Are Nike, Lining And Other Brands Entering The Competition Market More Than Ball Games?

In March 21st, the 2019 annual conference of the national mobile Super League was held in Beijing.

Since 2008, when the National Sports General Administration changed the e-sports to the official sports competition, all sports brands were competing for the layout of the electric market, launching the professional clothing for competition and the competitive peripheral products for fans to buy.

According to the insiders, the demand for functional clothing and fashion sense will be higher in the future, and the brand will have to work harder to attract fans.

Entry of many sports brands

Data show that in 2017, the number of Chinese competition users was close to 300 million; the League of heroes League (LPL) and the Royal glory KPL professional league all had more than 10 billion people watching matches throughout the year; in contrast, the number of people watching the 2016 NBA finals was only 133 million.

In addition, last year, the heroic League MSI finals attracted 126 million people to watch, while the Kobe NBA retired war attracted only 4000 000 people watching. It is undeniable that the current number of watching matches in electronic sports is catching up with the traditional sports in an all-round way.

The 2018 China electric sports industry development report shows that the Chinese electric industry industry is ushering in a new outbreak in 2018. The total number of users has exceeded 300 million, and the scale of the market has reached 8 billion 500 million yuan, of which the core market is about 2 billion 900 million yuan, and the scale of the derivatives market is about 5 billion 600 million yuan.

In the trend of the overall development of the electric business industry, each competition club has also launched a series of derivatives, and clothing as a major category, sales volume can not be underestimated.

The China Commercial Daily reporter learned from the interview that many post-90s and millennial groups learned about E-sports from Wang Sicong, the big brother of the electric circuit circle.

Last November, Wang Sicong's iG team won the first LPL tournament S champion, the heroic alliance S8 world finals champion, breaking the embarrassment of seven years without crowns.

But in addition to the excellent performance, for some sports brands, what is more exciting to them is the total sales of Wang Sicong's jersey with the fashion brand Lilbetter.

In fact, for the electric club, they are eager to pform the sponsorship logic of sports brand in traditional sports into the field of competition, and provide professional clothing sponsorship to solve their difficulties in the development of peripheral products.

It is worth mentioning that in some countries with mature professional electric games, it is very common for teams to cooperate with sports brands to launch uniforms.

For example, the Korean competition club SKT1 has been working with Adidas, Nike, new 100 Lun and FILA.

SKT1's team members even thanked FILA in a post match interview because the FILA's jersey used the latest technology to make them feel cool in the dress process, which seemed to reflect the demand for professional uniforms from the side.

In addition, ULT, esportclothing and other companies specializing in the design and production of electric racing uniforms have gradually grown up.

In recent years, many sports brands have begun to aim at the competitive apparel market.

In February 28th this year, Nike announced its strategic cooperation with LPL for four years.

In the next four years, Nike will become the official clothing partner of LPL. The cooperation will include LPL area clothing and sports shoes design, LPL joint sports products and other derivative services.

Not just Nike, Lining also began to layout the electricity market.

Just last month, Newbee announced that Lining, the sports brand, will become its official sponsor. The two sides will jointly produce a variety of cooperative customized products.

In January of this year, Lining also bought Snake, an old LPL club, and had a permanent alliance seat.

In addition, Champion has entered the field of competitive clothing. It is reported that the brand has set up a special production line and launched related product planning.

As early as last March, it announced its competitive strategy, signed the QG competition club, and launched the related apparel products.

New requirements for competitive apparel

Although a number of sports brands enter the electricity market, a host who broadcast live on the fighting fish platform told the China Daily News that the special clothing for electric competition needs to protect parts such as the hands, wrist and waist, which are particularly prone to strain. At the same time, it needs the functions of strong sweat absorption and cool fabric, and this design is different from other sports special clothes. It needs sports brand to really understand the demand of the competition team.

In view of this design, Champion chose antiseptic, odorant and antistatic materials in the design of competitive clothing. In detail design, in order to prevent slippery players from playing on the knees, the brand used silicon antirust printing and dyeing on the thigh.

In addition, Champion also considered that during the intense competition, players would want to wipe out sweat and other details, especially in the waist of the shorts.

A competition fan told the China Commercial Daily reporter that they valued the value of the competition dress more than their professional performance.

"Competitive dress is not only a symbol of a team, but also a fan image behind the team. If the dress is not high, we will not choose it."

He said.

Tencent game related staff believe that professional clothing can help the brand promotion very well, and fans can pay for them.

The emergence of competitive clothing can not only enhance the stickiness between fans and electric competition teams, but also generate income for brands and electronic competition clubs.

These people said that in order to attract fans, brands need to make great efforts to marketing, for example, the introduction of limited edition, signature or joint name should be more suitable for young people's aesthetic appreciation in appearance design.

Unlike traditional football clothes or basketball clothes, the competition clothing may need to add more personality elements to highlight the uniqueness of the younger generation and support for idols.

In addition, these people admitted that in terms of fashion trends, some "tide cards" are better and more consistent with the consumption trend of young consumers. Therefore, some sports brands need to work harder in terms of "fashion".

Author: Jie Yu Xing