Special correspondent Conan reportsOn December 8, the 2023 TGA Game Awards ceremony was held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, which can be regarded as a year-end inventory of 2023 for the entire gaming industry.
To the "embarrassment" of Chinese e-sports fans, JDG, who had just been eliminated in the semi-finals of the S competition last month, turned out to be the best club of the year.
Even if the atmosphere was a little awkward, JDG officials still routinely expressed their gratitude: "It is a great honor for JDG to win the TGA Best Esports Club Award, thank you for the official recognition of us and everyone's support for us, and also thank the players and the training, operation, The staff of all the teams such as logistics, we would also like to thank the fans and friends for their support and companionship all the time, the honor is inseparable from everyone's dedication and efforts, we will continue to move forward on the road of chasing higher honors, and write a new legend!”
JDG, which spent 100 million yuan to build, "broke the dust" in the semi-finals, coupled with the widespread phenomenon of "fast life and quick death" in the "Galaxy Battleship", made the outside world sweat for the competitiveness of JDG and the entire LPL in the future.
The nominees for the Global Esports Team of the Year were EG, FNC, GG, JDG, and VIT, and JDG won the award. This is the first time that a Chinese team has won a TGA award.
In terms of results, except for the S championship, JDG has won all the heavyweight championships throughout the year. However, the S Race championship that happened to be lost is the most valuable championship in the entire League of Legends esports system, which led to the controversy surrounding JDG's award.
Historically, RNG has reached the heights of JDG in 2018, winning all the championships except for the S competition. Among the various heavyweight annual awards that year, RNG failed to break out of the encirclement.
If RNG had won a heavyweight award like JDG, it would have suffered far more controversy than JDG today. After all, it was IG from the same LPL region that "took over" RNG to win the S Race that year, and in that year, IG ended the S Race dominated by LCK, injecting a shot in the arm for League of Legends and even the entire e-sports industry.
The legendary team T1, who won the championship at this year's S Championship, was not nominated, so the JDG was less competitive.
On November 14th, the TGA announced the list of nominees for various awards, and at that time, T1 had just defeated JDG in the semifinals to advance to the finals, and was preparing for the final against WBG on November 19th. Although there is a high probability of writing the legend of "four crowns to God", T1 only had the title of LCK Spring Championship before winning the S Championship, and suffered a "double kill" of JDG and BLG at the MSI held in the middle of the year.
T1's relatively thin annual report card is difficult to convince to be included in the nomination list, after all, the TGA considers the overall performance of a team throughout the year.
It's worth noting that T1's legendary Faker was not only shortlisted for the Player of the Year nomination, but also won the prize. Compared with T1's relatively thin report card, Faker's performance in this whole year is also enough to be shortlisted, T1 lost ground in the domestic league due to Faker's absence, and did not stabilize until Faker's return, and then achieved a transformation of strength at each stage, and finally wrote the legend of "Four Crowns to God".
In addition, Faker also led the South Korean national team to a 2-0 victory in the finals of the e-sports League of Legends at this year's Hangzhou Asian Games, winning the most important tournament championship of the whole year, except for the S championship, making up for his regret in Jakarta five years ago.
Faker won the TGA Player of the Year award for the first time in 2017, and this is the second time he has won this award, and the last time he won the award, just in time for his regrettable defeat in the S Tournament, which made his award a bit boring.
Similar to this year's JDG, Faker had already led his team to win almost all the championships that year, and was about to complete the "four consecutive championships" in the Bird's Nest. Unfortunately, it backfired, and faker waited six years for the fourth title of his career.
Now, this "exchange of fate" between Faker and JDG is, to a certain extent, a consolation of his embarrassment and helplessness when he won the award last time. And the same embarrassment and helplessness, the whole JDG team may have already felt it.
T1 eliminated JDG in the semi-finals of the S competition, which was a direct defeat to the "Galaxy Battleship" that cost 100 million yuan.
Generally speaking, LPL's model of forming a "Galaxy Battleship" is mostly to tap star players with strong strength on paper with high salaries to achieve the goal of achieving results and monetizing traffic in the shortest possible time.
Judging from the current state of JDG, it seems that it will not escape the fate of reorganization.
On the basis of last year's personnel, JDG recruited Knight, who is known as the "No. 1 domestic midlaner", and Ruler, who killed all sides in the LCK arena, to reinforce, and the subsequent effect was also immediate, showing dominance in both domestic and international arenas.
Before encountering T1 at this year's S, JDG had been immersed in the "bubble" of completing the annual Grand Slam. In the game, JDG's proud operation strength and team play ability were defeated by T1's almost impeccable tactics and play, whether it was a hard fight or a "master's long skill", it was difficult for JDG to crack T1's "quickly snowball through the advantage of early line control and win the game with the help of tight operation in the middle and late stages".
Such a huge gap made JDG stand on the top of the ** outlet, and coach Redmi also resigned.
In the subsequent transfer period, the operation of JDG's management surprised fans, 369 returned to TES, after Knight left, he had to let Yagao return, and the shortcomings on the road were made up by newcomers, although the two major Korean aides of Ruler and Kan**i were stabilized, but the lethality of this lineup in the new season should be marked with a question mark.
According to people familiar with the matter, after the resignation of coach Redmi, Ruler took the initiative to help the team with the mentality of wanting to be ashamedG's coach Mafa has found the framework to keep the Galaxy Battleship and join forces with his teammates to challenge for the championship next year.
The JDG manager deliberately put fake news so that the team had nowhere to go, and at first contacted Zeus and left 369 angrily. Seeing the team's operation, Knight hesitated to leave the team. At this time, JDG released news that Knight might join WBG or RNG, etc., which led to Knight leaving BLG directly to strengthen the all-Chinese class.
As a result, Ruler just called the coach over on the front foot, and then the two ran directly in the middle school, which can also explain why Ruler changed his Hanbok ID to "Don't bother me", after all, at his peak, he really wanted to win an S championship as the core to justify himself.
You must know that when Ruler won the S Championship for SSG in 2017, he was a "follower" in the team, not the core. Today, he has full fledgling wings, but he has yet to prove his ability to lead the team with a convincing champion.
Whether ruler can prove himself at his peak depends on whether the capital behind him is interested in participating in esports.
For example, for capitals such as JD.com behind JDG, Li Ning behind LNG, and B station of BLG, although it is difficult for the e-sports industry to make a profit, they are interested in the traffic and young people behind e-sports. According to Li Ning's financial report, the revenue of the LNG club from 2020 to 2022 will be HK $12 million, HK $33.2 million and HK $32 million respectively, but the net loss will reach HK $18.7 million, HK $6 million and HK $33.4 million.
Under the continuous cash loss, it is necessary to give returns other than capital cash, such as traffic feeding back to the brand. If the operation is wrong, the e-sports traffic will also cause a backlash to the capital, becoming an uncontrollable "double-edged sword". Traditional consumer brands like Li Ning have relatively low ability to resist risks, and it is difficult to resolve the "** crisis" through guidance.
This year, LNG entered the World Championship for the first time after introducing SCOUT and GALA players, and should have had the opportunity to make history and further detonate traffic. However, due to the ugly scene of the quarterfinals, a large number of spectators broke the defense. The live broadcast room of the Li Ning e-commerce platform was also blasted, and a large number of netizens poured into the live broadcast room to post a barrage saying that Li Ning's clothing was not cold resistant (Korean).
On the second day after the end of the competition, the sales of Li Ning's official live broadcast room were only 5680,000, sports *** sales of only 2820,000, and just a day ago, the sales of the two live broadcast rooms were 41050,000 and 45330 thousand. It can be said that e-sports traffic stabbed Li Ning at the key node of "Double Eleven".
You must know that Li Ning's recent performance has been lower than market expectations, resulting in a sharp drop in stock prices. In the first half of this year, Li Ning's revenue was 14 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%;However, the net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3%. This is the first time since 2020 that its reported net profit has experienced negative growth.
In the third quarter, the retail turnover of Li Ning point-of-sale (excluding Li Ning Young) recorded only mid-single-digit growth year-on-year. Offline channels recorded high single-digit growth, of which directly operated stores grew by 20%-30% in the low range, and wholesale grew in the low single-digit rangeThe e-commerce channel recorded a low-single-digit decline.
During the same period, the retail sales of ANTA's products recorded a positive single-digit year-on-year growthXtep Retail achieved high double-digit year-over-year growth.
The same problem arises with JD.com. The second e-commerce company with a market value of trillions has now fallen repeatedly, and has been directly left behind by Ali and Pinduoduo. On November 29, the U.S. stock **, JD.com's share price trended downward, at 27$440 shares, down 256%, the latest market capitalization 431$7.7 billion. According to this calculation, the market value of 1 Pinduoduo has exceeded that of 4 JD.com.
If the performance of the company's main body continues to decline, then e-sports, which has been difficult to make a profit for a long time, will inevitably become the preferred target of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency", which will inevitably affect the club's expenditure on core labor costs such as players and coaches.
The professional path of traditional sports such as football and basketball has told the outside world that although the "Galaxy Battleship" model, which is more focused on short- and medium-term results, is not advisable, it is more difficult to build a team with the strength to compete for the championship without the necessary capital support. A miracle like Leicester City winning the championship in the English Premier League is, after all, a small probability event. In the long and arduous road of "anti-Korea" in the future, LPL will certainly not be able to rebuild its glory by relying on small probability events.