LOL: I'm in the LPL, that's my fight!

"There's no other way. If our cooperation method is exposed, it's tantamount to directly challenging the unspoken rules of the entire industry."

"To put it mildly, it's a breach of understanding; to put it more seriously, it's easy to be labeled as 'maliciously disrupting the market.'"

Fu Shiyan saw things very clearly.

Their collaboration between TSG and Crush is a disruption to the control chain of "players" within the esports industry.

The reason why esports giants and even traditional sports clubs have been able to monopolize top players for years is never just because of money.

Everyone has money, but what truly allows them to sit back and relax is a meticulously functioning "cultivation-contracting-binding" mechanism that has been repeatedly verified and proven to be effective.

How does this mechanism work?

A fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy was pulled out of the police station and thrown into a youth training camp.

Sign a five-year contract—the first two years are low-salary, euphemistically called the "training period," with a monthly salary of three to five thousand dollars, and room and board are already considered more than generous; the salary increases in the next three years depending on performance, and if you play well, it can be increased to ten or twenty thousand dollars, plus floating bonus clauses, and the child is grateful and feels that he has met a mentor.

Before you break out, you're like a rough diamond. The club keeps promising you the future, saying you'll be the next world champion.

Once it's sold, you become a commodity. Your market value, transfer fee, signing bonus, and live streaming contract—every number will be carefully weighed by professionals.

Why can't I type it out?

It was just a matter of paying a few thousand dollars in low-cost insurance, and the club suffered no loss. Next.

After all, transfer fees are the club's main focus.

The transfer of a top player can easily cost tens of millions, equivalent to the output of an entire youth training camp for three years.

The club's operating logic has never been to make money from ticket sales and merchandise;

That meager income wasn't even enough to cover the base's electricity costs.

The real profits come from the human flesh trade of "buying low and selling high".

What does equity distribution mean?

This means that from day one, the players are not simply objects to be exploited for their labor value, but rather one of the club's owners.

Fu Shiyan added "one of" to his own name out of precision, not out of modesty.

If a player who owns equity becomes estranged from the team and wants to transfer, the process involves much more than just contract negotiations.

How should the equity be handled?

What standard is used to determine the repurchase price?

Who will value it?

Do the contestants have priority subscription rights?

If the new club wants to buy the equity as well, wouldn't that be considered a disguised violation of the rules for player recruitment?

These are all issues that cannot be avoided.

With each additional problem, the transfer market is suddenly burdened with a host of legal disputes and valuation issues.

What do wealthy families hate the most?

It's not about spending money, it's not about competition, it's about—uncertainty!

Once the circulation speed slows down and the cost of negotiation increases, the liquidity of the entire trading market will plummet.

This is almost fatal for small and medium-sized elite clubs that rely on frequent player transfers to maintain cash flow.

Don't tell me that Crush is a special case and not easily replicated.

You're right about all these reasons: a once-in-a-century genius, the perfect timing and location for media hype, and the support from Huya and Tencent. But that's not the key issue.

The crux of the matter is that you, TSG, set a bad precedent.

A bad precedent that forced them to follow.

This is the real reason why the esports community is so outraged.

In the previous generation, even with NXG leading the way in the competition, only Faker managed to acquire a stake in T1.

Even if they did manage to get it, it would only be six percent, and that would only happen after LCK won the World Championship in 2020.

One person, six percent, an S-series champion, was all it took to acquire a share of equity.

In comparison, you can imagine how much of a shock the collaboration plan that the Mo brothers decided on a whim would cause in the industry.

Going a step further, there's also the issue of saving face.

The major LPL teams are backed by real estate, e-commerce, and wealthy second-generation capital. Which one of them isn't financially powerful and has a prestigious image?

You're just a small LSPL team that's only made it up from the city championship, and you haven't even finished setting up your fixed base yet, and you dare to play the "equity incentive" game?

Isn't this a blatant slap in our face?

We spent tens of millions to build a training base, hire South Korean players, and set up a data analysis team. You're not competing with us on hardware, you're competing with us on awareness?

Wouldn't that make us seem too harsh on our own players?

Therefore, their reaction was almost predictable.

Qi Sheng stroked his chin. "When Lao Mo and I were drafting the TSG establishment plan, we actually thought about this issue and prepared some contingency plans... but we didn't expect that you, Xiao Fu, would cause such a big commotion in the City Championship, plus the help from Huya and Penguin."

"Heh, for these internet guys, data traffic is their lifeblood." Old Mo leaned back on the sofa, crossed his legs, and spoke with a disdainful air of someone who'd been there all along. "They missed out on the World Championship, and now that they finally have a chance to make up for it, of course they won't let it slip by. You really expect them to consider the consequences for you?"

He turned to look at Fu Shiyan, a rare hint of seriousness in his eyes: "Little Fu, you should prepare yourself mentally. You know better than I how much the official promotion and publicity has been going on for you lately. Once you enter LSPL, how many people will be waiting to see you fall, waiting to attack you en masse?"

It is foreseeable that the esports community will definitely not be without its usual sarcastic remarks and media attacks.

Even the simplest esports media, forums, and Weibo influencers will suddenly be flooded with so-called "industry insiders" analyzing the infeasibility of TSG's model—"Players don't understand management, and dispersed equity affects decision-making," "Small clubs trying to stand out will eventually be devoured by capital," "Do you really think this is charity?" and so on.

The goal is to attack your crush mentality.

If I can't have it, I'll destroy it!

To take it to an extreme, joint pressure is not out of the question.

For example, the LPL League Council or the LSPL event organizers may receive "concerns" from multiple clubs.

Is this shareholding structure compliant with regulations?

"Does the fact that a contestant is both a shareholder and a participant constitute a conflict of interest?"

"Does the league need to introduce relevant regulations to standardize the equity incentive behavior of clubs?" The rhetoric is very clever, but the core meaning is: either you force TSG to change back, or we will all be uncomfortable.

Okay, if none of the above can stop you—you TSG are stubborn, you alliance are playing dead, and you go your separate ways with everyone else.

You can also play dirty tricks.

Aren't you so great? Aren't you entitled to equity?

Then I'll poach your players with double or triple signing bonuses. You Crush have equity, you're happy, but you can't give it to everyone, can you?

I'll poach the remaining four from your starting five. It's not about having too few players, it's about fairness. With such a great deal of treatment for Crush, do the other players really have no objections?

That is impossible.

People's hearts are always the best entry point.

And then what? During the transfer window, they block your signings. If you have a player you like, I'll also set a price, higher than yours, until you can't afford it.

If you can't get a spot with a strong team for a practice match, and they just say "my schedule is full," you don't even have a chance to argue.

In official events, minimize your presence—always be the last camera to cut to you during live streams, and never get an interview slot.

After such a series of combined attacks, most small clubs wouldn't last even three months.

……