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

Chapter 202: NXG's First Defeat and the End of the Summer Regular Season

In the conference room.

As the host, Lao Hu set the stage for today's discussion.

"We expect the LSPL (League of Legends Secondary Pro League) to be officially established at the end of Season 3, which is early 2014. As the secondary league of LPL, its core goal is to build a tiered esports talent development system for our region."

"In the past six months, the promotion of LOL has been remarkably effective and has achieved unprecedented success. The city-level League of Legends Championship has garnered tremendous attention. In addition, the successful hosting of the LPL Spring Split and the Shanghai All-Star event has ushered in a new wave of e-sports in China."

"But against this backdrop, our domestic esports lacks a standardized secondary league. Many professional teams, or some teams that are between professional and semi-professional, find it difficult to obtain stable exposure in competitions and promotion channels, not to mention the amateur teams at the next level who have great enthusiasm for participating. It is necessary for us to establish a secondary league to provide a stage for these esports practitioners to showcase themselves. This is also an inevitable requirement for the development of the industry."

Below the stage, Jiang Ming and the others had different expressions.

Take the polite words with a grain of salt. The real purpose of setting up a secondary league is that Tencent saw the success of the LPL league and the successful case of Jiang Ming NXG providing commercial sponsorship. Tencent Sports wants to attract more sponsors through LSPL and further expand the scale of the e-sports industry.

Providing talent and training for the LPL is just a convenient side benefit!
Of course, it cannot be denied that the neighboring region is making great strides to improve its secondary league system after its crushing defeat at the All-Star Game, which is why Penguin was forced to follow suit.

"What you have here are some urgent issues that need to be discussed and resolved in the formation of our LSPL league. Please take a look and give your opinions."

Regarding the tournament setup, Tencent is hoping that each of the LPL clubs will contribute at least one second team to ensure professionalism, and of course, their opinions need to be sought.

As soon as the thick proposal was handed out, many people's eyes were immediately drawn to Jiang Ming.

When it comes to event design, who among us can compare to him?

If JM, the professional player, team coach, and actual owner of the three LPL teams NXG Esports Club, doesn't speak, what else can they say but make a fool of themselves?

Despite being stared at by numerous pairs of eyes in the room, Jiang Ming remained calm and showed no signs of pressure.

He simply sat quietly in his seat, looking at the "LSPL Tournament Establishment Initial Planning Proposal" in his hand.

In fact, Tencent Sports has prepared various regulations in great detail. The issues discussed are mainly about event design, club admission conditions, commercial cooperation, player rights, and how to connect with LPL.

From a future-oriented perspective, the framework of Tencent Sports' plan is fine; the problem lies only in the specific details of the event segment.

Seeing that Jiang Ming remained silent for a long time, Hu Qiming coughed as a reminder:
Ahem, bro, you have to speak first.

If you don't speak, how can this discussion continue?

Putting everything else aside, the LPL league hasn't cut back on its promotional efforts for NXG at all during this period.

Jiang Ming smiled slightly, with a hint of humility and composure. "Everyone here is a senior in the e-sports industry. I'll take the liberty of offering my humble opinion first. If there's anything I've said that's inappropriate, please feel free to correct me."

"Firstly, regarding the format of the secondary league, I think we need to reconsider the specific rules..."

The person in charge of the event planning gave it a very interesting title: "How to balance competitiveness and entertainment?"

The competitiveness goes without saying. If a professional league can't even guarantee competitiveness, then it's a complete joke.

Regarding the grouping and points system, the league organizers' initial plan is to use a double round-robin BO2 format with 16 teams divided into 4 groups. The top two teams in each group will advance to the playoffs, while the bottom two teams will enter the relegation matches.

This immediately exposes a major problem, similar to the selection of teams for this year's S3 World Championship: how to group the teams and ensure a balance of strength within each group, and what if strong teams are matched up early and the stronger teams are eliminated prematurely?

At the same time, since it is a secondary league, the main purpose of cultivating talent for the top league is to create a big contradiction in the allocation of promotion and relegation slots. There are too few promotion slots and too many relegation slots. If you put high pressure on a secondary league right from the start, it will force clubs that are not rich to dance to the tune of the slots due to operating costs and relegation pressure.

This brings us to the central question of the design – its aesthetic appeal?
As Jiang Ming, who had witnessed the development of the original timeline professional league, knew very well that the secondary league had virtually no entertainment value and that few viewers were willing to pay attention to it.

Instead of relying on a small, marginal audience, it would be better to focus on improving the competitiveness of the games.

Therefore, Jiang Ming's first suggestion focused on the competition format.

"The BO2 format leads to unclear point differences and a long schedule. To improve competitiveness, I suggest that the regular season should be BO3 and the playoffs should be mainly BO5. Of course, I also maintain this opinion on the future improvement of the LPL league."

The LPL's current format is simply copied from OGN, and OGN is still in the dark exploring its own system. It's not that whoever leaves first is the best.

BO3 is the bottom line. Compared to the mentality of giving up when the score is tied and each team gets a point, the BO3 format, where you either win or lose, can maximize the competitiveness of the league teams.

Everyone could only manage a wry smile after hearing this.

JM was truly blunt, immediately pointing out the issue of the tournament format, and not only giving feedback to LSPL, but also including LPL in the discussion.

However, the advantages of starting this way are obvious. In Chinese conversation, once someone has suggested tearing the roof off, there won't be much fuss about minor details like whether to open the windows or how many doors to open.

Pei Le, representing WE, focused on the club's admission rules.

To ensure the professionalism of the participating teams, Tencent Sports requires clubs to have a registered capital of no less than 500 million RMB and submit three consecutive months of financial statements to prevent "shell teams" from participating.

However, given the current state of esports development, this standard is clearly too high for secondary leagues, making it difficult for grassroots teams to enter.

The discussion reached a compromise: the minimum registered capital would remain unchanged, but clubs that had just entered the LSPL league would be given some time. If the team truly had potential and could achieve good results, resolving the registered capital issue would be relatively easy in the future.

Regarding the professionalization of clubs, Jiang Ming added that clubs are required to establish independent youth training camps and train at least two new players each year, otherwise they will be disqualified from participating in competitions. Initially, cross-regional team formation is allowed, but in order to promote the development of local e-sports, clubs are required to establish training bases in their registered locations.

The third key point of discussion was how to help esports clubs attract sponsors and streaming platforms...

Undoubtedly, once this topic was raised, the main focus of the discussion once again fell into Jiang Ming's hands.

"Before discussing this issue, I'd like to talk about player rights and how to regulate club contracts and transfers," Jiang Ming said with a smile.

He promised to make the pie bigger, and of course he wouldn't slack off at this crucial juncture, but asking me to contribute unconditionally is absolutely out of the question.

We're not saints, so sharing cake is fine, but everyone being happy is what truly matters.

But if you want to get a knife and fork from me, shouldn't you also consider following the rules I've set out for you?

Of course, when it comes to regulating club contracts and transfers, Jiang Ming doesn't want to be a saint or fantasize about completely eliminating unequal contracts.

First of all, as stakeholders, clubs can never be on equal footing with players in terms of contract drafting. This includes his own NXG club. Not to mention the e-sports circle, there are countless problems caused by contracts in various competitive fields such as football and basketball.

He simply didn't want a repeat of the situation in the original timeline, where players were forced to retire, or even remained in active service for many years without playing professionally, causing the already developing esports scene to suffer a complete loss of reputation outside the industry. Jiang Ming expressed his thoughts on player rights.

Firstly, regarding the contract term: the minimum contract for players should be one year, and the maximum should not exceed four years, prohibiting "unfair terms" such as restrictions on the consistency between player management contracts and competition contracts.

Regarding the transfer window settings, January in the spring season and June in the summer season are designated as the two transfer periods each year. Clubs are prohibited from communicating with players privately outside of the transfer period.

Meanwhile, the transfer fee cap is set at one-third of that for LPL players.

"A cap on transfer fees?"

Everyone was a bit confused. Logically speaking, among those present, NXG Club has the most youth training players. Why would they set a transfer fee cap for players who haven't played in the LPL?

Are you not even going to make money anymore?
After Jiang Ming finished speaking, he sat back down. The discussion was not about directly stating what to do. It was his own business to express his opinions, but how it would be implemented in the end depended on Tencent Sports.

At the moment, I am at most a participant in the rule-changing process, not a rule-maker.

“I think JM’s proposal on protecting player rights and regulating team operations and transfers is excellent. If the esports industry wants to go further, perfecting the rules is essential. Rather than waiting for problems to arise later, it’s better to put a tight rein on things from the beginning.” Pei Le couldn’t wait to agree with Jiang Ming’s suggestion.

Among everyone present, if we were to ask which company most wanted to follow in NXG's footsteps and learn how to monetize traffic, it would undoubtedly be WE.

Despite their impressive traffic as the champions of last year's IPL5, they only received a handful of tiny business deals. Compared to NXG, who were raking in profits, they were practically beggars.

"We can discuss this last!" Hu Qiming spoke up at the right time. He knew that it involved issues of interest that couldn't be resolved in a short time. Rather than wasting time on this, it was better to discuss other issues first.

……

The discussion about the secondary league lasted for two or three days, especially regarding contract regulations and transfer rules, which took a lot of time to get everyone's signatures.

Finally, Jiang Ming shared his experience in the commercial operation of the club and reached preliminary cooperation intentions with several clubs, including VG, LGD, and EDG.

Yes, that's right, it's EDG!

It is worth noting that Edward Zhu and his newly formed EDG have officially become members of the discussion.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, they will appear on the LPL stage next year after this year's Summer Split concludes.

However, we'll leave those aside for now.

While Tencent Sports was frantically preparing for the LSPL secondary league, and Jiang Ming was quietly learning a lot from it, the LPL Summer Split regular season was gradually entering its climax.

In the first week of the competition, NXG faced OMG, Royal Club, PE, and YG, continuing their undefeated record.

Their points total is at the top of the leaderboard.

Meanwhile, IG, who underwent special training and updated their roster during the off-season, also performed brilliantly, finishing their first week of competition with an impressive undefeated record.

During the match, the skills of support player Xiao Wu and top laner Xi Yang were quickly recognized by IG fans.

Our colleague Xiao Wang also said that this holiday deal was superb!
Perhaps due to the involvement of S3 World Championship slots, the competition in the LPL Summer Split has intensified significantly. The tactical battles between teams have become increasingly fierce, with everything from strategy design and tactical clashes to player-specific strategies and the battle of wits between the training and coaching staff being brought to the forefront. The overall level of play has been completely transformed compared to the Spring Split.

Amid such fierce competition, NXG encountered several close calls during the second week of the competition.

As the tournament progressed, the inherent uncertainty of BO1 matches became increasingly apparent, and in the third week, NXG ultimately suffered their first defeat in the competition.

On August 16th, IG will face off against NXG!

The team that handed them their first defeat was none other than IG, with whom they had trained together for many days during the off-season.

The original IG team already had two players with outstanding individual skills in the top and mid positions. Kid in the bot lane may be an abstract player, but he was able to be called one of the three best players in the Chinese server in ranked games, alongside Clearlove. His individual skill is beyond doubt. He just needs a support who can protect the AD carry and a mental balancer.

XiaoXiao's departure, in a sense, solved the problem of IG's bot lane being prone to sudden deaths.

The newly appointed support player, Xiao Wu, has perfectly fulfilled his responsibilities in terms of laning details, operational strategies, and team fight decisions.

With improved stability in the bottom lane, junglers can now focus more on the top and mid lanes.

In the match on the 16th, mid laner Zz1tai was in top form, completely dominating Xiaowu's Gragas in lane. Meanwhile, top laner PDD, who had been buffed by Jiang Ming during the All-Star event, also dominated Song Yuan throughout the match.

IG's operations were a bit rough, but the economic advantage they accumulated in the early stages was large enough that they finally managed to destroy NXG's main base at the 37th minute.

"Wow, they won! They won! IG won!"

"NXG's undefeated streak for the entire season has finally been broken. Their winning streak of nearly forty games from the Spring Split to the Summer Split has come to an end."

"All I can say is that IG played exceptionally well in today's match."

"Yes, NXG's undefeated record has become a milestone for our LPL region, and we hope that some teams will be able to surpass it in the future."

The commentator on stage was filled with admiration, his expression a mixture of excitement and regret.

NXG's winning streak is something they've witnessed all along, and as the overall strength of the region increases, the gap in strength between teams gradually narrows, making it a completely different level of difficulty to replicate such a winning streak miracle.

However, the defeat was not a big deal for NXG; while the players were upset, it was also a relief in some ways.

Liberating oneself from the psychological state of fear of failure.

Whether it's due to a shift in mentality or not, NXG's five players saw another improvement in their performance during the latter half of the Summer Split regular season.

They maintain their dominance in the region despite facing challenges from the vast majority of teams, and it is extremely difficult for strong teams like IG and OMG to defeat them.

As a result, not only players, but also some teams began to accept the disadvantage against NXG, stopped trying to gain points, and focused most of their energy on competing with other teams.

Given this background, it was only natural that NXG would take first place in the LPL Summer Split regular season.

In September, Jiang Ming made a symbolic appearance in the last game of the regular season, securing a ticket to the S-series for the club in advance.

(End of this chapter)