Chapter 360 Nike was anxious and personally presented a 45 million contract!

The winning of the Club World Cup trophy and the achievement of seven championships have made Lin Quan's call for winning the Ballon d'Or even louder.

At this time, there is less than half a month left before the Ballon d'Or awards. Compared with Messi and Ronaldo, Lin Quan's lead is so big that even the fans of these two people have accepted their fate.

"It doesn't matter, Messi has four Ballon d'Ors, so what if Lin has one?"

Messi's fans are full of confidence. Messi, who has created four consecutive goals, has won the most Ballon d'Or awards and is the player who has won the most Ballon d'Or awards in the history of football.

And the most terrifying thing is that Messi is still very young. At 27 years old, he still has at least five years of his prime.

In these five years, he can definitely challenge for the fifth or even sixth Ballon d'Or.

In terms of the number of Ballon d'Or awards won, Ronaldo's fans are not as confident as Messi fans.

However, Cristiano Ronaldo also won two Ballon d'Or awards, ranking fifth in the cumulative number of Ballon d'Or awards with football emperor Beckenbauer, alien Ronaldo and others.

This achievement is enough to make them proud!

Although Ronaldo is a bit older, he will soon turn 30, and his peak period may only last two or three years.

But Real Madrid is now in full swing and may not be able to win the Champions League again in the next few years.

By then, Ronaldo will be able to win another Ballon d'Or for his outstanding performance at the club. In this case, he will be able to squeeze into third place, along with Platini, Cruyff, Van Basten and others. Juxtaposed.

Even if Lin Quan wins this year's Golden Globe Award, there will only be one, and there is still a big gap between him and the unrivaled duo.

And there is no shortage of players in football who are at their peak when they debut, but not every genius can have such a stable and long peak period like Messi and Ronaldo!

Maybe next year Lin Quan's performance will plummet and he will be completely lost to everyone?

Although Lin Quan has a great advantage in winning the award, Manchester City Club still dare not be careless.

No one has ever won the Ballon d'Or in their club's history, and Lin Quan is likely to break this embarrassing record.

At this time, Manchester City must increase its efforts to build momentum for Lin Quan.

Although winning the Ballon d'Or is closely related to the performance of the players themselves, it is also inseparable from the operations of the clubs to which they belong.

The reason why Cristiano Ronaldo was able to defeat Ribery and other opponents to win the Ballon d'Or last year was indispensable to Real Madrid's operation behind the scenes.

Manchester City is a rising star, and their connections in football are far less deep than Real Madrid's, so they need to be even more cautious.

Fortunately, Manchester City has one advantage that is particularly obvious, and that is - they are extremely rich!

Even if you can't directly buy voters from various countries, you can definitely buy the media from various countries and let them help Lin Quan publicize and build momentum.

So, after Manchester City started investing money in operations, there were suddenly a lot of reports about the Ballon d'Or Awards from all over the world.

Without exception, these reports all said good things about Lin Quan, and at the same time promoted how he deserved to win the Golden Globe Award.

Under such continuous publicity, people naturally associated Lin Quan with the Golden Globe Awards.

In this way, if Lin Quan accidentally loses the Golden Globe Award in the future, it will inevitably conflict with the public's perception and cause huge doubts.

This undoubtedly reduces the possibility of insider operations!

After Manchester City started to exert its influence, Nike also began to use its influence in football to build momentum for Lin Quan.

The reason why Nike does this is that the Golden Globe Award can greatly increase Lin Quan's popularity and influence. Lin Quan is a contracted player of Nike. His rising reputation is a good thing for Nike.

On the other hand, the contract signed by Lin Quan and Nike is over halfway through. Nike's efforts to build momentum for Lin Quan are to please Lin Quan so that they can renew his contract.

Nike's influence in football is not as great as Adidas, so they must offer more favorable conditions to attract players to sign with them.

With Lin Quan's current upward momentum, everyone can see that his future is limitless.

If Nike does not proactively seek to renew the contract, Adidas and other sponsors will definitely take action to snatch Lin Quan.

Once Lin Quan is snatched away, it will be very detrimental to Nike's entry into the football industry.

After all, their other big-name player, Cristiano Ronaldo, is about to turn 30.

Cristiano Ronaldo's peak period can't last for a few more years. Nike must consider other spokespersons after Cristiano Ronaldo who can support their football strategy!

And Lin Quan, who is strong and young, is undoubtedly the most suitable or even the only candidate.

Considering that Lin Quan's advantage in the Golden Globe Award is too great, in order to increase the attractiveness of Lin Quan's contract renewal, Nike privately contacted Lin Quan's agent and said that it would organize next year's Lawrence Award for him.

"Laurence Award?"

Lin Quan was a little surprised when he received a call from his agent Pere.

Of course he had heard of the Laureus Award, but this award had previously been awarded to racing, tennis and golf.

It has never been awarded to a football player.

Therefore, Lin Quan almost never had any expectations for this award. It was only now that he was so surprised when he heard Perey mention the Lawrence Award.

"Yes, Nike hopes to treat you as their top athlete to compete for next year's Lawrence Award!"

The selection criteria for the Laureus Award are very strict. The winner must have achieved outstanding results in international sports competitions in the past year and be unanimously recognized by the members of the selection committee.

The sports fields participating in the selection include football, basketball, track and field, swimming, tennis and other sports. The scope is very wide and the competition is fierce.

In recent years, most of the winners of Laureus' best male athletes have been in track and field and tennis.

Bolt, Nadal, and Djokovic are regulars on the winning list.

As for football players, although Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi have been selected for the final list many times, they have never won the award.

There are rumors that because of the existence of the more valuable Golden Globe Award, the judges of the Lawrence Award do not like to vote for football players, which makes it extremely difficult for football players to win this award.

Of course, this is not absolute.

Lin Quan remembers that Messi once won the Lawrence Award twice for his outstanding performance.

But that is all after 2020. Before that, there was indeed no player standing on the podium of the Lawrence Award.

Nike is a giant in the sports category. They sponsor many projects and have a large number of athletes under their banner.

Therefore, Nike’s influence in the sports circle cannot be ignored.

If he can really get their full support, Lin Quan may really hope to win the award.

After all, looking at his performance in 2014, Lin Quan almost achieved the ultimate in what a football player can do.

He has collected all team awards such as league, cup, Champions League, World Cup, Club World Cup and so on.

In terms of individual awards, Lin Quan has won almost all the awards he can get, including the League Golden Boot, the League's Best Player, the Champions League Golden Boot, the Champions League's Best Player, the World Cup Golden Boot and the World Cup's Best Player.

Whether in terms of team or individual honors, he is not inferior to those competitors.

Coupled with Nike's huge influence, Lin Quan suddenly felt that if Nike had not deceived him, next year's Lawrence Awards would really be a success.

"Are there any conditions from Nike?"

There is no free lunch in the world. If the other party is willing to do this, there must be some intention.

"They want to renew your contract or get a longer sponsorship deal with you."

Lin Quan's contract with Nike is for 13 years, with a contract amount of 18 million euros and a term of 3 years.

It's been almost two years now and it's about to expire. It's understandable that Nike would be anxious.

After all, super giants like Lin Quan have always been very capable.

"What price did they offer?"

Some people can't wait to give themselves money, and no one will refuse such a good thing.

Of course, the initiative to renew the contract at this time is in Lin Quan's own hands, and he will definitely take this opportunity to gain more benefits for himself.

Sponsors may be strong when facing other players, but they cannot be strong when facing top players, because super giants have no shortage of suitors, just like beauties have no shortage of licking dogs.

"They offered you a five-year, 45 million contract!"

On the other end of the phone, Pere's voice sounded a little excited.

Compared with the previous three-year 18 million contract, this new contract offered by Nike can be said to be full of sincerity.

The previous old contract was only 6 million euros per year, but the unit price of the new contract was increased by half, and the annual sponsorship fee reached 9 million euros.

This price has exceeded Ronaldo.

When Cristiano Ronaldo renewed his contract with Nike in 2013, he signed a five-year contract worth 40 million euros. The unit price was 1 million yuan lower than Lin Quan.

The price of a sponsor's contract is directly related to the player's status with the sponsor.

Lin Quan's unit price exceeds that of Ronaldo, which means that in the eyes of Nike, his status and commercial value exceed that of Ronaldo, and he is the number one star under Nike's football strategy!

This is where Pere feels Nike is full of sincerity!

However, Lin Quan was not very satisfied with this amount.

He remembered that when NBA star James first debuted in 2003, he signed a seven-year, $93 million contract with Nike.

After renewing his contract with Nike in 2010, the industry generally speculated that James' sponsorship contract exceeded US$200 million, and the unit price may have reached a terrifying US$40 million per year.

Compared with Lin Quan's 9 million euros a year, James' contract is about four times as much.

Such a huge gap made Lin Quan feel a little unhappy.

James is currently the number one player in the NBA, and his status may be slightly higher than him.

But the status gap between the two is definitely not as exaggerated as 4 times.

So the question is, why does Nike’s sponsorship fee for James be so high, but its sponsorship fee for itself is so small?

"Uh, this..."

Pere was speechless for a moment, not knowing how to explain to Lin Quan.

Compared with football, basketball’s influence around the world is indeed much smaller.

Even in the United States, basketball is not the number one sport.

Judging from the global carnival caused by last year's World Cup, in the sports world, football is undoubtedly the world's number one sport.

However, football has a fatal flaw: sneakers are not easy to sell!

Most of the contracts of basketball players are for sneaker endorsements, and some sponsors will even cooperate with them to develop exclusive sneakers.

After fans buy the sneakers worn by these stars, they can wear them whether in sports or in daily life. Therefore, the audience is huge and there is no need to worry about sales.

Sponsors can make huge profits from the sales of sneakers, and naturally they are willing to spend money to sign people.

But football shoes are too professional. These shoes with spikes are not suitable for wearing in daily life except for wearing on the court.

Professional football shoes are expensive and have narrow uses. Only fans who like playing football will buy them.

Ordinary fans can only buy one jersey at most, but they will most likely not buy sneakers, which will undoubtedly limit its audience and market size.

Therefore, the amount of sponsorship contracts for football players will naturally be limited and not as high as that of the NBA.

"That's not a problem. I don't wear sneakers all day long. I can definitely represent Nike for everyday sports shoes. There's no need to limit the scope so tightly!"

Pere was speechless for a moment, Lin Quan's ideas were really wild and unconstrained.

"Okay, I'll give Nike feedback and see what they say!"

After Nike received Pere's reply, it immediately held an emergency meeting to discuss it.

They have no idea how effective it will be to let football players endorse other sports products that have little to do with football.

They usually choose track and field athletes or simply ask film and television stars to endorse these sports shoes, and they almost never ask football players to endorse them.

Moreover, Lin Quan's contract amount has already exceeded that of Ronaldo. If it is increased further, it may cause serious dissatisfaction from Ronaldo.

Therefore, Nike declined Pere's proposal.

In order to compensate Lin Quan, they promised to do their best next year to help Lin Quan win the Lawrence Award.

"Then let's wait until the results of next year's Lawrence Awards are announced!"

After getting Nike's reply, Lin Quan was a little dissatisfied.

The other party is tantamount to drawing a big pie for themselves and tricking themselves into renewing the contract in advance.

As for whether the big pie can be realized after the contract is renewed, the other party has not made any guarantee.

Naturally, he would not believe such a blank check. As it happens, the shortlist for the Lawrence Award will be announced at the beginning of next month.

The awards ceremony will also be held at the Shanghai Grand Theater on April 15, 2015. We will know then how sincere Nike is.

After rejecting Nike's contract extension, Lin Quan returned to the game.

On January 10, Manchester City visited Liverpool's Goodison Park Stadium to challenge the Toffees Everton.

Manchester City received good news in this game. Aguero and Kroos returned from injury and entered the team's roster, and were replaced by Guardiola in the second half.

Manchester City, with all their main players, led their opponents 3:0 in the first half with goals from Lin Quan and De Bruyne.

Lin Quan scored another goal in the second half, completing two consecutive hat tricks, and was in a hot state.

Shortly after completing the hat trick, Lin Quan was replaced by Aguero by Guardiola.

When Lin Quan was substituted, Guardiola seemed to be afraid that he would be angry, so he hugged him and explained to him the reason why he substituted him in advance.

"You have already scored three goals, and the Everton players are all anxious. If you continue to stay on the field, they may retaliate and foul you. This will be very dangerous, so I will You changed it."

Lin Quan glanced at Guardiola and asked curiously:

"When you replace Messi, will you explain it to him like this?"