League of Legends: Reborn in Season 3, Tuning the Entire League

Chapter 149 Property Division and "Competitive Culture" (Seeking monthly votes)
"Starsports Holdings!" "Jingjie Culture" "Huanwei Pan-Entertainment"

"These are the three company names we have. Senior, what are your thoughts?"

Inside the office, Jiang Ming, who had just finished the LPL semifinals, did not rest. Instead, he pulled Lin Jingyi aside to discuss the division of assets between the club and the online store, "Jm Food Time".

"Let's eliminate the third one first." Lin Jingyi pondered for a moment, then drew a slash across "Fantasy Entertainment" with a red pen.

Jiang Ming asked curiously, "So decisive, what's the reason?"

“Our foundation started with esports, and you’ve mentioned our future development direction more than once: focusing on Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2010). Since we’re expanding into an industry that emphasizes entertainment, social interaction, and personalized experiences, I think no matter how we extend, we first need to define a core value, such as the competitive spirit of the clubs, the quality of life in the snack section, and finally…” Lin Jingyi analyzed one by one, “and finally, the content creation in the cultural and media section.”

"Yes, indeed. From the perspective of our existing base, the third option is not suitable."

He plans to spin off the esports club, while managing the other existing and future business operations by forming a pan-entertainment group company.

Previously, whether it was the online store, "JM Food Time", or even the "NXG Esports Club" that had gotten on track, they were all still in the makeshift stage.

With the All-Star Game over and the club growing larger, and the monthly revenue of its online and offline stores reaching an astonishing figure, it was no longer possible to maintain the status quo. The separation of assets, or the separation of his personal finances from those of the club, became a necessity.

Currently, the club is entirely controlled by him personally, and it doesn't seem like a problem since he's the only one making the decisions. However, as the club grows larger, there will inevitably be more investors, and the potential risk of asset commingling is too great.

Putting aside other issues, the very fact that his personal brand as a player is mixed with the club's brand makes it easy for conflicts to arise over the specific distribution of profits.

There are too many examples like this in the esports circle. In the dispute between a well-known AD carry and the club, the lack of a clear revenue sharing ratio for business cooperation led to disputes between the two parties over the sharing of live streaming gifts and the ownership of tournament prize money, which frequently made it to the top of the trending searches.

The esports industry can draw some lessons from traditional sports. Players' personal brands, such as their IDs and personal images, are usually tied to the club's brand, but the ownership of intellectual property rights during the contract period may be ambiguous.

For example, the commercial value of the fan base that a player accumulates through live streaming or events during their time with the club can be claimed by the club as "job achievement".

Including myself, once history is written in the future, the question of whether NXG club or I came first will become a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Did "JM" bring traffic to NXG, or did NXG provide attention for JM's commercial extension? In that case, my personal brand may be judged as a commercial asset of the club to some extent in the future.

Another issue is that if the tax system isn't split up, it's easy for him to run into problems with the tax authorities.

If the revenue from derivative online stores is not accounted for independently, it can easily lead to confusion in the tax declarations of clubs and individuals.

For example, if a club includes online store revenue in its company accounts, or links personal brand revenue with club expenses, it could easily lead to inflated profits or tax evasion charges.

Furthermore, when investors value a club, they require a clear definition of asset boundaries. If personal brands and online stores are not separated, it will also affect the club's financing.

"Choose one between Xingjie Holdings and Jingjie Culture; there's not much difference between the two."

While seemingly offering suggestions, Lin Jingyi was actually handing the decision-making power back to Jiang Ming.

"Then let's go with Jingjie Culture!"

Jiang Ming did not hesitate and finalized the company name.

Jinling Jingjie Culture Co., Ltd.

As for why Jinling was added in front;
Hehehe, the school has already supported us so much, providing us with manpower and land. What's wrong with giving the school some shares and finding "parents" to help us raise a Series A funding round?

It is important to know that, according to the explicit provisions of the state, public universities, as legal entities of public institutions, are subject to the "Interim Measures for the Management of State-owned Assets of Public Institutions." After obtaining approval from the Ministry of Education and going through the procedures approved by the Ministry of Finance, they are permitted to use state-owned assets for external investment.

Otherwise, why do you think the full name of Penguin is Pengcheng Penguin Technology System Co., Ltd.?

After the establishment of Jingjie Culture, NXG formed a parent-subsidiary relationship similar to that between TES Sports and TES Esports Club.

This means that NXG esports club went to accept investment, not his "Esports Culture".

After all, if they don't cut ties further, he's worried that similar incidents will continue to happen in the future, such as using the club's sponsorship fees to invest in "JM Food Time".

Regarding the club's subsequent financing and controlling stake issues, after consulting with his teacher and other professionals, Jiang Ming has already come up with a plan, which is basically based on the controlling stake model of the original Time and Space T1.

In terms of shareholding structure, T1 is 55% owned by South Korea's SK Group, 30% owned by the United States' Comcast Group, and the final winner can hold the remaining 15% through an equity incentive plan.

Jingjie Culture holds more than 51% of the club's shares, ensuring control over board elections, annual budgets, and other aspects. 15% of the remaining shares are reserved for player incentives, and about 30% are used to attract investors.

After the company's main entity was determined, Jiang Ming gave him an apologetic look, "I'll have to trouble you to run around a lot more afterward. I'll go with you when we're communicating the specific details with the school."

Lin Jingyi raised an eyebrow and waved her hand, "Why are we talking about these things between us?"

During this period, whether it was preparing for the LPL Spring Finals with a prize of 500,000 yuan, or training youth players for the team slots in the two leagues next season, he was busy enough. In the business accumulation stage, everything had to give way to the core base. She was just wasting her breath. How many people want such an opportunity but don't have it?

"Is there any other problem? If not, my dear Ms. Lin, please sign this new contract."

Jiang Ming took the prepared contract from the drawer and pushed it in front of Lin Jingyi.

Employment Contract of Jingjie Culture Co., Ltd.

"General manager!"

"And shares?" Lin Jingyi raised an eyebrow and quickly noticed the keywords at the bottom of the contract.

"Yes, the promises I made to you back then included not only some initial shares but also a certain amount of 'phantom shares'!"

Lin Jingyi suddenly smiled, a very happy smile, like a string of crystal bells warmed by the sun.

She leaned down on the table with both hands, very close to Jiang Ming in front of her. Tiny patches of light were filtering through the leaves of the sycamore trees outside the base, landing precisely on her slightly trembling eyelashes.

"You're so greedy!"

"Cough cough... What are you saying? I don't understand."

"You don't understand anything, are you? Trying to play dumb with me, huh!"

"Or is it that going to the All-Star Game really steals your soul?"

"Hehe, or should you also say something like, 'Only children make choices, adults want it all'?" Jiang Ming didn't answer, but stood up on his own initiative. The scattered images in his mind were completely replaced by the scenes of their time together over the past year.

He gently smoothed his senior's stray bangs with his right hand and said softly, "Men do tend to be greedy, but if the object of your affection is a senior, it's not impossible to have only one."

"Tch, I thought you were going to write a campus romance novel with me, going on for millions of words."

"Cough cough, no, that won't happen."

(I found many pictures from my senior, but I wasn't satisfied with any of them. This fuller version of the character is barely acceptable. Of course, you can also refer to Takanashi Touka. If anyone has any good pictures, please share them.)
……

"Speaking of which, I'm not going to get hacked to pieces by the teachers if I go back to school, am I?"

The next day, Jiang Mingming, who was the victim of the ball-carrying collision, was still somewhat fearful.

There was no way around it; in a moment of impulsiveness, I almost ate the person and the plate together—I wanted both.

I originally thought that even if I couldn't be as unmoved as Leonardo DiCaprio, or have mastered the Heavenly Gang Boy Skill to perfection, I could at least be able to pass through a sea of ​​flowers without getting entangled. But after going to the All-Star Game, I was only flirted with by a beautiful female host, and my hormone levels went haywire.

Cough cough, no, this is just a normal reaction of an eighteen-year-old's body.

Then, it happened naturally between him and his senior, who was mutually interested.

Wait, something seems off...

"Yare, indeed, true hunters always appear as prey. The ancients were right."

In fact, the senior student knew everything, but she didn't want the partnership to deteriorate before she was sure of her own thoughts.

Anyway, no matter what, Laojiang has made a good deal.

The division of assets and the registration of "Jingjie Culture" will be handled by my senior. I will also set up a personal studio later. I need to maintain my identity as "e-sports player Jm" for at least two more years. Setting up a studio will give me a lot of tax breaks.

The school mainly needs to see what the leaders at the college level and above are thinking. They can apply Pony Ma's approach and directly link it to the region. This will greatly help in securing subsequent policy support and development.

However, given that he is a student at Jinling University, although it's a bit of a hassle, the university should ultimately not refuse.

At worst, I still have a PPT on my e-sports home venue plan, and I've also communicated with people in Shanghai. The college leaders can't just watch their own incubated talents run off to Shanghai or Yuhang, can they?
By capitalizing on esports traffic, they earned their first pot of gold without having to sell off their resources during the angel round like some other companies. As long as the Series A funding for "Jingjie Culture" can be secured, they can confidently and boldly move forward with their subsequent business ventures.

The cultural companies I mentioned to Xiao Wang earlier, which require manpower, connections, and experience for program production and event organization, can be set aside for now. But setting up a live streaming guild or something similar is not difficult.

With the qualifications of "Jingjie Culture", all that is needed is to expand into business operations support, content planning, marketing and promotion centered on online live streaming.

He clearly remembers that at that time, Qihuang was still just a gaming guild. But after November, it transformed into a cultural company and signed a group of popular streamers such as PDD, Xiaoxiao, Xika, and Bella. Its fortunes soared. First, it obtained the broadcasting rights for e-sports events such as OGN and NEST. Later, it hosted large-scale events such as the League of Legends Demacia Cup, putting it at the forefront of e-sports and entertainment.

The live streaming industry boomed with the promotion of 4G. Regardless of how messy the live streaming platforms later became, just know that at least 20 years ago, it was an industry where you could make a lot of money.

The formation of a live-streaming guild can be moved to the top priority!
“I now have an advantage that other guilds don’t have, namely a huge e-sports traffic.” Jiang Ming thought to himself, “In other words, in terms of resource integration and empowerment, which is what streamers care about most, we are at the top of the competition. Not to mention that he himself is the largest individual streamer on the YY platform, the NXG team is not lacking in event resources.”

"Most importantly, he has reached the point where he can be selective about signing advertising deals, which is a major headache for others. There are so many that he can't even count them all."

"As the saying goes, 'whoever provides the milk is the mother,' and with a guaranteed income, there's no need to worry about a lack of people willing to come."

As for other IP incubation work, such as customizing personas for streamers and planning live stream content to enhance fan loyalty, the successful cases from the original timeline serve as a reference, making it the simplest part.

Who would have thought that a newly established live streaming guild could be more capable than some established guilds in terms of live streaming skills, fan management, audience profiling analysis, live streaming effects, optimizing live streaming duration and content direction, and even various services and support for dispute resolution?

With the LPL Spring Finals just around the corner and the All-Star championship wave still raging, forming a guild now would be a great way to attract many talented streamers simply by leveraging the massive traffic.

Whatever the three of them, like Dousha Sansao and Nanbo'er, they'll all be there.

The qualification preparation for joining the live streaming platform is very simple. YY has asked about the post-match live stream at least three times in the past few days. At that time, we can put the whole team together to broadcast. Well, we don't even need the whole team. Just him alone will pass the platform's assessment of the number of viewers and revenue.

All you need to do is firmly grasp the e-sports traffic and ensure that e-commerce sales and advertising partnerships bring a continuous stream of revenue to the platform and streamers. As for the cutlery, someone will be willing to come and help you prepare it.

Furthermore, with the guild as a medium, there will be little obstacle to his subsequent plans to invest in live streaming platforms.

……

The seven-day trial period for the youth training camp has come to an end.

Wang Wang's expression was indifferent, no longer showing the calmness he had on their first meeting. "Those whose names are called, stay. The club will contact you tonight to sign youth training contracts."

"Top lane: long, Nexus, Alvin, silence..."

"Mid lane: U, Free, xiyang, QDD..."

"Junglers: hero, MLXG, Q1ngSh1Z1, seeker..."

"AD: xuanxuanpi, lustre..."

Inside the room, as the staff's pens scratched across the list, the unmarked IDs, like kites with broken strings, plummeted into the abyss of darkness, carrying the boys' hopes.

Zhu Xiaolong, Xiao Duan, MLXG, and Death Declaration, who heard their names called, breathed a sigh of relief.

It would be good if they passed; if they failed even in the youth training stage, that would be a real catastrophe for them.

It was at this moment that these once spirited young people finally experienced the cruelty of esports once again.

"Zhao Hao, come to my office."

Just as Wang Wang finished reading the list and was about to leave the meeting room to give the youth training players who were about to part ways some time, Manager Mo Ziye suddenly spoke up and waved to one of the young players in the top lane group.

　Please vote with your monthly tickets! (This chapter contains some hardcore business content; if any experts have relevant knowledge, please feel free to offer suggestions and references.)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)