Over the past week, the Chinese esports industry has seen a major livestreaming platform’s U.S. IPO announced, new game regulations by the Chinese government and a game publisher, and an esports team receiving a lifetime ban for cheating.
Among the top stories: Samsung signed a partnership with World Cyber Games 2019 Xi’an; Nike & LPL’s jointly branded t-shirt came to light; esports organization Dragon Gate Team received a ban in League of Legends 
Master Series (LMS) by Garena; the Chinese government and Tencent both updated their game regulations; Chinese organization D7G acquired TeamFire PUBG team; and Douyu filed for a potential $500M IPO at the New York Stock Exchange.
Every week The Esports Observer presents the biggest esports business news in China, including investments, acquisitions, sponsorships, and other major news from the region.
Nike & LPL First Co-Branded T-Shirt Comes to Light
Credit: Nike/LPL
On April 21, Nike unveiled its first “Nike X LPL” co-branded “Gamer” t-shirt to the public. The t-shirt was made available for purchase at the League of Legends online store on April 21.
The “Gamer” t-shirt first appeared during the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) Spring Season Grand Final. Invictus Gaming (IG) won that tournament, and IG players wore it as they stood on the podium.
On Feb. 22, Nike signed a four-year apparel sponsorship deal with TJ Sports for China’s LPL. According to Chinese media outlet Lanxiong Sports, the deal is valued at ¥50M ($7.48M) a year, including cash and equivalent products. For Nike and LPL, the “Gamer” t-shirt is the first co-branded product in their apparel line. They also claimed that the co-branded apparel will be sold to the public after the 2019 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational. More “Nike X LPL” esports-themed apparel are expected to come to light soon.
LMS Bans Esports Organization Dragon Gate Team for Cheating
Credit: Garena
On April 24, Garena
, the tournament organizer of the League of Legends Master Series, announced bans for several members of esports organization Dragon Gate Team (DG) due to cheating. The punishment was also supported by League of Legends game developer Riot Games.
According to the announcement, Garena received reports that DG founder Hu Weijie, DG player Liu Yang, DG coach Fan Jiangpeng, and former coach Li Xinyu were involved in esports gambling and showed “irregular behavior” during the LMS 2019 Spring Season.
After an investigation, Riot Games concluded that the four individuals had violated LOL Professional League Regulation. Riot Games and LMS issued a variety of punishments: Weijie will not be allowed to operate any League of Legends-related teams, Dragon Gate will be banned (“permanently delisted”) from the LMS for life, Yang will not be allowed to attend League of Legends-related tournaments for 18 months, and Xinyu and Jiangpeng will not be allowed to attend League of Legends-related tournaments for 12 months.
LMS is a regular regional tournament series of League of Legends circuits founded in 2015. The LMS region includes Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong. In 2012, Taiwanese esports team Taipei Assassins won the 2012 League of Legends World Championship.
Samsung Reconnects to WCG, Signs Presenting Partner Deal
Credit: Samsung/Smilegate
On April 19 Samsung Electronics announced that it signed a partnership deal with WCG 2019 Xi’an, acting as presenting partner for the event.
Under the terms of this deal, Samsung will have the exclusive marketing rights of the computers, memory, SSD, and mobile devices across WCG 2019 Xi’an. According to the announcement, Samsung and WCG will also hold a partnership signing ceremony and operate online and offline promotion plans soon at an undisclosed date.
Samsung was once the owner of the WCG brand and ran the competition series from 2000-2013, before its closure in 2014. In 2017, Samsung sold WCG to Korean game publisher Smilegate
. The publisher will relaunch the WCG in July 2019 in the Chinese city of Xi’an.
Other Esports Business News
Credit: Tencent
- On April 22, State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television of The People’s Republic of China announced that the application for game licenses has relaunched with new regulations. These new regulations include restrictions on “in-game items” featuring “lottery” elements; games containing “religious superstition” or “fortune telling” elements; colored liquid representing blood; corpses that appear on the screen for an extended period of time; and “minor accounts” getting married in games.
- On April 19, Chinese PUBG professional team TeamFire was acquired by esports organization D7G. Details of this acquisition were not disclosed.
