Chapter 923: Planning For The Overseas League

March 5th, Monday…

Zhang Yuan immediately gathered the core members of the E-Sports Department for a meeting and assigned the task of forming the GOG international league after he arrived at the office.

The employees of the E-Sports Department were not surprised by this news.

That was because as GOG continued to promote and expand overseas, it was only a matter of time before they formed an overseas league.

However, just like Zhang Yuan, no one expected Boss Pei to use such a method to form an overseas league!

An employee raised his hand and asked, “Boss Zhang, there’s something I don’t understand.”

“Why did Boss Pei want to work with other overseas companies this time? Why did he choose small companies to work with?”

“Firstly, this seems to be risky. Secondly, it doesn’t meet Tengda’s standards!”

Zhang Yuan smiled slightly. “I had the same thought as you on Saturday. However, after thinking about it for two days, I roughly guessed Boss Pei’s true thoughts.”

“Let me ask you first. What do you think Tengda’s standards are?”

The employee was stunned. “Er… isn’t Tengda’s standard of conduct always long term and take charge of everything? It can be seen from the GPL league that Boss Pei specially kicked out all disobedient clubs. He made all clubs listen to our arrangements by auctioning the slots.”

“If we were to cooperate with other companies in the overseas competition zones, we would definitely not be able to do the same as the GPL league. At that time, the standards of the various competition zones might not be uniform. Wouldn’t that be contrary to our style all along?”

Zhang Yuan smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong!”

“Boss Pei never does things with only one plan. GPL is our own league. Can it be the same standard for overseas leagues?”

“In theory, our goal is to become an international company, create an international game for GOG, and create an international competition for GOG’s international invitational tournament… However, there are still differences between the competition zones and countries.”

“It’s not that Tengda won’t cooperate with other companies. In fact, Boss Pei often distributes the pie. For example, when he was building the Thriller Hostel, he distributed a lot of the pie to investors like Boss Li.”

“Therefore, Boss Pei’s style is definitely not to monopolize everything and take everything for himself. Instead, he would consider all aspects and make choices between different interests!”

Zhang Yuan paused for a moment and continued, “Indeed, if we can take on everything and organize all the leagues on our own, we can indeed take all the money for the slots, sponsorship, and other benefits for ourselves. However, on further thought, what problems would there be?”

“First of all, we don’t know much about the markets of various countries and regions. The marketing strategy that we formulated might not be able to satisfy the needs of local players. Even if we can slowly figure it out, losing the initiative would mean losing a lot of market share. That would be a very serious loss.”

“Secondly, we are a foreign company after all. We might face a lot of resistance if we want a piece of the cake in the local market. If we don’t share any benefits with others, they would definitely think of ways to trip us up. It would definitely have a serious impact on us.”

“On the other hand, we can better make localized marketing and operations plans for the various regions if we cooperate with local companies overseas. Give them enough benefits and let them deal with all sorts of resistance. That would allow us to have the initiative in the competition.”

“As for why Boss Pei emphasized looking for small companies?”

“Obviously, there are too many projects for big companies. GOG’s league might only be managed by one department of big companies. They might not do their best. The big companies might not be able to catch up once they recognize the value of the GOG league. We can’t control them effectively.”

“On the other hand, small companies are completely different. GOG league might be the lifeline of the entire company and the main source of income to them. Would they dare to do anything lesser than their best? Moreover, even if the GOG league develops, these small companies can only be at our mercy because all of their lifelines are in our hands. Once we revoke the GOG league’s authorization, it would be equivalent to cutting off their lifeline. This way, we can still maintain a certain level of control over the overseas league!”

“Therefore, Boss Pei’s decision looks like he’s giving up a portion of the benefits on the surface. However, it would greatly reduce the resistance to expanding the overseas market and speed up the expansion!”

“It would not be a problem to monopolize it if there is only one GOG game at the moment. However, we still have IOI as a competitor in the world. Their overseas league is also being established. We have to make some sacrifices to be ahead of them!”

“Splitting some of the pie out would make the pie bigger. That way, we can obtain more benefits.”

Everyone nodded in realization.

Boss Pei was indeed far-sighted. He had thought of all these things in advance!

That employee asked again, “But, Boss Zhang, this way, the GPL would definitely be very different from other overseas competitions. If there really is a difference in affinity, would it cause overseas players to feel disgusted?”

Zhang Yuan smiled. “I understand your worries, but they are unnecessary.

“If we take it all on ourselves, the overseas league would be different from the domestic league. It would definitely cause dissatisfaction among foreign players. We have to be impartial in the eyes of the public.”

“However, we are not taking it all on ourselves. We are working with other overseas companies.”

“If there’s a problem with the overseas league, the overseas companies will definitely take the blame for us! If the overseas players are not satisfied, they should also look for the overseas agent companies. They would definitely not target us first.”

“What’s more, we don’t have to make the other leagues look exactly like GPLs.”

“Boss Pei has indeed invested a lot of effort into the GPL, but this is because the GPL is our own competition zone. GOG only has one champion in the global invitational tournament. The competition zones must be competing with each other. If we take it all on, it would be equivalent to turning all the leagues in the world into internal leagues. On the other hand, letting the various competition zones decide their own development direction would allow the ecology of the different regions to be more diverse. The collision in the finals would also be more exciting.”

Everyone nodded.

Obviously, none of the strategies could be comprehensive. They had to give up one thing if they chose the other.

Not everyone agreed with the current method, but since it was Boss Pei’s decision, everyone would still carry it out resolutely.

…

Soon, everyone began to take on their respective roles. They contacted overseas companies in different regions and began to discuss cooperation details.

This would definitely be a relatively long process. After all, it would take time to determine the venue and renovate it.

Fortunately, the list of clubs in each division was ready-made. As long as the slots were finalized and the schedule was arranged, the league could start very quickly.

The problem of sponsors could be solved while the league was ongoing. These were all trivial matters.

On the other hand, Tengda did not make any hard requirements for the qualifiers. They did not say how much they had to sell them for.

That was because the situation in each region was different. Some places had developed economically, the e-sports industry was developing quickly, and the clubs had rich financial resources. The league slots would definitely be crazily snatched and would definitely be sold at a higher price. What’s more, the e-sports industry in some areas was developing slowly. There were only a few clubs in total. They would not be able to afford it, nor would they be able to organize the league If they were to spend an astronomical sum to buy the slots.

Therefore, there would be differences in the qualifiers, scale, bonuses, and so on according to the actual situation of each region. These differences would also affect the qualifiers for the next international invitational tournament.

Simply put, the stronger teams would have more slots.

As for the specific cooperative companies, they also had to be carefully screened.

Boss Pei might have said that he wanted to collaborate with a small company, but no one would think that it would be over with any random small company.

Boss Pei’s words obviously had another hidden condition: to find a reliable small company!

He had to ensure that they would do their best to help promote GOG’s league.

That way, some employees would be required to fly overseas to conduct field investigations and validation of the companies that were cooperating with each region.

However, Tengda had always been very lenient with funding in this area. Once all of them were approved, they would take business class and stay in luxurious hotels when they went overseas. It would not be very tiring.

After the GPL league runs steadily with nothing that would go wrong, Tengda’s E-Sports Department shifted its focus to the overseas league and began to get busy.

…

At the same time, the employees of Bunny Tail Live-Stream were also busy.

After finalizing the exclusive broadcast rights of ICL with Finger Games and Long Yu Corporation, Bunny Tail Live-Stream began to arrange a series of publicity activities for the ICL league.

For example, he had to prepare the publicity material for the ICL league in advance. He had to adjust the division and labels of the website’s homepage. He had to put the ICL league in a very eye-catching position so that it would be easy to guide the traffic. In addition, he had to arrange a series of publicity activities to direct the traffic from the outer net to the Bunny Tail live-stream.

The ICL league had been prepared for a long time. The venue, competition schedule, promotional video, and so on had all been arranged. Thus, they only needed to confirm that the live-stream platform was alright before the competition officially began.

According to the established process, Wednesday and Thursday would be the exhibition competitions. On the one hand, it was to test the official venue and equipment. On the other hand, it was to test the bandwidth pressure on the live-stream platform.

If there were any problems, they could discover it early and solve it early to ensure that the ICL spring competition would proceed smoothly.

Over the next two days, the two teams that had won IOI’s global finals, FV Club and SUG Club would be invited to play.

After all, these four teams were the strongest teams in the country at the moment. They represented the highest level of competition in the ICL. It might only be an exhibition match but it could attract attention and achieve the effect of winning first.

The exhibition matches on Wednesday and Thursday were BO3. If there were no problems after the competition, the ICL would officially start on Saturday.

In other words, it would be the weekend when the value of the ICL exclusive broadcasting rights could be verified.