Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 503 Surprised Little Ma (4K)

The news that Chen Ran will participate in future events in Mallorca, Spain and Halle, Germany as his grass-court season immediately spread throughout the world through the media and the Internet.

As expected of the world's number one tennis player, the discussion about Chen Ran's news suddenly overshadowed the ongoing Wimbledon Open.

Of course, British journalists also contributed to this.

In the eyes of these British paparazzi, the first few rounds of Wimbledon were nothing worth paying attention to, so they might as well hype up the topic of Chen Ran.

"Look, the No. 1 player in the world would rather go on tour in Mallorca and Halle than come to Wimbledon."

"This is a naked mockery of the London organizing committee."

"The British government should adjust its policies. They should not always think of ways to harvest the wealth of global athletes."

What is rare is that Agassi, who agreed with Chen Ran not to deal with him, also supported Chen Ran's behavior.

"This year's Wimbledon will most likely be the last one I attend."

Agassi said slowly: "I have left many good memories here, of course there are also unpleasant ones. Because of tax issues, I often have troubles with London."

"But none of us have the courage like Chen Ran."

"Many players have always accused me and Sampras of only making money for themselves and never speaking for them."

"But this generation of players seems to be different from us. They are more responsible and have a deeper vision."

He was personally very surprised that Chen Ran would use this method to boycott Wimbledon.

Even his former little brother Roddick admired Chen Ran so much.

Although these young players born in the 80s are rivals on the court, they have formed an unbreakable alliance off the court.

The ATP has finally begun to seriously consider covering the medical expenses of players' injuries and purchasing injury insurance for them.

This year it’s Chen Ran, so next year, will there be any players following his example?
Who will be the champion at Wimbledon in 2005?

But no matter who wins the championship, no one will think that this person will be the real king of grass due to Chen Ran's absence.

Wimbledon without Chen Ran would undoubtedly lack the brightest star.

Half a month passed by in a flash.

Swiss king Roger Federer defeated American Roddick and won the third Grand Slam of his career.

The two combatants and the final result in the final were exactly the same as in the previous life.

But Federer's mood was completely different from the overflowing joy when he won the championship in his previous life. After the brief joy, he actually felt a sense of loss in his heart.

Chen Ran's fans or the media are probably going to mock him again.

Three Grand Slams is a very dazzling achievement.

However, all three of his Grand Slams were won in Chen Ran's absence, and Federer and Chen Ran did not win a single match in the Grand Slam arena.

So no one will think that Federer's Grand Slam championship is worthy of the name, or even think that you just stole it.

As long as the Swiss King cannot defeat Chen Ran in the main draw of a Grand Slam, this kind of doubt will always exist, no matter how many times he wins the championship.

But the question is, can he still defeat Chen Ran?

Federer even felt like he was being shadowed by Chen Ran.

As for runner-up Roddick? At the beginning, he was even hailed as a new giant in tennis like Chen Ran and Federer.

It turns out that he is just a pseudo-giant who has been suppressed by the other two people from beginning to end.

Now, his position as a giant is almost no longer guaranteed, and he is about to be surpassed by Nadal.

After the end of this Wimbledon, just analyzing from the ATP rankings, the strength comparison between the various players is also very conspicuous.

Chen Ran is the first in the field, 1500 points ahead of second-placed Federer. This is because he missed Wimbledon.

Federer is second on the list, leading the third place by as many as 2000 points.

But the third player has been changing.

After the French Open, Nadal originally rose to third.

But after Roddick reached the Wimbledon final, he temporarily snatched third place.

Although Nadal has made rapid progress, his advantages on grass courts and hard courts have not yet reached the level of clay courts.

"It's finally time for a holiday."

After the 2005 Wimbledon Championships came to an end, several of the world's top players expressed similar thoughts.

From the start of the Australian Open at the beginning of the year to now, the players have been almost non-stop.

It is only the beginning of July, and the North American season starts in August. There are only some 7 and 8 games in between. Top-level players will choose to give themselves a period of rest to better prepare for the North American season.

As for Chen Ran, he is still far away in the Magic City of China, training twice a day without hesitation, but has no intention of leaving for Canada.

He has something important to do!

……

One day in mid-July, breaking news came from the Chinese Internet.

West China Penguin Co., Ltd. and China Golden Slam Network Co., Ltd. announced their alliance and will be close partners from now on.

At this moment, Brother Ma is still thinking about how to stand out from the powerful Chinese Internet.

Although Penguin's performance began to take off this year, compared with other Internet companies, Penguin did not show too obvious advantages.

In this era, the only Internet products that can make huge profits are online games. Although e-commerce can also make money, it is difficult, has a long cycle, short-term results, and competition is fierce, let alone huge profits. As for other projects, they are basically burning money.

As an emerging instant messaging software, QQ is widely loved by young people, and many people are willing to spend money for it, but the free people still account for the vast majority of users.

Most people still like to have sex for free and don’t like to recharge Q coins.

Therefore, the sales growth of Q coins has not been obvious.

While Xiao Ma was thinking hard, Chen Ran gave him a big gift.

Nowadays, the popular online game "World of Warcraft" can be recharged with Q coins, and the discount is as high as 9% off.

This also means that the original 30 yuan point card can be recharged with Q coins, and only 27 yuan is enough.

This result made Xiao Ma Ge ecstatic.

Q coins are a very important part of Penguin’s current company planning.

At present, "QQ Hall" is indeed a small hit, but the revenue of this game is simply not comparable to that of large-scale online games.

There is no doubt that when this cooperation agreement is reached, Xiao Ma can foresee that the sales of Q coins will skyrocket.

This huge favor also made Brother Xiao Ma extremely grateful.

Without saying anything, he immediately gave Chen Ran a job at Penguin Company.

The Penguin ambassador also serves as the marketing manager, but of course the latter is just a false position. Originally, Xiao Ma was going to give Chen Ran a vice president position directly, but he suddenly remembered that the company was still in the development and pioneering stage. If he gave Chen Ran a vice president position now, he would be unblockable in the future.

You can't give up your position to the other party, right?

But Xiao Ma's surprise goes beyond that.

After "Warcraft" announced that it could be recharged with Q coins at a 9% discount, another company Chen Ran invested in, Qidian.com, also announced that it could be recharged with Q coins, but only at a 95% discount.

After all, it is impossible for Chen Ran of Qidian.com to be dictatorial by himself, but the operating rights of "World of Warcraft" are in Chen Ran's hands. As long as he pays the agency fees and profit sharing on time, he has great autonomy in operations. As long as you don't open a mall, Just sell the props.

Soon, Xiao Ma took this opportunity to expand his Q coin business.

In addition, QQ Music was officially launched in February 2005.

Of course, in this era of online music, there is no awareness of copyright. Piracy is rampant, and no one cares at all. It is important to seize users.

Chen Ran also announced the completion of an investment in QQ Music in the name of the company.

This investment includes buying out the music copyrights of certain well-known singers at an appropriate time in the future.

Similarly, Brother Xiao Ma also reciprocated and prepared to inject capital into Chen Ran's company.

Chen Ran owns two companies, one operates online games and the other operates stores in various places.

He couldn't be stupid enough to take out the latter and share it. Chen Ran had this one for himself.

But for a company that operates online games, he decisively used "Warcraft" as bait to attract Penguin's investment.

Even though Nike and IMG opposed it, Chen Ran showed his dictatorial side this time and fought against everyone's objections to introduce Penguin's capital.

After Xiao Ma knew this, he was very moved.

He almost regarded Chen Ran as his half-brother.

Therefore, Xiao Ma even went to Chen Ran in person and told Chen Ran very sincerely and enthusiastically: Your company's current model is too dangerous and it must find new ways to make money as soon as possible.

Four years seems far away, but it has passed by in the blink of an eye.

It seems that Brother Ma really regards Chen Ran as one of his own.

"Sure enough, once the other party injects capital, they regard the company as their own."

"Since you are one of our own, you will definitely care about performance very much."

Chen Ran was thinking in his heart, but said: "Mr. Ma, although four years is not long, it is enough for us to make a lot of money. After four years, Blizzard will definitely learn from it and know how to speak like a lion, so I will do a good job Prepare to not renew the contract.”

"Because I can't make much money at all."

"My brother, so I reveal this idea to you."

"You have to know that I have never disclosed this idea to my company employees, Nike or IMG."

Nike or IMG are nothing!

With Penguin as his big brother, Chen Ran liked the new and disliked the old, and decisively kicked these guys aside.

Like Blizzard, they are Americans, they only want to make money, and they have a short-term vision and only care about immediate interests. Chen Ran knows this very well.

This time the agency for "Warcraft" needed their help, so they were roped in and allowed to share some of the benefits.

As for the future, the cooperation between the two parties should be limited to the field of sports.

Maybe Nike and IMG never dreamed that they used their connections in the United States to help Chen Ran get the agency rights for "World of Warcraft". They just let Chen Ran get the money from Penguin, which was part of his plan.

"give up?"

Brother Ma's eyes widened, and then he shook his head, "Brother, this can't work. Even if Blizzard in the United States makes a big move, you have to grit your teeth and agree. For such a popular game, even if you make less money, But at least you can keep your game market share.”

Urgent, it seems that Mr. Ma is really impatient.

After all, he used real money to invest in Chen Ran's company.

If your company doesn't have "Warcraft", what value does it still have?
If I had real money, wouldn’t it be wasted?
Chen Ran also knew that Mr. Ma's analysis was very correct.

From the perspective of an Internet company owner, there is nothing wrong with this.

That's why Mr. Ma wants to win the right to renew the contract at all costs.

As for profits being significantly reduced? The future is long, and Mr. Ma has plenty of means to conjure up various consumption routines.

Chen Ran was going to continue testing Brother Ma.

"With Mr. Ma's strategic vision, which company do you think will jump out to grab the renewal rights of "Warcraft"?"

Xiao Ma immediately snapped his fingers: "Net One or Shanda! But I think Cyber ​​One is more likely."

As expected of Mr. Ma, he was able to guess pretty well without cheating.

Chen Ran gave a decisive thumbs up and replied: "Why does Mr. Ma think that Net One is more likely? Don't they like to engage in independent research and development?"

He continued to test Xiao Ma.

"Just because they engage in independent research and development, they have enough cash flow. Shanda is pursuing profit returns, and we can foresee that Blizzard's future contract renewal conditions will be very harsh, and Shanda will probably give in."

Mr. Ma gave his analysis.

"In my personal opinion, Net One will be more durable and will be our biggest enemy in the future."

"In addition... I am very sure that the subsequent updates of "Legend" will definitely not be as good as "Fantasy Westward Journey". The advantage of Net One is really too great!"

You see, Brother Ma has used "we", it seems that he really regards Chen Ran as one of his own.

"That's it..."

Chen Ran lowered his head, pretended to be silent, and then said: "Mr. Ma is indeed Mr. Ma, he has unique vision."

He is convinced. No wonder this person has been able to lead the three Internet giants for a long time.

As for Xiao Ma Ge’s bad reputation?
You are already in business, and you are still such a top-notch rich man. You cannot be perfect. There will definitely be many people scolding you.

The great thing is that while people are scolding you, they still have to use your product and charge you money.

As for the other two giants, their reputation is even worse.

There is also the boss of the byte system, who originally had a good reputation, but his knees were too soft, and he was almost kneeling down to the Americans. Naturally, he was scolded by the Chinese people.

Compared to his fellow Jack Ma from Zhejiang Province, Brother Xiao Ma also knows what can be touched and what cannot be touched. He usually behaves very low-key and is not as ostentatious as that guy.

What's more, who doesn't know how many pitfalls the Ali system has?
Chen Ran feels that he is also a low-key person, so low-key people should cooperate with low-key people.

Besides, Jack Ma’s circle of friends is really terrible.

What Yan Ziwei, what Qigong King? It’s better to stay away from them.

So he hugged Penguin's thighs tightly and took the path that he thought was the most "difficult".

……

(End of this chapter)