Nike and Tencent deal causes controversy, new Warcraft tournament on the way and more from China’s esports scene

China’s esports industry has witnessed several promising events over the past two weeks, from Tencent’s global tournament at PUBG Mobile to a new deal between China’s Netease and Blizzard, which will see fruition next year

The Chinese city of Hangzhou opened its own electronic sports arena, with a new venue for LGD Gaming in partnership with Allied Esports. As Chinese media have reported widely, Nike is currently negotiating with Tencent for a large-scale sponsorship deal, but there seems to be little dissatisfaction with the teams.

NetEase’s esports Plan with Blizzard: an award of up to $ 720,000 for the WarCraft III series

On Nov. 26, Chinese technology company Netease, China’s exclusive distributor of Blizzard Entertainment developers, announced its 2019 sports plan for many billiards, including the famous Hearthstone card game, Starcraft II, Warcraft III, Heroes of the Storm.

According to Ye Pang, partnership manager for NetEase and Blizzard’s joint operations team in China, NetEase will offer 5 million RMB (720,000 US dollars) as a total prize for multiple contests in 2019. Outside the current Gold Series competitions in Warcraft. Netease will offer a new competition for teams similar to the WC3L series, which lasted from 2002 to 2010. Warcraft III will receive an updated version called Reforged, which will include the frozen throne expansion, which will be released sometime in 2019.

For Hearthstone, NetEase announced that the McLaren supercar will be the grand prize in the China 2016 European Championship. In the 2018 edition of the same tournament, Dutchman Thijs “Thijs” Molendijk, representing G2 Esports, won the Aston Martin – The award is a tradition that began in 2015.
Controversy difference with Tencent on Nike sponsorship deal for the LPL Tournament

Nike is negotiating a sponsorship deal with Tencent in the Chinese LPL League

The deal was first announced by many Chinese media earlier this month. However, the sources told the Esports Observer website that the deal was still under negotiation, with many LPL concerned concerned that it would prevent them from looking for other dressers. In addition, preliminary reports that the transaction will be worth 1B RMB ($ 144M) over five years are incorrect. According to sources, Tencent has forced many Chinese media to cancel their news coverage of the deal.

The deal will make all LPL players, trained staff, and team managers dressed in Nike days matches. This would create a problem for the teams’ organizations with existing clothing partners, such as the Chinese clothing brand Li-Ning, the main sponsor of clothing at Edward Gaming. In addition, the source said the deal would prevent LPL teams from looking for other clothing sponsors.

Hangzhou City opens Esports Tow, with LGD Gaming booth sponsored by Allied Esports

China’s Hangzhou City has opened the “Electronic Sports Village”, which currently spans 3.94 million square feet (17,000 square meters). The initial cost of the complex is ¥ 2B RMB ($ 280 million), despite plans by the Hangzhou government to spend up to 15.45 billion RMB ($ 2.22 billion) on the project by 2022. According to the People.cn website run by the Chinese government. Some of the city’s planned facilities include a sports academy, an e-sports hotel, a leisure park, a business center and even a hospital designed for electronic players.

LGD Gaming, a popular Chinese e-sports organization, has opened a new facility in this village in partnership with Allied Esports. The facility will serve as LGD’s local home for the League of Legends Pro (LPL).

PUBG Mobile News

PUBG Mobile has been busied at both the Asian and international levels with the launch of the 2018 PUBG Mobile Star Challenge, which brought together the best teams in the popular Battle Royale smartphones, including the Arab region. The final matches are now in competition, and we are waiting to see who wins the largest share of the $ 600,000 grand prize.

Other news includes the launch of the PUBG China Pro Invitational Season 2 (PCPI2) season in Shanghai from 17 to 25 November. Where the prize was ¥ 2M RMB ($ 225.6K). The competition was hosted by PUBG Corp in conjunction with Versus Programming Network (VSPN), which included HyperX and NEWERA. This season, 32 Chinese PGG teams competed with the first four teams from PCPI2 to PUBG Asia Invitational (PAI), which will be hosted in Macau in 2019.

Tencent has also expanded PUBG Mobile to Southeast Asian markets with a series of tournaments covering areas including Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and India. The tournament will be called “Fighting League” and will be organized by the Fight Esports Group (FEG). The finals will be held in December with a total prize of $ 320,000 ($ 80,000 per country).