Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 533 A bold idea?

One thing Nike is worried about is that Chen Ran is too young.

He became famous even a few years younger than the American prodigy LeBron James.

what does this mean?
When this contract ended, Chen Ran was only 20 and a half years old!

If the contract renewal period is 4 years, then Chen Ran will not be 25 years old when the next contract expires.

Maybe even younger!

Because the condition offered by his agency is that if Chen Ran reaches a new contract with Nike, it will be directly re-signed on the existing contract.

This means that the remaining year of the contract will be invalidated and directly replaced by a new contract.

As a result, Chen Ran will not even be 24 years old when his next contract expires.

Both of his endorsement contracts have expired, and he is not even 24 years old, which is younger than many NBA stars when their rookie contracts are over.

So how much will the next contract be for?
It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

Both sides are thinking about maximizing their interests.

China's sports market is huge and its economy is developing rapidly, but its level of maturity is far less than that of the United States and Europe.

Because China's professional sports are too backward, for example, CBA and Chinese Super League, in fact, in the eyes of Nike's top management, are no different from makeshift teams, exuding amateurism and absurdity everywhere.

Managers are extremely amateur and often let their butts decide their heads.

Chen Ran is indeed well-known in the United States and Europe and has a large number of fans, but he is an outsider after all and cannot compare with their local top superstars.

Like Yao Ming, or top Asian football stars, they at least participate in professional leagues in their own countries and work for professional clubs over there. The nature of this is completely different.

All in all, Chen Ran's time in North America is only the Sunshine Double in March and the North American season in August and September.

Then add the Chinese market.

This endorsement fee may still be profitable, but the profit margin is not large.

The endorsement fee of $3000 million a year is twice that of LeBron James and three times that of Kobe Bryant.

If Nike agrees to this price, NBA superstars will also put pressure on it.

Likewise, there are European football superstars.

Because football is Adidas's field, and Nike is also competing for this market, it must compete at a premium.

So, after more than ten days of back and forth, the two sides still failed to reach an agreement.

Nike has raised the price to $2100 million, while Chen Ran's agency is asking for $2600 million, leaving a difference of $500 million.

Of course, there is still some time before Chen Ran’s contract expires, and both parties are not in a hurry, so they just continue to waste time.

……

On the first day after National Day in 2005, good news finally came from Shenzhen.

They won the right to host the WTA year-end finals as they wished, and the duration is the same as Shanghai, four years, from 2007 to 2010.

This means that in 2007 and 2008, China will host both the ATP and WTA year-end finals.

Of course, both prize money and appearance fees will reach new highs.

But can this make money?
It doesn’t matter. There will be a lot of sponsors to pay for it, and it won’t cost much for Chinese fans to buy tickets and attend the game in person.

At this moment, Chen Ran has returned to the Magic City.

He also knew that the contract renewal negotiation would be a long process. Anyway, the matter had been handed over to the agency and he only needed to listen to the report results at any time.

In fact, his psychological price is more than 2200 million US dollars. Given the current situation, this is obviously not a big problem. However, Chen Ran did not reveal his thoughts to anyone. He just wanted to see how much Nike could offer for the contract extension under the extreme pressure from the agency.

In fact, Chen Ran himself is also very clear that he currently does not have much room for choice.

Adidas?

Not to mention that the company has been in a downward trend in the future, and many sports superstars who have signed contracts with Adidas seem to have been cursed in their careers and have not been doing well.

Then, the workmanship quality of Adidas products in China is really poor, and has been criticized by Chinese consumers.

What is even more speechless is that Adidas really showed the inherent arrogance of the Germans and did not make any move to change, resulting in more and more Chinese consumers starting to abandon Adidas, and their market share is getting lower and lower.

Perhaps too many people have been deeply influenced by "Yilin" and have been praising Germany's conscience. These flatteries have made the Germans confused and disoriented.

So, Chen Ran first ruled out Adidas.

Then Chen Ran couldn’t sign the Xiao Ri Zi brand either.

Although the relationship between China and Xiao Rizi is still acceptable at present, in the future, the relationship between the two countries will become worse and worse, and various disputes will occur frequently.

So even if Uniqlo could offer Chen Ran a higher price than they offered to poach Federer in his previous life, Chen Ran would not be able to sign a contract with them due to his reputation.

Next is Li Ning.

In the next few years, Li Ning will enter a period of rapid development and will be at its peak.

But before long, this company will fall from grace.

The market value of nearly 3000 billion Hong Kong dollars will drop to around 500 billion in the blink of an eye.

The main reason is that they think highly of themselves and benchmark themselves against international brands, so they set their prices too high and are ruthless when it comes to cutting leeks.

It has grown big thanks to Chinese consumers, but it has no respect for this largest consumer group.

In particular, they adopted the mysterious operation of upgrading their products while offering discounts. The speed of price reduction was as fast as the speed of price increase, which made many Chinese consumers who supported their brand feel disheartened.

In particular, they engage in moral blackmail, claiming that they are the pride of domestic brands, and that not buying their products is unpatriotic, and other marketing behaviors are extremely disgusting.

Amid the constant negative news, the speed of decline is alarming.

Then, it’s Anta.

In 2005, Anta was not yet considered a big brand, and the gap between it and Li Ning was like heaven and earth.

At least at this point in time, no one believes that Anta will surpass Li Ning in the future, or even leave him far behind.

If it were ten years later, Chen Ran would be willing to sign a contract with Anta, under the pretext of supporting domestic brands.

But at this point in time, Anta obviously cannot meet the price Chen Ran needs.

However, the deadlock in his negotiations with Nike gave Chen Ran a bold idea.

Is it possible to wait until the next contract with Nike ends and then follow Federer's example and make a job-hopping move at a sky-high price?
If Chen Ran renews his contract with Nike, the next contract will end around 2010.

His career should be at its peak, and the sports boom brought by the Yanjing Olympics will continue. Those years will also be a period of rapid development for Anta.

At the peak of his career, Chen Ran resolutely terminated his contract with Nike and chose to join hands with Anta. Just imagine how much of a sensation that would have been.

He will be on the fast track of Anta's rapid development and get a contract that maximizes his interests.

In the future, many years from now, people will only marvel at their own vision.

……

(End of this chapter)