Tens of millions of yuan in debt, contract disputes, and the verge of bankruptcy...... The well-known e-sports club RNG actually wants to be "cool"?
According to a report by business media Zhiwei on April 10, talking about the development status of RNG, its CEO Li Jieming said in an exclusive interview with Zhiwei, "The reality is that we have reached the bottom, and we may not even have to go bankrupt in 100 days as the outside world says, we may go bankrupt immediately." It's not that there is no money, but that there is a loss of money, tens of millions of holes, all kinds of defaults, and millions of operating expenses every month, 890% of which are player expenses. ”
In addition, Benjamin Lee revealed that RNG now has only one sponsor left, and he himself has even just received a wave of debt collection from the office.
In fact, the collapse of the RNG commercial building has long been traced.
The star player left the team
Former team members posted a salary bargain
Looking back on the development history of RNG, we have to mention its glorious record of winning the first "Triple Crown" in the history of MSI.
The League of Legends Mid-Season Championship (MSI) is the largest international esports event in League of Legends in the first half of the year. On May 20, 2018, Team RNG defeated Team KZ of South Korea with a score of 3:1 to win the first World Championship.
Image source: RNG Weibo
In May 2021, RNG defeated Team DK to lift the MSI Championship Trophy for the second time. In May 2022, RNG defeated the T1 team in the Korean LCK region with a score of 3:2, becoming the first team in history to win the triple crown in the mid-season.
In addition to its repeated successes, RNG has also been sued for contract disputes on several occasions. Some bloggers joked that in the e-sports world, RNG is dubbed the "God of Contracts" because it often cards players' contracts.
Although the "card contract" has been denied, RNG's entanglement with its players is indeed a cause for concern.
On February 15, 2023, Deng Chuange (shuaishuai), an esports player from RNG's former PUBG project division, posted a post asking RNG for salary. Under the Weibo, former RNG players such as Zhou Pinyan (ZpYan1) and Zeng Jinxiang (Tianba) also asked for salary in the form of comments. Subsequently, #RNG拖欠奖金#话题登上微博热搜榜.
Image source: Deng Chuange Weibo
In addition, in recent years, a number of RNG star players have also left the team.
In May 2023, RNG officially announced that support player Ming left RNG to become a free agent. Since then, the winning lineup (Letme, Mlxg, Karsa, UZI, Xiaohu, Ming) that won the MSI championship in 2018 has all left RNG.
The "rich second generation" boss has become an "old man"
In addition to the disputes with its players, the boss behind RNG is also in trouble.
According to public information, RNG E-sports Club, formerly known as the Royal E-sports Club, now has a number of game divisions such as the League of Legends Division and the Honor of Kings Division. RNG is affiliated to Shangrao Leyou Network Technology Co., Ltd., and Yao Jin has become the actual controller of the company, with a shareholding ratio of 62.81%.
Image source: Tianyancha website
It is worth mentioning that Yao Jincheng is also the son of Yao Guilu, a well-known figure in Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province. In August 2023, Yao Guilu and Yao Jincheng father and son added a new information on the person subject to enforcement, with an enforcement target of 18.45 million yuan, involving a private lending dispute case, and the enforcement court is the Shanghai Huangpu District People's Court.
Tianyan check shows that Yao Jincheng is associated with a total of 15 companies, of which 10 are in a state of existence, including Shangrao Leyou Network Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Jingxin Chengfeng Media Co., Ltd., Royal Culture Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., etc.
According to financial reports, Yao Jincheng was listed as a dishonest person subject to execution by the Shanghai Huangpu District People's Court because he refused to perform the obligations determined by the effective legal documents because he had the ability to perform in loan dispute cases, and was also restricted from high consumption.
With clubs and owners in a quagmire, where does RNG go from here?
Its CEO Li Jieming revealed to Zhiwei, "We hope to get a short-term return by issuing cards, issuing NFTs, and fresh and fun digital people, which are interesting but related to fans." ”
However, as soon as this remark came out, many fans questioned the suspicion of "cutting leeks", and some netizens shouted, "Sell it for money, it's good for the club, good for the players, and good for the fans......
[Source: Shenzhen Business Daily • Reading and Creating Client]