Cristiano Ronaldo stopped playing.
According to the original plan, football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and his Riyadh Victory team are ready to play Shanghai Shenhua and Zhejiang in Shenzhen on January 24 and 28 respectively.
But just one day before the game, the news of the cancellation of the game suddenly came out.
At 20:30 on the evening of January 23, the organizer held a press conference to announce that Ronaldo could not play due to physical reasons, and the Riyadh Victory team's trip to China was postponed. At the same time, the organizer quickly announced an omni-channel refund plan, promising that the air tickets and hotels of fans who come to watch the game can be "reimbursed".
At the press conference, Ronaldo said, "I want to say sorry to the Chinese fans, there are some things in the football world that cannot be controlled. I'm sad, and I understand your sadness. ”
In the early stage, the gongs and drums were noisy, and finally ended hastily, what happened in the middle?
Ronaldo attended the press conference to announce the postponement of Riyadh's victory in China Photo/Visual China
Sudden change
The news of Cristiano Ronaldo's coming to China to compete this time was finalized on December 17, 2023.
At that time, Changxin Media, the organizer of Riyadh Victory China, officially announced that it would hold the above two competitions in Shenzhen on January 24 and 28, 2024.
China News Weekly learned that the early negotiations and initial implementation of the event were orderly and progressed smoothly, whether it was the pre-sale of tickets or the arrangement of artists interspersed in the game, good results were achieved in the early marketing and publicity.
On the evening of January 21 this year, the Riyadh Victory team chartered a plane to Shenzhen, which was broadcast live on local television.
In the live broadcast, the person in charge of the organizer of this tournament said in a confident tone: "The news we got is that Ronaldo does have some injuries in his routine training, but we think this is something that professional players are used to." Riyadh Victory Club has a very strict physical recovery and training system, and as far as we know now, Ronaldo will be involved in all the events of this Riyadh Victory China tour. ”
The organizer was interviewed and was sure that Ronaldo would appear in the picture/Shenzhen Satellite TV Deepvision News public account
Later, on the evening of January 22, Ronaldo and the Riyadh Victory team attended the welcome dinner of the China trip. The topic of "Ronaldo's toast" once appeared on the hot search, and the host of the dinner also deliberately broadcast live to refute the rumors that Ronaldo raised his glass that night and drank a "white fungus pear soup" in the menu.
But on the afternoon of January 23, the news that Ronaldo missed the warm-up match in China due to injury and that the game might be postponed or canceled suddenly spread. Football commentators on several broadcast platforms revealed that they had received notices of the cancellation of the game. The relevant press conference originally scheduled for the afternoon of the same day was cancelled directly, and at 20:30 in the evening, the official news of "boots landing" was belated.
A person close to Changxin Media told China News Weekly that Ronaldo's injury was public information, which was first disclosed around January 19, and had previously been released by both Saudi and domestic media. At that time, some fans questioned whether Ronaldo could play in the subsequent trip to China.
According to insiders, the organizers announced that Ronaldo could play due to various factors such as the box office, word of mouth, and even the "commercial agreement" related to Ronaldo's appearance, which eventually caused inconsistent statements and crisis public relations out of control.
"The Riyadh Victory Team's trip to China was finalized early, and the publicity around Ronaldo has been released very early, but if the organizer publicly said before the game that Ronaldo can't play, who else will buy tickets?" said the insider.
China News Weekly has learned that the organizers' measures on ticket refunds are "reliable" in the eyes of fans and sports industry professionals. Some fans told China News Weekly that they received a refund text message from the relevant ticketing platform, and the follow-up needs to be further processed.
Ronaldo was angry
China News Weekly learned that although Ronaldo said at the press conference that this was his eighth visit to China, and even called China his "second hometown", in just a few days, there were still many things that made Ronaldo unhappy.
The first is the appearance problem caused by Cristiano Ronaldo's injury. Insiders told China News Weekly that although Ronaldo's injury was an accident, it was not private information and had become a fait accompli. The organizers still spared no effort to "work hard" when they knew it, and even persuaded Ronaldo to "play for the fans" on a certain meeting, which made Ronaldo quite dissatisfied.
In today's international football practice, the club's approach to athlete injuries is more of a "people-oriented" approach. Unless some major players themselves say that they want to grit their teeth and persevere, the rest of the situation is subject to the judgment of the medical team. Playing with an injury in such a commercial game is not necessary for most professional players.
What's more, Ronaldo has publicly stated more than once that he will lead the Portuguese national team to the 2024 Euro Championship to be held in Germany for the sixth time at the age of 39 this year, and said that he will try his best to bring back another championship trophy for Portugal.
Therefore, before the European Championship in June this year, maintaining good physical condition will be the most important task for Ronaldo at the end of his career.
In addition, the dinner party that was on the hot search because of "Ronaldo's toast" also made Ronaldo feel uncomfortable. In Ronaldo's view, this occasion, which is full of business etiquette, has been sold by the organizer A large number of "seats", and most of the buyers are Internet celebrities. After spending the admission fee, the Internet celebrities use live broadcasts and other methods to obtain benefits. Throughout the dinner, Ronaldo was annoyed by autographs, group photos, and live broadcasts.
Ronaldo's "toast" photo on the hot search / Tiger Pounce Forum
China News Weekly learned that before Ronaldo's trip to China, an e-commerce live broadcast platform had contacted Ronaldo's agent through an intermediary to discuss live streaming, but in the end, due to the disagreement on commercial rights and interests, the form was rejected by Ronaldo himself and the brokerage team.
Who would have thought that the live broadcast platform went to co-planning with the organizers, and finally persuaded the Riyadh Victory team to carry out live broadcast in the name of the team. However, in the promotional posters released later, there was only a portrait of Ronaldo himself and the Internet celebrity partner, and Ronaldo and Riyadh Victory Club were very dissatisfied with this.
The organizers are "out of touch inside and outside"?
In fact, there has always been no shortage of fans in commercial football matches with Ronaldo and Messi to "buy", which is why relevant companies can not hesitate to spend a lot of money to obtain authorization and operate the event.
Messi led Argentina to face Australia at the Beijing Workers' Stadium in June 2023, receiving full applause and achieving profitability, which increased the confidence of related companies in the industry and beyond.
However, when copying this "way of making money", there are frequent accidents. Messi's trip to China with Inter Miami, as well as Cristiano Ronaldo's trip to Riyadh's victory in China, have all suffered major changes. Messi's game information has been officially announced, but it was forced to be canceled, Ronaldo has arrived in China, and the game is still "postponed".
It is conceivable that the relevant sponsoring companies are burdened with the burden of "must make a profit" to a certain extent, and there is also a "disconnect between inside and outside" in operation, which has been widely criticized and questioned by the outside world.
According to previous reports by the sports industry ecosystem, the appearance fee of the Riyadh Victory team in China is about 11 million US dollars (about 80 million yuan). According to the relevant ticketing platform information and the capacity of the Shenzhen Universiade Center, Ronaldo's China tour needs to sell 50,000 tickets (the official price is divided into 6 levels, the lowest is 380 yuan, and the highest is 4,580 yuan), and the average price can reach about 2,000 yuan to cover the cost.
According to the above-mentioned insider: "At the beginning of the pre-sale stage, the ticket sales of Ronaldo's game were not bad, but before the game, in fact, there were still many high-priced tickets on various sales channels, and some discounted tickets were sold." So exactly what the box office receipts will do is not yet known. As far as the whole project is concerned, box office revenue may not be the most important, and the investment income of the B-end is more critical. ”
The sports industry says that the investment of many sponsors in this event is "linked" to Ronaldo's appearance. If Ronaldo is unable to play and is forced to hold the game, the organizers may lose more. Therefore, whether the postponement of Ronaldo's trip to China instead of the cancellation is related to this, because it involves trade secrets that cannot be verified or falsified at present.
In terms of event operation, Ding Tao, director of the Entertainment and Sports Law Research Center of Guangdong Zhuojian Law Firm, told China News Weekly that there were actually many successful cases of foreign-related commercial sports events in the past, but in recent years, with the changes in the market environment and the development of the Internet industry, higher requirements have been put forward at both the level of competition and commercial development.
Ronaldo fans holding their jerseys for a group photo Photo/Visual China
"Internally, the first thing to do is to focus on process compliance. Any commercial sports event introduced is a large-scale event, which needs to be approved by departments at all levels and work collaboratively. Related project work, ticketing, marketing, etc., all need to leave enough schedules and cycles, and you must not gamble and take risks not according to the process. ”
"Externally, Chinese sports industry professionals need to have a 'same dialogue' with their foreign counterparts to reach an agreement on business concepts and contracts. Ding Tao said, "At present, there are differences in the understanding of football and some sports between China and foreign countries due to different environments. For example, foreign teams are generally very pure, and when they talk about business and come into contact, the general understanding of foreign countries is to come and play a friendly match, a warm-up match, and compete with China's strong teams, and by the way, to develop the Chinese market. Foreigners also know that China values star effect, but their original intention is still to focus on football, and they may not want to just package it as a fan meeting and operate it in an entertaining way. ”
"In addition, at present, short videos and live broadcasts are popular, and it is true that foreign stars can get a good traffic effect when they participate in them. However, the spirit of the contract of foreign stars, the strong sense of copyright, the rules and regulations used in the portrait, and the related commercial rights and interests can be described as 'baht must be compared' before the contract is signed. On the other hand, many Internet celebrities and platforms have too many 'low-cost traffic' behaviors, which will make foreigners feel that our business is not standardized, unruly, and difficult to sustain. Ding Tao pointed out that in fact, the relevant business behaviors and actions of the sports industry also represent the "image of Chinese sports" to a certain extent.
Author: Ye Zhufeng
(Source: China News Weekly)