Chapter 1 Chen Hero's First Season

Chen Hero finished his first season at Liverpool with a Golden Boot and a League Cup title. It was a successful season for him, although the team did not qualify for the Champions League, they still returned to Europe. In addition, he also won the top scorer award, his sixth league top scorer award since his debut.

All six of these top scorer awards were won consecutively. In other words, since 2007, he has never let the league top scorer award fall into the hands of others. This is a remarkable achievement. The whole of Europe was amazed by his performance, and many media outlets exclaimed that European football had not seen such a dominant center forward for a long time... No, perhaps there had never been such a freak.

Generally speaking, a forward who can win the top scorer award in his league for consecutive years is considered a top-tier player. If he can win the top scorer award in another league, then he is world-class. However, Chen Hero not only changed three leagues but also managed to win the top scorer award in all of them, and he did it consecutively—in these six years, he has never allowed the league top scorer award to fall into the hands of others.

It's really hard to know what level that is.

Maybe a separate level should be created, called "Hero-level"?

In addition, because he played in the Premier League, his influence has also increased significantly compared to when he played in Serie A.

The Premier League is indeed the most mature football league on the planet, with the highest media attention and the highest degree of commercialization. Players who play here have a higher chance of being exposed in the media than players in other leagues. The only league that can compete with the Premier League is probably La Liga, but La Liga only has two teams, which is a bit weak.

Chen Hero has earned a lot of commercial contracts in just one season in the Premier League.

And they are all big contracts worth a lot of money, not the small-scale ones from before.

When he first joined Liverpool last summer, he signed a four-year commercial endorsement contract with Vodafone, a well-known British and global telecommunications company. This is an important step for Vodafone to enter the Chinese market. Signing Chen Hero, who is very popular in China, will help Vodafone promote its brand image in the Chinese market. Vodafone also has a precedent for sponsoring football, the most famous of which is the front advertisement on the Manchester United jersey.

This endorsement contract can bring Chen Hero an income of two million euros per year.

In addition to Vodafone, he also endorsed Gillette razors, a three-year contract with an endorsement income of one million euros per year.

In addition, the Land Rover SUV, which has been with him from Russia to Italy and then to England, has also become his sponsor. The contract is for three years, with 1.5 million euros per year.

He also reached an endorsement agreement with Red Bull, becoming Red Bull's global image ambassador. A four-year contract, with one million euros per year.

2011 was a year of great harvest for Chen Hero's career. He won his first Champions League title and his second Champions League top scorer award, his first Serie A title, and his third Serie A top scorer award. He defeated Messi in the Champions League and broke the single-season goal record after the Champions League reform. In Serie A, he broke the Serie A single-season goal record held by Nordahl for more than 60 years...

So many honors made his popularity unparalleled and his momentum was strong. Naturally, many commercial endorsement contracts came to him.

Merchants are always profit-seeking, and they will support whoever is popular. Currently, the world's number one center forward is Chen Hero, so they naturally want to win him over to endorse their products.

In China, Chen Hero also obtained several commercial contracts worth a lot of money.

He signed an exclusive contract with Weibo, the most influential portal website in China, and officially entered Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo offered him a price of 18 million RMB per year, but Sina was willing to spend the money. Because Chen Hero's Weibo account gained four million followers on the first day of its official opening, and this number is still increasing rapidly. Chen Hero's first Weibo post: "Hello everyone, I am Chen Hero." Just such a simple sentence, without any photos in accordance with the current popular Weibo model, was forwarded more than 100,000 times, with as many as 70,000 comments. Most of the comments congratulated Chen Hero on opening a Weibo account in China and expressed their support for Chen Hero. Chen Hero's popularity can be seen from this.

In addition to online commercial contracts, Chen Hero also became the spokesperson for Lenovo computers at a price of 10 million RMB per year, with a contract validity of four years. Chinese people can now see Chen Hero kicking a football out of the Lenovo laptop screen on TV stations and various newspapers, magazines, outdoor advertising posters, bus stops, and subway cars.

In addition, the banking industry, which seems to have nothing to do with football players, has also approached Chen Hero and wants to sign an endorsement contract with him. Chen Hero's characteristics actually have nothing to do with banking or finance. The other party purely valued Chen Hero's fame. Chen Hero's management team, based on the principle that it is foolish not to make money when you have the opportunity, signed a three-year contract with the other party. During these three years, Chen Hero became the brand spokesperson for China Merchants Bank, with 10 million RMB per year.

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2011 was really his year of great harvest, and this sentence is not about his honors, but his income. At Liverpool, his weekly salary was 120,000 pounds after tax, and in half a year he earned 3.12 million pounds, which is equivalent to 3.73 million euros.

Chen Hero's weekly salary is very high at Liverpool, but his bonuses are not high, and the calculation method is not as complicated as it was in Naples. He has a reward of 7,000 pounds for every goal he scores, but there are no extra rewards for consecutive goals, braces, hat-tricks, or consecutive goals. Chen Hero initially felt that he and Chen Xing were brothers, so he still had to consider the other party. He knew that Liverpool had spent 70 million pounds to buy him, which had already made the team's financial situation very tight, so he did not make special requests for bonuses.

If Liverpool wasn't opened by his big brother, he would definitely demand sky-high wages and sky-high bonuses from another boss. He received 70,000 pounds in goal bonuses in the second half of 2011, plus some other winning bonuses, and his total bonus was 150,000 pounds, which is equivalent to 180,000 euros.

He spent the first half of 2011 in Naples, and the Napoli club had to pay him a salary. His weekly salary in Naples was initially determined to be 50,000 euros after tax. This weekly salary is not high, but the various bonuses are terrifyingly high, especially since these bonuses are all linked to football... People who understand the inside story of Chen Hero's contract with the club are wondering whether these bonuses are one of the motivations for Chen Hero to desperately monopolize the Serie A top scorer award for three consecutive seasons?

In Naples, including all kinds of miscellaneous bonuses and wages, his income in the first half of 2011 was also around 2.4 million euros.

For those successful professional players and big stars, the money they earn in the team is never the majority of their annual income.

In the summer of 2011, Chen Hero signed a four-year endorsement contract with Nike, worth a total of 12 million euros. Each year, Hero can receive 3 million euros from Nike, which is a fixed income. In addition, there are supplementary clauses in the contract. If Chen Hero's number of goals exceeds 25 each season, Nike will give an additional bonus of 1 million euros. If he wins the league's top scorer award, he gets 1 million euros, and if he wins the Champions League's top scorer award, he gets 1.5 million euros.

Chen Hero met all the standards for these three additional rewards.

Therefore, in 2011 alone, the rewards he received from Nike alone were 3 million euros in endorsement fees plus 1 million euros in bonuses for exceeding 25 goals, plus 1 million euros for the league top scorer, and 1.5 million euros for the Champions League top scorer. That equals 6.5 million euros.

The money from Nike alone is basically about three times his annual salary in Naples. It is estimated that when Nike signed the contract, they did not expect Chen Hero to be so fierce, and he won all the bonuses he could get in the first season...

In addition, he also obtained considerable income from various commercial endorsements - Versace casual wear 800,000 euros, Jin嗓子 (Jin嗓子 throat lozenges) 1.5 million RMB (180,000 euros), Vodafone 2 million euros, Gillette 1 million euros, Land Rover 1.5 million euros, Red Bull 1 million euros, Sina Weibo 2.14 million euros, Lenovo 1.19 million euros, China Merchants Bank 1.19 million euros.

Calculated in this way, Chen Hero's total income in 2011 reached 23.81 million euros, which is equivalent to 200 million RMB! This does not include his investment or the income from the "Hero" brand clothing business managed by his father. Chen Hero has become the most profitable athlete in Chinese sports, surpassing Li Na, who won the French Open champion and the Australian Open runner-up - China's top athlete's advertising revenue in the past 2011 was 17 million US dollars, and her competition prize money was 3.7 million US dollars. Together, this is equivalent to 15.5 million euros, which is more than 8 million euros less than Chen Hero, a significant difference. This shows that although Li Na has become the first Asian player to win a Grand Slam event, the influence of tennis is indeed not as good as football, the world's number one sport.

With the rise of Chen Hero in world football, the management team led by Dekula also revised the standard of Chen Hero's endorsement contracts - newly signed contracts must be at least three years, no less than 10 million RMB or 1 million euros, and the brand must be a leading brand in its respective field.

Looking back at Chen Hero's endorsement contracts when he first debuted, the difference is really huge.

Back then, his endorsement of Clear shampoo brought him an income of 500,000 euros a year, which was already considered a high endorsement fee.

His endorsement of the Zara clothing brand was only 300,000 euros a year, and his endorsement of 脉动 (Mai Dong, a sports drink) brought him 1.5 million RMB a year. Even so, he was happy to accept it.

No matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat.

Chen Hero's team now completely looks down on such small endorsements.

His performance is getting better and better, he has become a world-class shooter, and his commercial value has naturally become greater and greater, with world-class influence.

The days when his father borrowed 100,000 RMB to send him abroad to play football, and the family tightened their belts to pay off debts are gone forever.

The fate of Chen Hero and his family has been completely changed.

On the road to attracting money and making money, he is still continuing to climb to new heights.

In the summer of 2012, Dekula had already negotiated several endorsements for him, and his annual income was about to reach a new high.

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ps, there will be three updates today~~