Case Details
LNG Esports and Li-Ning: Exploring Financial Impacts of Esports Outcomes on Sponsor Stock Volatility
During the 2023 League of Legends World Championship (Season 13), LNG Esports (LNG), a Chinese team sponsored by leading sports brand Li-Ning, was expected to secure a historic all-Chinese semifinal lineup. However, LNG underperformed and lost to Korea’s T1, which prompted broad fan backlash. The reaction quickly spilled into commerce: as the game coincided with a peak shopping season in China, Li-Ning’s livestream sales channels were inundated with boycott messages from fans, which led to a sharp decline in sales. Social media sentiment turned negative, and in the days that followed, Li-Ning’s share price declined.
This case provides an overview of the Esports industry’s evolution including the stakeholder ecosystem and sponsorship dynamics. Using real gaming and financial data, students will act as analysts to assess whether and how Esports outcomes relate to sponsor stock performance. Students will learn to conduct exploratory data analysis, preprocess data, and build linear regression models to investigate the potential relationships and interpret their findings.
Teaching this case requires access to the ACRC’s Data Analytics Platform. If you are an educator and interested in adopting this case in your teaching, please contact info@acrc.hku.hk for further information.
Learning Objective:
- Students will gain a basic understanding of the Esports history, including its stakeholder ecosystem, sponsorship dynamics.
- Students will perform basic data manipulation, explanatory data analysis, build regression models, and interpret results to draw meaningful conclusions
- Student will understand how real-world data analysis can uncover cross-industry impacts, using Esports outcomes and their potential effects on financial markets as a case study.