Champion’s Heart

What Zhou Yi and Schulze may not know is that the contract they signed with CK-Jeans is of extraordinary significance to the history of Chinese football.

Because this is the first non-sports endorsement contract signed by a Chinese player from a well-known foreign brand since China started in 2007.

In many countries, sports stars are endorsement stars favored by advertisers and recognized by the market.

Because sports events have a high degree of attention in the society, so do sports stars.

In China, there is a very obvious phenomenon that the obvious appeal of sports is not directly proportional to its achievements in professional fields. They are excellent in their respective fields, even world-class sports stars, but they are not as good as those entertainment stars in terms of commercial appeal.

But this is not necessarily the case in other countries. In Japan, golfers and baseball stars top the charts for advertising remuneration, ahead of entertainment stars.

In the Chinese sports arena, stars in sports such as basketball, tennis, swimming, and badminton can more or less get personal endorsement contracts outside of sports brands.

But forget about soccer stars.

In fact, before 2003, Chinese football stars also had a good time earning millions of advertising revenue a year.

In 2001, after the Chinese team successfully entered the World Cup finals in the top ten matches, the coach of the national team, Milutinovic, won a large number of sponsorship contracts with brands that had nothing to do with football, including DVDs, liquor, air conditioners, etc. Ah this type of brand.

At that time, most of the national team players also had advertising endorsements.

Hao Dong, who was still the number one striker of the national team at that time, was the number one star in China. According to media reports, his advertising revenue in 1998 had exceeded 7 million yuan.

In 2001, Li Ming, the star of the Dalian team, became the spokesperson for a local luxury real estate project.

Sun Hai advertised for motorcycles.

Central defender Li Weifeng endorsed a graphics card. Guomen Jiangjing endorsed the medicine.

At that time, the striker Yang Chen, who played in Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, was the player who received the most advertisements in the national team by virtue of his outstanding performance in the Bundesliga and his handsome appearance, and he was also the international big name, such as Coca-Cola, Puma and Duracell. wait.

At that time, Pepsi was eager to promote in the Chinese market, and it also recruited several international players to shoot a classic TV commercial.

In short, at that time, we could always see the advertisements of international players on TV.

But in the following years, the upsurge of player endorsements dropped sharply. Several players who played in Europe were also able to get some commercial endorsement contracts. Sun Hai, who plays for Manchester City, has the most brilliant overseas experience. So he always had an advertising contract before leaving Manchester City. Including large mobile phone chain enterprises, online games, and seafood. Or even a family sedan.

In 2007, Ma Xiaoxu, the head of the women's football team, was able to endorse Suzuki's Jimny off-road vehicle.

But that was the last endorsement contract for a Chinese player from a foreign non-sports brand.

After missing the World Cup qualifiers for the top ten matches for three consecutive times, only former Chinese national team captain Zheng Zhi can get an independent sponsorship contract with Adidas. But nonetheless. The value of his advertising endorsement is not big, only between two million and five million yuan.

And what about Zhou Yi?

Only CK-Jeans has an endorsement contract. It will bring him an income of 8 million RMB in bonuses in one year!

Even if you don't look at the brand of this contract, but also look at the value of the contract, Zhou Yi is now the number one player in Chinese football.

The main reason for the low advertising value of Chinese players for a long time is naturally related to their own football level, the Chinese football environment and the poor performance of the national football team.

In the eyes of the general public. Chinese men's soccer players don't have a good image to speak of. Therefore, it is impossible for Chinese domestic businesses to find these players to speak for their brands, and the risk is too great. You must know the darkest years in Chinese football. There was even a joke that watching the national team's game is more embarrassing than watching Japanese AV, which shows how miserable the image of Chinese football is in the eyes of the general public.

Some people made up jokes suitable for the endorsement of the national football team. For example, condom companies can find national football strikers to endorse. The slogan of the advertisement is: Who can not ejaculate for 90 minutes? I can!

It's really dirty and owed, but it well reflected the society's views on Chinese players at that time.

therefore. On TV, in newspapers and magazines, and in outdoor advertisements, you can see that many second- and third-tier entertainment companies can obviously show bright smiling faces next to a certain trademark, but you can’t see any Chinese football players appearing on it.

And now Zhou Yi has signed this endorsement contract with an American fashion brand. It has shown everyone that as long as you play well and have a reliable agent, then commercial endorsement contracts will still find Chinese football players.

After all, football has an extremely powerful appeal.

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Except for the CK_Jeans endorsement contract, Schulze told Zhou Yi that other contracts are still being negotiated and have not been negotiated.

Because there were too many companies coming to Zhou Yi at the same time, and he was too weak to arrange it all by himself, so he could only push back the schedule.

Although he explained the reason for this arrangement to the other party, the other party thought it was a means of bargaining, and some people worried that they would be left behind and would have no chance at all, so they desperately raised the offer, hoping to impress Schulze and Zhouyi.

If Schulze hadn't been a principled agent, he would have knelt down when he saw the crazy endorsement fee like an auction-the Chinese are so rich!

Yes, all these brands and companies are from China. They probably know the value of Zhouyi in the Chinese market better than Schulze.

Not only because of Zhou Yi's outstanding performance in the Bundesliga and his positive image in the media, but also because he is a beacon of Chinese football in its darkest times. The shock and economic benefits he can bring to the market far exceed the value he should have.

Think about it, when Chinese football was at its most sluggish, he suddenly emerged, and immediately attracted the attention of all those who were dissatisfied with and loved Chinese football. What a terrifying appeal this is?

Only those who live in the long dark night of Chinese football may understand the value of Zhouyi so well.

I'm afraid they are willing to spend more money for this.

But Schulze was reluctant.

He has an overall plan for Zhou Yi's personal image. It doesn't mean that whoever wants to sign can sign it. Any brand company can make a fuss about Zhou Yi's image. Some things don't change for any amount of money.

He sticks to his bottom line and principles. Many companies whose bids were actually very high were rejected.

For this reason, he also explained why he did it. I told Zhou Yi, and got Zhou Yi's understanding and support.

As long as you have a long-term vision and scientific planning, money is endless.

And now there is one more important thing than making money in the country, and that is to sign a contract with a sports brand sponsor.

In the football world. There are many brands, but not many can be called world-class.

The most famous are Adidas and Nike.

These two are bitter rivals in the football world. The grievances and hatred between them can't be explained clearly for three days and three nights.

But this time, they are not the protagonists.

It was not Adidas or Nike that first paid attention to Zhou Yi, but Dortmund's jersey sponsor Puma.

After all, it has the advantage of being close to the water.

Therefore, Puma is the most active company that wants to sign a contract with Zhou Yi.

As Zhou Yi's performance became more and more outstanding. He has attracted more people's attention, and giants such as Adidas and Nike have naturally been attracted.

At the beginning, Schulze hoped to let the three companies compete. It's best to fight for the best of life and death, and then he and Zhou Yi will be left-handed fishermen.

But the three companies are not stupid, and it is not so easy to be led by the nose by the broker.

Every business has a new talented player. They will make a relatively comprehensive evaluation of this player and evaluate his current ability. ability to predict his future.

This detailed evaluation report determines how much commercial value this new talent can bring to the company, and how much the company is worth betting on him.

Yes, unlike those cases of poaching famous stars from competitors. For the young talents who are flocking to them every year, signing them with giants such as Nike and Adidas seems like a gamble.

If you win the bet, you will make money, if you lose the bet...it's not too bad, anyway, such a big company can still afford to lose, but there will definitely be some frustration.

For Zhou Yi, they all made an assessment.

This evaluation report determines how much confidence they will have in Zhou Yi, and determines how much money and resources they are willing to pay for Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi's performance in the first season is very outstanding, and the data speaks for itself. That's why Nike and Adidas came to him.

The media and fans cheer for Zhou Yi every week. However, the professional teams of Nike and Adidas cannot be led by the nose by the media. They must keep a calm head amidst the cheers and carefully analyze this person.

While Zhou Yi has outstanding performance, his shortcomings are also very obvious.

For example, his technical characteristics are relatively simple, which is very obvious from his game. Short passing is his best, but there are no other means. In addition, his body is thin and his physical fitness is not up to the standard. A player who is already 19 years old will be replaced early in most games, which shows that his physical fitness problem is indeed serious.

So what will be the future of such a young man with outstanding strengths and weaknesses?

Both Nike and Adidas believe that Zhouyi has the possibility of success, but it is more likely that it will not be so successful. That is to say, his characteristics are very distinctive, and he can win a place in football, but he is far from becoming that kind of particularly successful player.

Because there is one important thing here.

Today's football has more and more comprehensive requirements for players. It is difficult for a player with distinctive characteristics but also many shortcomings to become a great player. On the contrary, those players with distinctive characteristics and no shortcomings will be successful, and even those players who have no distinctive characteristics but no weaknesses may achieve greater achievements than Zhou Yi.

Physical fitness is especially important. A player with poor physical fitness can achieve some results by relying on everyone's unfamiliarity with him when he first debuted, but once the opponent finds out about him, it may be difficult for him to perform as dazzlingly as he did in the first season .

Such an example has been seen countless times in world football.

Will it happen again in Zhou Yi? (To be continued.) Enable new URL