186: Chapter 186 Tencent Officially Announces the Global Esports League!

The content of the trending topic was quite simple.

Even those who knew nothing about esports could quickly grasp it.

"The third season of the league of legends tournament has received considerable attention and popularity, yet it hasn't signed any sponsorship deals with first-tier brands. This can only mean one thing: the tournament itself is not valued by capital."

"The information channels used by capital are not something ordinary players can access. It suggests that in their view, league of legends esports is merely a growing soap bubble—extremely fragile, unlikely to sustain its popularity for long, and completely unworthy of their investment."

"The root cause of this is that the league of legends esports tournament is just a makeshift operation; it hasn't established a complete system, and everything is just child's play."

"Not only are there no established teams or regional leagues, but few teams even have roles like coaches or analysts, let alone home venues. Many teams just travel around to compete, and so on."

"This is enough to show that the league of legends officials don't take this tournament very seriously."

At the end of the post, the author left a conclusion.

The league of legends tournament is not a professional esports tournament at all!

Even though the very concept of esports was proposed by Qin Mo.

Once this post appeared, it indeed garnered a significant amount of attention and discussion from players, with the majority even agreeing with it.

After all, most of the content in the post was true and verifiable; if a professional tournament lacks a complete system, it is indeed difficult to sustain in the long run.

Even now, most of the third season league of legends teams consisted only of the five players themselves; they had no clubs, no staff, no systematic training regimens, and no player agencies, so they certainly didn't look very professional.

It seemed as if league of legends was just paying for these players to compete together, with no intention of building a systematic tournament.

However, even so, there were very few worried comments under this trending topic at the moment.

"It's just the beginning, so this is normal. Isn't it simple to build a complete system?"

"Home venues are indeed critical; right now, these players have to change cities for almost every match, which is exhausting for both the players and the fans."

"I remember the main goal of this year's league of legends tournament was to make esports deeply rooted in people's hearts, right? The complete industry chain is being built slowly, so why is it suddenly being criticized?"

"Does it matter if there's a system or not right now? As long as the matches are exciting, that's all that matters!"

Among these comments, many sharp-minded netizens noticed that this topic had been simultaneously translated into various languages and was appearing on social media platforms around the world, all consistently ranking at the top of trending lists.

Such a move could not have been orchestrated by a small independent media outlet; there must be someone pushing it from behind the scenes.

And for this mastermind to disparage the league of legends tournament at this particular time, they surely harbor ill intentions.

"Wait, am I the only one who thinks this trending topic is suspicious? It seems like it's intentionally smearing the league of legends tournament."

"It may be intentional smearing, but what it says is indeed a fact."

...

Meanwhile, in the Magic City, at the headquarters of Langchao Group.

With a creak, an infuriated Zhao Lei pushed open the door to Qin Mo's office, his phone displaying the trending topic on Weibo.

Zheng Yue and Lin Xiao followed close behind him.

In fact, they had sensed the shift in public sentiment over the past few days, but only now had the mastermind behind the scenes slowly bared their fangs.

"Boss, they've gone too far."

"Just now, people from Adidas and Nike contacted us, saying they still need time to observe and cannot commit to direct sponsorship of the tournament."

"But initially, before the third season began, we signed letters of intent with them; they agreed to monitor the tournament's popularity and then decide whether to come on board."

"But now that our tournament's popularity is so high, they're still saying they need to consider it. They're just playing with us."

As he spoke, Zhao Lei sat on the sofa in a huff, picked up his teacup, and drained it in one gulp.

Lin Xiao, who was standing to the side, also spoke up.

"Actually, what I find puzzling is that while it's normal for our league of legends tournament to be envied by certain capital interests and for them to try to trip us up, given how popular it is..."

"...companies of the caliber of Adidas operate primarily based on profit. They couldn't possibly fail to see the potential of esports, and they certainly wouldn't abandon a partnership with us for other reasons."

Listening to their words, Qin Mo didn't turn around, continuing to gaze at the scenery outside the window.

He spoke slowly.

"So, there is only one possibility."

"There is a greater interest that has captured the attention of these first-tier brands."

Hearing this, the others were taken aback.

"Currently, we are the only ones who have successfully developed esports. At least in this industry, they don't even have a second option. And if it were an interest layout in another direction, it wouldn't conflict with esports."

This time, listening to Lin Xiao, Qin Mo didn't say anything. He simply pulled out his phone and looked at the number one trending topic on Weibo.

In fact, over the past few days, after numerous first-tier brands had refused to cooperate with them, he had already guessed what was happening.

Some of the information in this trending topic further confirmed his judgment.

He muttered, "The TI tournament, Teng Jing."

"Pony, you've certainly moved quickly this time."

In his past life, the esports industry had a scale exceeding hundreds of billions, or even nearly a trillion dollars, most of which was created by league of legends tournaments. However, that didn't mean there were no other esports tournaments.

Among them, the dota 2 TI tournament and the CS Major Championship both enjoyed quite high levels of attention and popularity.

Even though the player counts for these two games were far lower than those of league of legends—combined, they were barely a fraction of league of legends—the scale of these two tournaments was by no means small.

Although still far behind the league of legends tournament, they were already quite impressive.

This also proved one thing: the popularity of an esports tournament did not completely correspond to the number of players of the game; esports could indeed attract quite a few non-gaming viewers.

It was likely that after the Opening Match of league of legends became a hit, Tencent had already begun preparations in this regard.

The appearance of this trending topic today could only mean one thing: Tencent's tournament system was likely about to be officially announced.

After all, Tencent's sheer scale was undeniable; they only needed to concede a bit more profit to attract the attention of numerous first-tier brands. With Tencent's system promoting it, reaching tens of millions of viewers for a tournament wouldn't be difficult.

There was just one thing they hadn't anticipated, though.

That was...

That a viewership of forty million was not the end for the league of legends tournament, but merely a starting point.

The popularity of the league of legends Global Finals was extremely staggering; the number of viewers watching the finals could even exceed one hundred million!

This figure, even among all tournament systems, was among the highest. In this world, that number would only be even more staggering.

Thinking of this, Qin Mo turned to look at Zhao Lei and the others.

"There's no need to wait for those brands anymore. We can contact some second or third-tier brands. Didn't those domestic first-tier clothing brands like Anli want to sponsor the players' uniforms? We can contact them."

"Also, we don't need to let external discussions disrupt our planned rhythm for the esports system. Building the complete system is for next year; this year, we just need to keep raising the popularity of the league of legends tournament, and that will be enough."

Hearing this, although the others were a bit puzzled, they still nodded.

Only Zhao Lei couldn't help but ask, "Why exactly are these first-tier brands refusing to work with us?"

Qin Mo took a deep breath.

"You'll know soon enough."

...

Events unfolded much as Qin Mo had expected.

Just two hours later, Tencent and Valve released a joint statement.

"To provide game players with the most perfect esports experience, Tencent has reached a deep partnership with Valve to launch the most professional Global Esports League."

"This will be the first esports tournament in the world to form a complete system!"

"And the first batch of games to join will be dota 2 and CSGO."