Chapter 943: It's also quite hard
“Everyone, welcome to the country of Qatar!”
When the CEO of Miracle Media, Sun Yue, dressed in a neat suit, stood in front of the podium and greeted all the guests present, there was a burst of warm applause in the venue.
"I believe everyone is very clear about why they are here."
Sun Yue raised his head and stopped looking at the manuscript, but looked at everyone present.
"Yes, we will officially launch a new national team competition, the World National Championship League!"
Following Sun Yue's words, the logo of the event immediately appeared on the big screen behind.
This is an anthropomorphic design of the event logo, which is simple and easy to understand.
There was a burst of flash lights at the scene. Obviously, the reporters had not expected to get to the point so quickly.
"In the United States, a famous New York Times reporter once asked me during an interview, why can the International Champions Cup achieve such outstanding results? Why can it create such an amazing effect?"
After a pause, Sun Yue smiled and nodded, "I told him that there is still a great demand for sports, especially football, all over the world, and the International Champions Cup has only activated a small part of that demand."
“At that time, I said that after Miracle Media successfully operated the International Champions Cup, in addition to continuing to operate and expand the International Champions Cup, we will also open up a new field, that is, the national team!”
Sun Yue was speaking eloquently on the stage, but many of the guests below were either listening thoughtfully, or didn't understand at all, or might not have been paying attention at all.
"Before the International Champions Cup, warm-up matches had a long history. Warm-up matches in North America, Asia, and the Middle East were also quite common. Even in Europe, there were countless warm-up cup matches. But why was the International Champions Cup able to quickly stand out and grab a place in the world football in just a few years?"
"The answer is simple: demand!"
Sun Yue answered his own question very confidently, "On the one hand, we meet the needs of European top teams. We provide them with the most professional competition platform and the highest quality warm-up opponents. At the same time, we also create lucrative income for them."
"But on the other hand, we have met the needs of fans around the world for high-level competitions."
"As we all know, in July and August, European competitions generally haven't started yet, and there are no national team matches. This period is a blank period for football matches. Does that mean that fans have no demand during this period?"
Sun Yue shook his head. "No, it's not that they don't have needs, but you... the football practitioners, haven't found a way to meet their needs in this regard."
"So, we founded the International Champions Cup. In just a few years, it has become more and more popular, and we are gradually expanding the scale of our participating teams and the influence of the event. We succeeded!"
Sun Yue spread his arms, looking very confident of victory.
Yang Huan was sitting in the audience, watching Sun Yue's performance on the stage, and was quite surprised.
Is this guy still the same flatterer Sun Yue who just ran over to flatter me?
Looking at Long Wu again, I guess this guy was also full of surprise.
Isn’t this a huge change?
It's like two completely different people, okay?
"If this is the case for club matches, is it also the case for national team matches?"
When Sun Yue said this, he smiled slightly and pointed behind him. The PPT on the big screen was refreshed immediately.
"This is a survey we commissioned from a professional organization, showing the current situation of the national team's warm-up matches."
"From this survey result, we can see that all national teams do not have a stable operating mechanism for arranging warm-up matches. The selection of warm-up match opponents and the arrangement of matches are very random, which makes it difficult to operate the commercial value of the matches, and the income of participating teams cannot be guaranteed. In many cases, even the purpose of training is not achieved."
What Sun Yue said is not something unusual; on the contrary, it is very common.
Even for those European teams, when arranging warm-up matches, although they contacted and arranged them early, the chance of changes is still very high, and there is even a high possibility of failure.
This is true in event arrangements, and it is even more obvious in commercial operations. Even some of the warm-up matches for top national teams have almost no commercial operations to speak of, and are more arranged by sponsors, but this is quite passive.
Just imagine, this is the case in Europe, where professional operations are the most advanced and the business environment is the most complete, let alone in other continents?
You know, the European professional leagues that have the most objections to national team matches are precisely from outside Europe.
Not to mention the long-distance travel, in order to ensure the commercial interests of sponsors, those exhausted stars must be pushed to death. Once an injury occurs, the national team immediately pats their butts and does nothing else.
This is also why European teams complain about national team matches.
It can be said that today, anyone with a little insight can see that the national team's warm-up matches are a huge waste of resources, which is true for small and medium-sized teams as well as other top teams.
In this situation, Miracle Media began to plan the World National Championship League.
Sixteen teams were invited to the first tournament, which was divided into four groups by draw. After the groups were ranked, the first and second place teams in each group would compete against each other, and then they would enter the knockout rounds, semi-finals and ranking rounds, and finally the finals.
The host cities for all competitions are confirmed in advance by Miracle Media, and the game times are arranged on national team match days.
As we all know, the national team currently chooses warm-up matches for two main purposes. One is to observe the players and hone the lineup. The other is something that few people are willing to admit, but it is real, and that is to generate revenue.
This is nothing shameful.
Just like the England national team, the European Cup and the World Cup are held every four years. Although there are qualifiers in between, these can earn appearance fees, but it is far from enough to maintain such a large organization as the English Football Association.
Therefore, warm-up matches are also one of the channels for the English Football Association to generate revenue.
But in general, because the national team cannot compare with the club in terms of exposure, the gap between the national team and the club in the field of commercial operations is even greater, and is far from matching the fame and influence of the national team.
What Miracle Media wants is to organize a brand new event, using national team match days, strong dialogues between high-level national teams, and competitive league rankings to attract fans from all over the world.
Firstly, the training of strong teams in dialogue is of great significance and can test the teams. In addition, with the league rankings and high prize money, there is no need to worry about the participating teams not giving their best.
Secondly, the appearance fees are high and the bonuses are generous, which meets the revenue-generating needs of football associations in various countries.
In addition, in terms of arranging the competition venue, Miracle Media can minimize the impact of the national team's game time and the degree of travel of the players through its operations.
Finally, with the addition of such a top-level competition platform, which is held every two years, the exposure of participating national teams will be greatly increased, their influence will be enhanced, and their commercial income will be boosted.
It is precisely because there are so many benefits, and at the same time it does not conflict with the national team's existing competitions, and only squeezes out the space for warm-up matches, so when Miracle Media proposed it and obtained the authorization from FIFA, national teams from various countries immediately flocked to it, and Miracle Media selected sixteen teams from them.
They are Germany, England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium in Europe.
The United States in North America, Australia in Oceania, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana in Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia in South America.
When Sun Yue showed everyone on the podium the sixteen participating teams of the first World National Championship League, there was an uproar at the scene, because these sixteen teams are almost the strongest national teams in the world today.
Of course, for market operation considerations, teams from each continent are arranged to participate.
It is worth mentioning that in the Asian region, South Korea was originally considered, but South Korea eventually declined the invitation due to its own problems, and neither Yang Huan nor Sun Yue were willing to consider Japan, so the Asian region was left empty.
But what shocked the reporters present even more was that after Sun Yue announced the participating teams, he immediately announced the main sponsors. Everyone was surprised to find that Miracle Media had been secretly planning for two years and had already prepared everything.
The title sponsor of the event is Qatar Airways, and the final is also scheduled to be held in Qatar.
This is why the press conference was held in Doha.
At that time, all participating teams will be picked up and dropped off by Qatar Airways.
When many reporters heard the news, they couldn't help but think of the previous media disclosure that the chest advertising sponsorship fee signed by Yang Huan's Southampton and Qatar Airways was as high as 50 million pounds.
Today, Qatar Airways is the title sponsor of this event. It is not difficult to see that Qatar, a wealthy country, is working hard to build momentum for the World Cup held in its country.
Not only Qatar Airways, but also Al Jazeera, together with Sky TV, ESPN and many others, have successfully purchased the broadcasting rights for the World Champions League. That is to say, starting from the first session, this event will be broadcast live to the world.
Because of the previous experience in operating the International Champions Cup, Miracle Media seemed to be familiar with the operation this time.
All sponsors are divided into three levels, and the highest level is undoubtedly the title sponsor Qatar Airways.
Next are the event sponsors, who have lower authority than title sponsors and can carry out global promotion. Currently, only five sponsors have been signed, namely Adidas, Heineken, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Samsung, but many other brands are currently in negotiations.
In addition to these two levels of sponsorship, there are also regional sponsors.
Because the competition venue will be held in a third country at that time, and Miracle Media will also attract investment for this.
In addition to not being able to conflict with sponsors at the first two levels, the authority of third-level sponsors is also limited to a fixed area, such as the country where the competition is held.
Because this is only the first tournament, the income from sponsorship and broadcasting fees is not very high, and it is far from comparable to events of the World Cup and European Cup.
However, the appearance fees and match bonuses offered by Miracle Media are higher than those of the World Cup and the European Cup.
Sun Yue even promised on the spot that the organizers would bear the costs of players' injury insurance and other expenses, and pay the competition fees to the clubs of the participating players in accordance with the standards of the European Cup and the World Cup.
It is precisely because of this series of initiatives, coupled with Miracle Media’s commitment to arranging the match venue and Yang Huan’s connections in the world of football, that Miracle Media has also gained the recognition of the club team.
All the reporters who came to the scene were surprised.
This time, Miracle Media really made a splash!
Putting aside other things, just looking at the current situation, there is no reason why this World Champions League should not be successful!
With so many big-name sponsors supporting it and backed by the wealthy Miracle Media, how could it fail?