Ball King Pioneer

Chapter 107 Attacking Puma

On the evening of September 9, Lin Yi updated his Twitter, and now Lin Yi's Twitter followers have exceeded 23 million followers.This tweet is written in English:

"I am very happy to come to Manchester City again. There will be a long-awaited game tomorrow. I am also very happy to meet my friend Balotelli. He is a magical person. We will play as opponents on the field tomorrow. After the game, we will have a fighting match. Are you looking forward to it?"

At the same time, Lin Yi also uploaded 3 pictures.The first is a selfie with Balotelli by the car, the second is a photo of Lin Yi and Balotelli embracing, which was taken from a third-party perspective, and the third is a photo of Lin Yi and Balotelli pointing at each other while holding each other's sneakers.

Balotelli immediately liked Ji Dong's Twitter, and immediately sent a tweet with the same content.So the two sides called each other while selling sneakers.

At this time, everyone suddenly realized that they were all signed players under Puma's banner. Balotelli said that he wanted to fight Lin Yi just for hype. It seemed that the winner was Puma.

Puma said that we are willing to take the blame.So they immediately posted photos of Lin Yi and Balotelli's good friends on the company's official website, and at the same time called on everyone to pay attention to their kickboxing matches, and of course kindly reminded them to stop and not get hurt.

Puma has been losing money year after year in the football field in recent years. If it hadn't been commercially successful in F1 and other fields, how much money would it lose?In recent years, Puma's investment in teams has been very effective. For example, national teams such as Italy, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, and clubs such as Dortmund have performed well.

On the other hand, Puma’s shrinking football market and the fact that they have not had a top spokesperson for so many years also have certain problems. For example, they cannot sign the top stars. Superstars like Henry switch to Puma because their status has declined and they cannot get high endorsement fees from Nike.Since they couldn't sign the top superstars, Puma aimed their investment at powerful super rookies, such as Brazilian super rookie Neymar, but Neymar was only willing to sign with Nike, and the price paid by Nike was so high that Puma couldn't afford it.Well, then the next best thing, Puma has set its sights on the Italian star Balotelli. As an Italian international, Balotelli has a natural advantage, and his national team jersey is also sponsored by Puma.It's a pity for Puma's hard work. Balotelli is indeed a big, dark horse, but he is not enough for Puma. What he shows is not the fighter that Puma wants, but funny.

After learning from the pain, Puma readjusted its strategy in the football field. They searched the Far East region, which they had not paid much attention to, and found a newcomer with great potential. The key is that he has not been valued by Nike and Adidas, which gave Puma a chance.In the end, they signed Lin Yi as they wished. This decision was correct. According to the data given back by the marketing department of Puma, the sales in the Far East market in just 20 days was about 65% of that in the first two quarters of this year. This is a mythical miracle.They knew that Ji Dong had a strong appeal in China, but they didn't expect it to be so strong that their factories had to work overtime.Now Puma can’t imagine what kind of market reaction Lin Yi’s sneakers will cause once they go on the market, but they will certainly not sell less than Messi and Ronaldo’s sneakers in China. Even the most conservative Puma management has confidence in this.

Now Puma is running an audition event for Lin Yi’s exclusive LOGO, which is also a very important publicity. As for the name of the series of Lin Yi’s sneakers, the same is true. They not only want to buy shoes, but also label Lin Yi and Puma as each other.But the question now is whether Lin Yi is willing to renew his contract with Puma, because with the rising popularity of Lin Yi and the explosive growth of the Chinese market, Nike and Adidas will definitely increase their poaching chips.

When Balotelli was interviewed by the media yesterday, he said that he would fight Lin Yi on the field, which caused Puma a headache. If there is a fight between the two newcomers that they are promoting, it will definitely become the laughing stock of the industry, and the commercial loss will also be immeasurable.However, when Puma was having a headache, they gave Puma the best solution on Twitter. Of course, Puma knew that this solution could not be thought of by Balotelli, who likes to think about life, it must be Lin Yi.A good boy should be rewarded, so Puma immediately told Lin Yi through Lin Yi’s agent Ding Weijie that if Lin Yi can win the Premier League assists leader this season, he will have an additional bonus of 100 million euros.

But Puma has a problem that needs to be solved urgently. How can they join Lin Yi and Balotelli's show, if the venue is chosen at the Manchester City Stadium, because Manchester City's jersey sponsor this season is the British local brand Umbro, they will definitely not let Puma steal the show, so don't think about it if there is a background or something.And it's hard to say whether the clubs of both sides will support this show, after all, there is a certain risk of injury.In the end, whether the conservative FA will stop the show is unknown, in short, everything is unknown.But one thing Puma can be sure of is that the next season’s advertisements for Lin Yi and Balotelli can use this idea to let the two leave football and have a free fight between men.

Ji Dong and Balotelli's show has received more and more attention.Early the next morning, the FA announced that the time after the football match was out of their control, and they would not prohibit players or clubs from holding any other shows as long as they did not cause riots among the fans.

Immediately afterwards, the Manchester City and Everton clubs issued announcements almost at the same time. They both agreed that the players would hold a charity free fighting match after the game, and they would also provide professional referees.The only thing to pay attention to is that because both parties are not professional fighters, safety comes first.

It can be seen from the time of the three declarations that this is the result of urgent negotiations between the three parties, and the nature has also changed from a private friendly exchange between Lin Yi and Balotelli to a charity exhibition match.Things developed too suddenly. Fortunately, Lin Yi and Balotelli’s common sponsor, Puma, answered their doubts. Puma first convinced Everton. They have successfully signed a jersey sponsorship contract with Everton for the next three seasons, so there is no problem.As for Manchester City, it is even simpler. The Middle Eastern giants have been lacking in major attention since they moved to Manchester City. They will not let go of any opportunity to show off, so it is easy to negotiate, but the only requirement of Manchester City is that Puma is not allowed to do background advertising, which will inevitably lead to strong protests from Umbro, but the personal equipment of Lin Yi and Balotelli is not included in this list.In the end, Puma and the two clubs jointly publicized the FA. The specific price paid is not known to the outside world. In short, the FA agreed.

At 9:24 am on September 10, Sky TV announced that after the match between Manchester City and Everton tonight, Lin Yi and Balotelli will hold a friendly and charitable kickboxing match. Part of the money raised in the match will be used to buy school buses and donate to underdeveloped areas in western China, part will be donated to the Italian children's welfare home where Balotelli lived when he was a child, and part will be donated to the British child welfare organization.The charity match will be broadcast live on Sky TV.

The FA, two clubs, and an international TV station announced the incident on the same day. The onlookers, who thought it was a farce, became lively. The internet was full of attention and comments on this charity match. In addition, the most concerned players in this round of the Premier League were Manchester City, who was second in the standings, and Everton, who was third. Moreover, it was a sudden revelation, so "Lin Yi and Balotelli's charity match" was quickly pushed to the top of the hot search list.

Naturally, Chinese netizens were not far behind. For a while, the searches for "Lin Yi Charity Competition" and "Lin Yi Donate School Bus" took the top two spots respectively.It turned out that the rock superstar Mrs. Wang was traveling in the UK and watched the match between Manchester City and Everton, but he didn’t make the headlines. Netizens joked about him, if he can’t beat you, I’ll join you.

Not only the British and Chinese media, but even the European media began to pay attention to this charity match in the afternoon.The Italian media lamented that a mature and responsible Balotelli is exactly what the national team needs.

……

Seeing that more and more media are involved, Puma is happy.

　Chapter 1 is early today, please ask for a ticket, any ticket is fine, I will accept whatever you give.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)