On August 10, Xingwei Weiwu Club held a press conference online, officially announcing the merger with the famous Swedish E-sports team NIP (Ninjas in Pyjamas) to jointly form Xingwei Ninja Group. Since then, NIP Group has officially become a global e-sports club with main venues in Shenzhen, Wuhan, Brazil and Sweden.
Sina Game interviewed Youjun He, the chairman of Xingwei Ninja Group, for the first time, and discussed the planning of the next year and the layout of the e-sports industry.
He Youjun, Chairman of NIP Group He Youjun Mario, the president of the Macau E-sports Federation designated by the Asian E-sports Association, founded the Victory Five E-sports Club, the largest e-sports production company in Macao: Youjun E-sports, and presided over and promoted the merger of Star Racing Weiwu and NIP, officially establishing the Star Racing Ninja Group, It is committed to building the world's most iconic and largest e-sports and game entertainment company.
The following is the interview record:
Sina game: What is the opportunity for this merger with the world famous E-sports team NIP to become NIP Group? In what aspects will the two sides share resources, achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, or maintain their original operating systems?
You Jun He: The opportunity to merge with NIP is that we both want to be the first international global club and the leader in the global e-sports industry. The idea of opening up the global market is matched, so we come together.
For both of us, we also found that the e-sports club market is somewhat similar to some previous e-sports markets, and has reached a stage that needs integration. Although the domestic e-sports clubs have improved rapidly in recent years, it is difficult to maintain a sustained and rapid healthy growth to enter the capital market only with the development of clubs or single country and single region clubs. At present, we have reached a place where everyone can see a slowdown, so we believe that there is an opportunity to integrate the e-sports market.
In terms of cooperation between the two sides, there must be both a place to maintain our original operating system and a place for win-win and resource sharing.
First of all, resource sharing must be our business resources. I also mentioned in the press conference that we can actually become the first company to do business 2.0. In the future, all our sponsors will continue to increase their investment, because we are a company that can do e-commerce marketing across different continents. Then we will keep our own strong points. For example, our eStar team, our star racing power has reached the top in the mobile game field in the world, so it must be our team that will continue to do no matter whether it is the eStar brand or the eStar fan operation, or the part of our domestic and foreign mobile game e-sports, Then in the field of end travel, it must be the most powerful part of NIP. After all, they are many world champions of end travel, so that's why we changed our name to NIP in the LPL brand project.
Sina game: We just learned at the press conference that NIP Group has obtained a round B financing of 100 million yuan from Oriental Shengshi Fund. Can you disclose the development plan of NIP Group for the next year in advance? Will it expand new e-sports events or strengthen brand cooperation to improve commercial liquidity?
You Jun He: Let me make a point here. In fact, I didn't specifically mention the number of our round b financing in the press conference just now. Our round b financing will certainly not be lower than our round a financing, The last time we raised 120 million yuan in Round A, we will raise this figure this time in Round B, but not 100 million yuan or anything. This figure has not been disclosed, and it is not convenient to disclose now. I hope you can understand.
Second, we will make up for some gaps in e-sports events and diversified businesses in the future with more than 100 million yuan of round b financing. First of all, as an e-sports company, we would like to try to expand our e-sports events, not just the League of Heroes mobile games. Although we basically include all kinds of events, we still have two or three events that are not covered, one or two in China, and one or two in the United States, We hope to expand in these areas. Then there are our other diversified businesses, including our MCN business and building content production.
Sina game: Can you explain again the "E-sports industry chain service enterprises" you mentioned in the press conference?
You Jun He: Because I regard E-sports more as a demand, and I think this demand will become very extensive. For cities, there will be more and more sports events to be undertaken, so many local governments will start to hope to introduce more E-sports home courts, more E-sports events, more youth E-sports leagues, and non professional games, etc, Therefore, the demand will be greatly improved.
The demand of game companies for e-sports will also increase a lot. As I said in the press conference just now, the way to obtain users is already very expensive. So the game based e-sports can not only reduce the unit price of users, but also increase the stickiness of returning users. So I see many game companies, even if some games are not suitable for the LPL we see, KPL is a large-scale competition of e-sports, but e-sports are not big or small. There are demands for large-scale competitions and small-scale competitions, both professional leagues and non professional local competitions. In fact, the offline development of many games is also a demand for e-sports.
In addition, for traditional enterprises, the number of e-sports users in China has exceeded 400 million, so which traditional enterprise would say that I am not interested in young people, and I am not interested in the 400 million plus user group of e-sports. I believe that few companies in traditional industries would say that, but more think about how they can be interested in their brands through e-sports, It can bring greater improvement to their sales.
In this link, it is difficult for traditional game companies or local governments to think about how to do it. At a time when this demand is vacant, I hope my company can become such a service enterprise in the e-sports industry chain, to help these enterprises solve this demand and help them implement e-sports events.
Sina game: What do you think of the current development of e-sports industry in China? What potential does it have?
You Jun He: I think the development of domestic e-sports is very good. We are the world leader in terms of size and growth. I think that the development of E-sports in China in recent years has been widely recognized by the public and capital, which has upgraded from a simple hobby to an industry, and also created a global E-sports group like ours.
I think the potential is mainly in two directions, one is the development of regionalization; The other is the peripheral industry of e-sports, which is to improve the payment rate and payment volume of individual e-sports fans. The game is called ARPU (Average Revenue Per User).
Let me start with regionalization. Why are we so focused when we enter the E-sports market? We want to be the only domestic company with two main venues. Now we want to become the world's largest company with the most main venues, because from the perspective of our analysis of the events in the traditional sports industry, such as football and basketball clubs, the deeper the regionalization, the stronger the stickiness of fans, and the stronger the club. I think China is at an initial stage. LPL now has 5 or 6 clubs to determine the home court, and KPL has 14 or 15 clubs to determine the home court. In this environment, I think each club has the responsibility to do a good job of how to penetrate the local market. If the club does better or the club's home position is in a more favorable city, it will be more beneficial to the development of the club.
The other is the surrounding industry of e-sports. First of all, there are not many places where the fans of the club can pay. Because watching the game and shooting the curtain are free of charge, painting gifts on the live broadcast platform does not actually help the club much. However, e-sports has begun to carry out many cross category interactions, and we will cooperate with clothing brands, To cooperate with e-commerce companies, even NIP has recently done a lot of cooperation in the field of digital art NFT, so when more peripheral products appear, I think the consumption potential of the huge domestic e-sports enthusiasts is unlimited.
Sina game: What challenges did you encounter at the beginning of entering the E-sports industry? How to solve it? Are you satisfied with the current development of the Group?
You Jun He: I think there are two challenges. In the past few years, the first is the capital market's view of our industry, which led to some challenges in the time cycle of our initial financing. Even though we are the most popular and successful e-sports company in the domestic capital market, we need to change the capital market at the beginning, It is still difficult to think about investing in the establishment of an E-sports club. Because it has been a long time, some early generation E-sports clubs burn more money and transfer more times, so the return or stability to investors is not enough. So at the beginning, we still spent some time and cost to reverse this view by taking our own example. Then I believe that this time, whether it is round B financing or our merger with NIP, we will show the domestic capital market and the international capital market that this E-sports club is indeed a market worthy of resources and funds. Then the second is the achievement. After all, it is very difficult for the E-sports club to obtain achievements, which also requires a lot of time to achieve. It was very difficult for me to enter the e-sports industry at the beginning.
So how is it solved? In fact, I think there are two choices. Either you really step into the holes others have stepped on, and then learn from your mistakes, try to make mistakes, and then add a very big element of luck; Or it can be done in a more efficient way, that is, professional people do professional things to build the most powerful team through consolidation. I chose both because I think the time of entrepreneurs is very valuable. Professional things are left to professional people. In the twinkling of an eye, we became the first world champion club with both global mobile and end game.
I am very confident about the development of my future group, whether it is to continue to win the championship in mobile games or to continue to win the world championship in Duanyou. So I think I must be satisfied with the development of the group now, because we have led the whole track.
Sina game: Finally, what do you want to say to the fans who have always supported V5 and eStar?
You Jun He: I am very grateful to every fan who has supported my entrepreneurial path and the development of our company and club, because supporting us has really given us great confidence, and has become the driving force for us to continue to go forward when we are unhappy or unstable. Let us believe that we can lead the market and create achievements that the E-sports market has never seen before. I believe that through the development of our company in recent years and our current leading position, we will continue to give our fans more exciting games, more champions and more ways to support our activities. At the same time, I hope you are not only fans of our club, but also fans of our company. I hope our company can make greater achievements in the future to give back to you.
Sina statement: The purpose of posting this article on Sina.com is to convey more information, which does not mean to agree with its views or confirm its description.
