Sports Big Business No. 2910, welcome to pay attention to the leading sports industry information platform
Wen | Tan Liwen
Sports big business reporter from Xi'an
On the evening of May 22, the 2022 PEL Spring Games came to an end at the Xi'an Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium. After four fierce competition days in the finals, the Wuhan RSG team stood out and successfully won the cup, and collected 8 million yuan in prize money.
The success of the Spring Games also announced that PEL had completed a magnificent turnaround. In the past season, PEL has reformed and upgraded the schedule format, resulting in PEL reaching a new height in the fields of viewing volume, commercialization, popularization and internationalization.
Spectator data is an important indicator of the level of the event. At the 2022 PEL Spring Games, PEL saw explosive growth, with omni-channel viewing in the regular season and playoffs alone increasing by 70% sequentially and live platform viewing by 120% sequentially. Coupled with the data of this year's Spring Finals, the UV is expected to be higher.
Excellent data performance has become the best footnote to the PEL circle. For PEL, this achievement is enough to be called excellent, especially considering that this domestic head mobile e-sports competition has just entered its third year.
In the eyes of the sports big business, PEL's spectator data can usher in explosive growth in the third year, both due to the continuous update of PEL content and the continuous rise of PEL's influence outside the field. The two complement each other and together usher in an outbreak in the third year.
In the third year, PEL accumulated
In the view of sports big business, the reason for the explosive growth of PEL's viewing data is mainly due to the drastic reform of the format of the PEL, which effectively improves the spectator experience.
First of all, the most intuitive changes occur in the match mode. Starting with the 2022 PEL Spring Games, the personal perspective of the competition has been changed from "FPP" (first-person perspective) to "TPP" (third-person perspective) consistent with international competitions. Such a change can be "empathetic" with the audience.
It is understood that at present, the vast majority of peace elite players are playing the TPP mode, which means that the PEL changed to the TPP and the audience are "connected to the line", narrowing the distance between the PEL and the audience and reducing the threshold for new audiences.
In addition, in the points rule, PEL lowered the score of the game ranking points on the basis of keeping the elimination points unchanged. This minor change makes the teams more enthusiastic about getting higher scores through engagement, which further improves the spectacle of the game.
The most important change is in terms of the schedule. PEL changed from the previous four seasons to spring and summer, of which the spring tournament includes four stages: preseason qualifying, regular season, playoffs and finals.
In the view of sports big business, the 2022 PEL Spring Tournament, as the starting point for the upgrading of the PEL event system, fully integrates the PMGC global finals in terms of format and rules, gradually promotes the construction of international events, and lays a solid foundation for the PEL Alliance to connect with international events.
Democratization and internationalization initiatives
Consolidating the Peace Elite Esports "Pyramid"
Looking back on this season, the most significant change in PEL is the comprehensive upgrade of the format and schedule, and the synchronization to international standards. This upgrade process also reflects the PEL Alliance's new thinking on the operation of tactical esports events.
Liao Kan, marketing director of Tencent Game Photonic Studio Group and chairman of the PEL Alliance, said at the media communication meeting, "(The format upgrade) is also better to integrate with the international format in a sense, taking a solid step, only this fully open schedule format can allow global competitors to show their abilities on the synchronized stage." ”
In the process of integrating with internationalization, PEL can share and communicate many excellent attempts in China with overseas teams, thereby improving the development level of global peace elite e-sports. "We try to integrate the whole format and system of [Peace Elite] into a better participation program as much as possible, and then make logical access under the schedule system, which we are constantly trying and promoting." Liao Kan said.
If the completion of international integration is the "capping" of the pyramid of peace elite e-sports, then popularization is to firmly consolidate the root of the peaceful elite e-sports system.
In terms of popularization, the peace elite mass event system will also usher in a comprehensive innovation in 2022, of which the city track, the university track, the national track, the platform track and the ecological wild card track have a total of 5 core tracks combined to form the peace elite national competition.
The newly integrated Peace Elite National Competition has undoubtedly built a stage for e-sports enthusiasts who love tactical competitions and peace elite events to communicate and grow.
"In a sense, we hope to be able to create more different mass tracks, so that many users and players who are interested in growing up in the peace elite and in the e-sports professional system can enter this system and take a look," Liao Kan added, "Because most of the public competitions are not professional players, so (the Peace Elite National Competition) it is the layout of the participation." ”
Sports Big Business believes that the Peace Elite National Competition simplifies the highly professional e-sports competition, and by meeting the needs of more e-sports fans, it has truly popularized e-sports and helped PEL to sink into the e-sports market.
Fixed seat system and commercialization boost the PEL ecological expansion
"Circle expansion" is one of the synonyms of PEL. In the face of the outstanding performances of the past season, the sports big business wants to use the word "circle" more to describe the outstanding results of the 2022 PEL Spring Games.
PEL's performance in expanding the circle is not only reflected in the reform of the schedule format and the popularization and internationalization of PEL. Off the field, PEL is also expanding its circle as its influence continues to rise.
At the media communication meeting before the finals, PEL revealed a heavy news - PEL officially launched the fixed seat system, and 20 clubs have all signed and purchased fixed seats for PEL.
The seat system is not new in the field of traditional sports, and many professional events have long been introduced. The fixed seats of the PEL are similar to those of the NBA, with no promotion and relegation system, but retain the access channel for new teams. From the successful experience of the NBA, it can be seen that the fixed seat system integrates the entire league, the tournament and each club into one, which greatly improves the commercial value of the club.
The implementation of the fixed seat system means that PEL stands at a new starting point and takes an important step towards the development of professional leagues in traditional sports.
When talking about why the fixed seat system was implemented in the third year of PEL, Liao Kan said that after several years, everyone knows that the e-sports system requires deep investment, and it takes a lot of time, energy and resources to immerse in the system in order to develop in the long run.
"So today we think that the seat system is already a good club that will be interested in settling down in the PEL system, and together they can see the perspective of the peaceful elite professional system with a longer-term perspective, and all the most suitable clubs that have been precipitated in this system will become fixed seats together."
Thanks to the rapid development of the PEL League in the past few years, for 20 clubs, the fixed seat is undoubtedly a very high-quality "asset". According to the PEL League, PEL invested 200 million yuan in the entire event and prize money in 2021. Before the seat system was officially implemented, the clubs had been able to get very rich benefits from it. After the implementation of the fixed seat system, the club's earnings will increase considerably.
Ritina, CEO of NOVA e-sports club, told the media bluntly that she had "bought" it as soon as she learned that PEL had launched a fixed seat. "Surely the most attractive thing is money, is the economy, is the guarantee that can bring us a certain amount of funds, and what we value most is the commercial value that this seat system brings to us."
First of all, the club's operating strategy will no longer be limited to a single season, but can make the development of the club look at a longer term, so that the club can get healthy and healthy growth.
Secondly, the implementation of the fixed seat system will inject new vitality into the development of the entire peace elite e-sports. The implementation of the fixed seat system will undoubtedly maximize the release of PEL's commercial influence. Taking 2022 as an example, PEL has successfully established in-depth cooperative relations with OnePlus, Buick, JD.com and TT Voice.
Sports Big Business believes that PEL will usher in more brands after the implementation of the fixed seat system. The implementation of the fixed seat system allows everyone to see the huge commercial potential of PEL, and then attract more capital and resources to enter, which will lay the foundation for the industrial chain and ecological development of the entire category of peace elites.
In the field of traditional sports, the fixed seat system is an important means to enhance the commercial value of events and clubs. Again, in the NBA, for example, NBA players' salaries and bonuses come from the league's basketball-related income, accounting for between 49% and 51% of the share. This means that all players in the NBA league can enjoy the dividends brought by the overall commercialization of the NBA league.
Back to PEL, after the opening of the fixed seat system, PEL can protect the income of players to a certain extent and reduce the pressure on club operations. After the implementation of the fixed seat system in PEL, due to the limited number of seats, each club has invisibly enhanced its brand value, which can attract more commercial brands to cooperate with the club and even attract capital investment.
The commercial value of PEL fixed seats will also become a scarce target for investment, and the landing of the fixed seat system will also strongly promote the brand value of PEL Alliance and its clubs.
Looking back at PEL's previous commercialization achievements, PEL pioneered the competitive game linkage business model in the e-sports industry and served 19 major brands. The competitive game linkage model reached 50 million users during the marketing process and brought billions of exposures to sponsors.
With the implementation of the PEL fixed seat system, sports big business believes that this will promote the commercialization of PEL to a new height, open up a diversified revenue model for PEL, and also help PEL events and all clubs to achieve a diversified business ecology.
summary
Four expansion initiatives, namely fixed seats, commercialization of events, popularization and internationalization, helped PEL to enjoy explosive growth in its third year. This data is the best compliment for the past PEL Alliance ecosystem, and it will certainly become an important footnote to the next stage of PEL's expansion.
More mature event products and ecosystems will further amplify the brand value and commercial value of the PEL Alliance. The continuous improvement and progress of the PEL ecosystem highlights the vitality of the PEL Alliance. PEL's expansion circle will become a case and model worth learning from in professional e-sports events.
Note: The images used in this article are from PEL