very difficult to expect e-sports clubs to bring goods.”
In fact, the figure of 3 million is not a big deal in the annual market budget of big brand owners. There may be a lot of brand owners who originally sponsored an e-sports club with the psychological support of the trial water. Once the club has achieved good results this year, it has appeared on the stage of international competitions and even has excellent performance, then it is earned.
But on the other hand, this brand marketing behavior is usually not sustainable, more like a hammer sale, clubs and products.It is difficult for a card owner to establish a long-term stable cooperative relationship. Once the club’s performance fluctuates, then the brand owner will choose other targets, and the club’s investment promotion is equal to the beginning. Similarly, brand owners are seldom willing to spend more effort to activate sponsorship rights, invest resources to produce excellent brand marketing content, and allow clubs to obtain hidden benefits other than commercial income.
As far as brand marketing is concerned, it is only a preliminary level to obtain brand exposure by sponsoring media resources. Excellent brand owners, more importantly, can use a series of means such as sponsorship marketing to establish a clear brand image in the minds of target customers, to close the distance with target customers, and to enhance the brand’s reputation.
From this perspective, this requires the club itself to form its own brand image. This not only allows you to differentiate yourself from other e-sports clubs, but also differentiates your competition and, more importantly, converts your media resources into brand resources.
“The media resources are limited, but the brand value is unlimited.” The above-mentioned advertising industry people said so. European giants such as Manchester United, Barcelona, Juventus and so on have never been involved in business issues, in addition to their large number of fans around the world, and more importantly, they create the brand image of the club. When the brand owner discovers that the brand’s brand tonality fits well with them, they are not only willing to take out real money to obtain these rights, but also more willing to use them to activate these rights.
Therefore, in the traditional sports field we can see cases such as Shell and Ferrari, Allianz and Bayern, Coca-Cola and the US Olympic delegation are very representative in the history of brand marketing.
▲ Shell and Ferrari have been working together for 72 years.
Similarly, for e-sports clubs, the idea of an urgent need to change is that they should no longer be seen as a simple media resource to sell advertising space on their uniforms. Instead, we start from the perspective of brand operation and create a unique and three-dimensional brand image from the club, so as to attract the brand owner.
But in the moment, few clubs have their own brand awareness. Slogan is very similar. It is difficult to distinguish the brand owner from the new fans by relying on the name of a club composed of a series of English letters. The specific difference between each club is where.
Of course, these are easy to say, but in the current environment, it seems to “stand up and talk without hurting.” After all, as I said earlier, the club is facing an urgent pressure to survive.Although the short-term business income is not conducive to the long-term construction of the brand, it is still a life-saving straw for the club.
This also creates a non-benign cycle: the excessive pressure of survival leads to the need for e-sports clubs to pursue short-term business interests to maintain club operations, but the pursuit of short-term business benefits is that they are harder to spend more energy. And the exploration of the brand operation and commercialization model, which in turn affects their market investment.
The club is difficult to attract investment, and this is not just the status quo of the domestic e-sports club. Carl Woodman, general manager of Lagardère Sports UK, told me that compared with traditional sports football clubs, the European e-sports clubs are not in good shape and are still in their infancy.
According to the list of the world’s most valuable e-sports teams released by Forbes at the end of last year, the No. 1 is the North American e-sports club Cloud9. Although it is proud of its $310 million valuation, its estimated revenue for the year was only $22 million. You know, they have 11 team divisions.
A list of the top 12 most valuable e-sports clubs in Forbes.
However, because the investment bubble in the foreign e-sports market environment is still high, the e-sports club is still “rich and can burn.” However, in China, when the investment market gradually returns to rationality, the clubs that do not have the ability to self-hematocrit may not be optimistic.
In other words, helping the club build a brand and broaden the commercial channel is not just a club, but an effort that requires the entire ecosystem. The establishment of a brand takes time and effort, and in the process, the capital behind the upstream manufacturers and clubs can give the club much support, which determines whether the ecology can continue to operate in a healthy manner.
Of course, for the club, establishing the brand image of your club should be put on the agenda as soon as possible. Rather than spending all your energy on finding sponsors who are willing to pay for themselves in the short term – after all, the “masters are more foolish” gold master father is getting harder and harder to find.
Declaration: This article was originally created by Rilakkuma Sports and may not be reproduced without authorization.