Interview with Cheng Huang, Executive Chairman of KPL Alliance： The ＂Speed-up＂ of e-sports regionalization is coming.

On the evening of June 26th, the 2021KPL (the glory of the king Professional League) Spring Finals ended in Shanghai. Nanjing Hero Jiujing and Guangzhou TTG played seven games, showing the highest level of e-sports confrontation, and finally Nanjing Hero Jiujing won the 2021 KPL Spring Championship.

This KPL is the tenth in the fifth year of the establishment of the glory of the king Professional League. With the opportunity of the spring decision, Beiqing-Beijing Headline reporter (hereinafter referred to as "Beiqing") interviewed Cheng Huang, senior director of Tencent Mutual Entertainment Tianmei E-sports Center and executive chairman of KPL League Competition Committee. The pace of KPL regionalization has been further accelerated this year, and almost 16 professional teams have city home courts. Cheng Huang said that at present, KPL is divided into two major directions in the concept of comprehensive regionalization.

In fact, the urbanization of e-sports will bring the "business card effect" to the local area and the extremely considerable economic scale of the game market. According to the Game Industry Report of China in 2020, in 2020, the number of game users in China exceeded 660 million, and the actual sales revenue of the game market in China was 278.687 billion yuan, up 20.71% year-on-year, and the growth rate increased by 13.05 percentage points year-on-year.

The e-sports women’s track is coming. Is she ready?

Bei Qing: At the annual conference of Tencent E-sports held last week, Mr. Zhang Yijia, Chairman of KPL Alliance, revealed that an independent women’s track would be opened in the second half of the year. What are the plans for the women’s track alliance?

Cheng Huang: I still have great expectations for the women’s competition. I hope there will be some breakthroughs in the women’s competition. After we released the information of the women’s track last week, we got unexpected responses from all sides. Subsequently, we had some communication with the E-sports Management Branch of China Cultural Management Association, and the first all-women track competition may be held this year.

This kind of competition is planned to be divided into two stages. In the first stage, the form of city integral competition will be adopted. Different cities will set up different competition integral weights to select the women’s team in the annual finals. In the second stage, we will rank by scores at the end of the year, and 8-12 such teams may be invited to participate in the annual women’s competitive competition. Teams can be semi-professional, professional and amateur. After the city selection in the second half of the year, the top teams will be selected to participate in the final professional competition.

Bei Qing: There are women’s football teams and men’s football teams in the Super League. Have we ever imagined the system of KPL men’s teams with women’s teams in the future?

Cheng Huang: We have many ideas about women’s e-sports. We also imagined many construction plans for women’s independent events. However, at this stage, we need to continue to increase investment and continue to explore on the road of women’s e-sports. I hope that by holding an independent women’s competition this time, we can appeal or summon more capable female high-end players, and we can bravely step out of this step and try to show their elegance on the field as women professional players. As for whether there will be a "Women’s Super League" system in the future, we certainly hope to see this day.

Our discussion on women’s careers didn’t start just now. We also released it at last year’s press conference. This year, in the K-A competition, women players were registered in the hot club. Although it may not be able to achieve good results, it is still very valuable. At least it has taken the first step as a female professional player. In the field of e-sports, girls still have room and opportunities to show.

The women’s professional track to be promoted this time may not adopt the concept of mixed men and women as in the previous period, but open up a purely feminine track alone.

The national e-sports will start. Are you ready?

Beiqing: In recent years, the pace of localization of KPL has been accelerating, and many clubs have their own home cities. When will KPL’s comprehensive home and away games be realized, and what is the current planning of the next landing city?

Cheng Huang: Our regional layout has some overall considerations. On the concept of overall regionalization, we have two major directions. One is the comprehensive regionalization of online city titles, and the other is the comprehensive regionalization of offline home landing. In terms of online comprehensive regionalization, 16 clubs can be completed online regionalization this year. For the landing of offline cities at home, we have to refer to many aspects, such as the preparatory work for the club and local infrastructure and operation, as well as the specific planning of the local government for the landing of e-sports entities, which are the actual situations we need to consider. We expect to increase it to at least 10 offline clubs next year after achieving 8 offline home games this year.

Beiqing: There are city leagues, national competitions and theme competitions in the upcoming new national e-sports system. What are the highlights of these national competitions?

Cheng Huang: Competitions in the same city can be set up every month, and players can fight on behalf of their own cities. We will set up a mechanism similar to the promotion tournament in the last week of each month to give ordinary players the opportunity to move towards semi-professional and professional. More theme competitions will be held. For example, like the previous competitions held by Betta and Huya, we can open them to more people through different themes.

Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Chloe Wang

Editor/Qiao Ying