Chapter 917: Eric Is In A Dilemma!

Zhao Xuming sighed silently after understanding his current situation.

It looked like he had made a wasted trip today.

Zhu Yan might not have said anything, but his attitude was definitely very firm. This public relations incident was simply a godly assist. If he did not make good use of it to cut off one or two million yuan, it would be a dereliction of his job!

Under such circumstances, the possibility of both parties negotiating the price was infinitely close to zero. They could only delay it further.

Before leaving, Zhao Xuming asked, “Boss Zhu, may I ask what is the psychological price of ICL broadcasting rights from Wolf Fang Live-Stream?”

Zhu Yan smiled and said, “Seven million yuan. However, don’t worry, Boss Zhao. Wolf Fang live-stream will definitely invest a lot of resources to promote ICL league. Your side will have a lot of hidden benefits if this deal can be achieved.”

Zhao Xuming laughed in his heart.

They had already offered seven million yuan in the beginning. Now, they had spent a lot of money to publicize ICL league and the popularity had obviously increased. Yet, you are still only offering seven million yuan?

Zhao Xuming would not agree, let alone Eric.

As for the ‘publicity resources’ that Zhu Yan had mentioned, they were nothing more than pleasantries. These were things that could not be quantified. When the time came, Zhu Yan could give as much as he wanted.

It was more practical to use real money.

He would also activate platform resources to publicize it after Zhu Yan spent a lot of money to buy the broadcasting rights for the ICL league.

Zhao Xuming was well aware of Zhu Yan’s words. However, the ICL league was currently in a storm of public opinion caused by Tengda. Zhao Xuming was in a disadvantageous position, so he could not say much. He could only force a smile and nod. “Alright, let’s be more considerate of each other. I hope that we can facilitate the cooperation between our two companies as soon as possible!”

…

Zhao Xuming immediately rushed to the conference room after returning to Long Yu Corporation’s headquarters.

He received a call on the way back. Eric was waiting for him in the conference room.

Eric was sulking in the conference room. The atmosphere in the room had reached a freezing point.

Obviously, Eric already knew about the promotional video “Coming Out Of The Cocoon Without Becoming A Butterfly”.

He looked up at Zhao Xuming when he had returned and asked. “How was it?”

Zhao Xuming shook his head slightly. “You should have seen Tengda’s promotional video, right? Wolf Fang Live-Stream still insisted that they were only willing to pay seven million yuan because of this promotional video.”

Zhao Xuming was very careful with his words, afraid that Eric would immediately slam the table and scold him for being ridiculous.

However, Eric did not fly into a rage. Instead, he heaved a sigh of relief and slowly calmed down.

“Indeed, I cannot relax for even a moment when fighting Boss Pei.”

“This time, we invested heavily in ICL’s promotional video. We thought that it would be foolproof, but we did not expect that there would still be a problem.”

“Let’s all calm down and think about how to deal with this.”

Eric’s words had a certain effect. At first, the conference room was lifeless, and everyone was shocked. However, after Eric finished speaking, the atmosphere obviously improved.

That’s right, we’re fighting Boss Pei now!

It was normal to encounter major setbacks when fighting Boss Pei. It would be ridiculous if everything went smoothly.

At this point, he could only rack his brains to think of a solution for everyone’s jobs and performance prizes.

Zhao Xuming had been thinking about this on the way back. He was the first to speak now that he had a general idea.

“Boss Pei’s move is too vicious. It could be said to be killing people’s hearts.”

“The scariest thing is that he had already buried this foreshadowing when the GPL league was established. He only used it against us today.”

“We want to use ICL against GPL. That means that Boss Pei will catch up and beat us as long as we don’t do well in any aspect. The rights of the players are the easiest to cause a topic and discussion. If we ignore them, it will definitely have a fatal impact on the popularity of the ICL league.”

“Therefore, we have to make up for this shortcoming.”

Eric nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

He was very unwilling to accept it but it was the truth. Such big news at the beginning of the ICL league was a huge blow to the popularity. If it was not handled well, the popularity might fade before the league even started. This was a risk that Eric could not accept.

Zhao Xuming continued, “Standard contracts, basic salary for players, insurance and money, better food and accommodation conditions, and health insurance… These are definitely not a small figure if they are to be widely spread.”

“On one hand, we want to protect the basic rights of all the players. Not only are they the main players, but they also include the reserve players and the trainees. Over time, they will accumulate. On the other hand, standard contracts would actually cause certain restrictions on the club and make them unhappy.”

“All in all… we can use money to solve the problem, but we will definitely spend a lot of money. We have to invest a huge sum of money in the beginning to improve the environment of the training base and change all the equipment. After that, we have to continue spending the base salary, food expenses, insurance, gold, and other expenses of the players. If we don’t spend twenty to thirty million yuan in the first year, we might not be able to win.”

Eric was very unhappy after hearing this number.

“Of course, we can take out twenty to thirty million yuan, but it’s too ridiculous to take money for this reason!”

“How much popularity would we be able to generate if we spend this money elsewhere to promote ICL?!”

“We are going to give twenty to thirty million yuan to these clubs to improve their training environment just because of a video by Boss Pei? Why!”

“Did Boss Pei pay for this?”

Zhao Xuming hesitated for a moment before replying, “Er… he did, but he didn’t as well.”

Eric: “?”

Zhao Xuming explained, “It’s like this. The GPL slots were publicly bid, and the prices were very high. A single slot was sold for twenty million yuan. Shenhua Real Estate was the king of bidders back then, and raised the GPL slots to twenty-six million yuan.”

“The results of the auction at that time were even on the news. The total price reached a sky-high price of 180 million yuan.”

“Then… Boss Pei transferred all the money back.”

“A large portion of them are returned to these clubs to improve the treatment of the players, and to establish a budding training base.”

“Therefore, even though the money was paid by Boss Pei in name, it was actually the money from the various clubs. The money might have travelled from left pocket to right pocket but, these clubs are very grateful to Boss Pei.”

Eric :”…”

Eric had already been removed by Finger Games and replaced with Chrétien when these things happened. He was far away in the United States and did not know much about these things.

Now that he heard what Zhao Xuming said, Eric finally knew what kind of situation he was in.

Boss Pei’s left and right hand operation was akin to offering Buddha a helping hand. He did not spend a single cent to improve the treatment of the players. At the same time, the club could improve the training environment and obtain real popularity. They were also very grateful to Boss Pei.

However, Eric could not do that!

The ICL slots were basically half bought and half given. They basically did not make much money.

At the moment, there were only a few powerful clubs in the country that had IOI branches. What’s more, they were not very rich. Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation needed their support. Thus, they did not ask for much money. They only offered very low friendship prices and cabbage prices.

What’s more, even if Eric wanted to strangle them and make them spend more than ten million yuan to buy a slot, it was probably not feasible given the financial situation of these clubs.

On the other hand, GPL had actually relied on Boss Pei’s connections to attract a lot of capital. It was equivalent to creating something out of nothing. Everyone had spent money together to organize the GPL league.

However, how could Eric and Zhao Xuming have so much power?

What’s more, GOG was extremely popular in the country before they started to plan for the GPL. It was a natural process. On the other hand, IOI’s popularity was far from enough. ICL was held to promote the game. It was the complete opposite.

Eric’s idea was to only open a limited number of slots in the early stages and let in only six or seven teams. After the competition was organized, they would sell slots in succession every season. That would maximize the benefits.

However, this also meant that Finger Games had not earned much money from the ICL league when it first began.

ICL could not play the GPL game.

At the end of the day, they could only fork out this huge sum of money from two places: either the clubs or from Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation.

The club would definitely not fork out any money. Why should they have to fork out an additional two million yuan a year to increase the treatment of the players? It would not benefit the club much.

At the end of the day, it was all thanks to the company!

If they did not fork out this sum of money, the ICL would forever be at a disadvantage. Boss Pei would definitely have to keep bringing this up. However, Eric would feel extremely aggrieved if he were to fork out this sum of money!

Eric’s face was dark as he fell into a dilemma.

However, after much consideration, he still did not have a good solution. This was like a dead end. He would either lose money or lose popularity.

After much consideration, Eric could only choose to lose money.

That was because the popularity of the ICL league was equivalent to money. If they ignored it, it would cause the popularity of the ICL to decrease. The effect of all the initial investments would be greatly reduced, and the actual loss would be greater.

On the other hand, if he spent money to maintain the popularity, he might still be able to earn back the money in the future.

After much consideration, Eric gritted his teeth and said, “We’ll pay for this!”

“Contact the various clubs in ICL immediately and get them to cooperate with us. Then, spend a sum of money to publicize it. Before the public opinion stirs up, let everyone know our efforts to standardize the ICL ecology and protect the rights of the players!”

Eric knew very well that since he had to do this sooner or later, the sooner the better.

If he hesitated and allowed everyone to discuss it, it would definitely hurt the popularity of the ICL.

If he reacted quickly enough and showed everyone enough sincerity, he might turn the crisis into opportunity and leave a good impression on the audience.

Zhao Xuming quickly nodded. “Understood, I’ll arrange it now!”