On 28 July, the Olympic torch was relayed to Los Angeles Memorial Stadium, marking the official opening of the XXIII Summer Olympic Games, with so many exceptions.

The "commemoration" in the name of Los Angeles Memorial Stadium originated from the 1921 initiative to commemorate World War I veterans, and in 1968 it was renamed to commemorate all war veterans.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games were held at the Los Angeles Memorial Stadium, where the Olympic torch tower remains to this day, and the Olympic flame will also burn here for half a month.

As a result, Los Angeles Memorial Stadium became the only stadium in the world to be the main venue for two Olympic Games, which can be called a historical witness. On the day of the opening of the Olympic Games, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark.

The renovation of the Los Angeles Memorial Stadium, which can accommodate more than 92,000 spectators, also relied on commercial sponsorships, such as Atlantic Lechfell Features, which contributed $5 million, replaced seats with seats, and added more than 100 boxes.

At this time, Tang Huan was sitting in one of the boxes, enjoying the opening ceremony calmly, and occasionally swept the advertisements of Fangyuan Computer and EA, and he would bow his head slightly with satisfaction.

Under the leadership of Peter Ueberroth, the commercial operation of the Olympic Games Organizing Committee was unprecedentedly successful.

Because he set the sponsorship rule - only one company in the same field is selected, so that the merchants who want to participate in it are extremely competitive with each other.

A notable example of this was the battle between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, which won the $13 million bid.

The intrigues of the sponsors sometimes make jokes. This is how Kodak competes with Fujifilm.

It was supposed to be in 1982. After hard work. Peter Ueberroth signed a $4 million sponsorship deal with Kodak. However, Kodak deliberately delayed the payment of sponsorship funds for the sake of bank interest income, and Fuji took advantage of it and squeezed Kodak out at a price of $7 million.

Seeing that he had lost the Olympic sponsorship contract that had already been in hand at his doorstep, Kodak suddenly became angry and tried to redeem the defeat by attacking Peter Ueberroth and the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for treachery and mercenary purposes. , but to no avail.

Peter Ueberroth and the Los Angeles Organising Committee of the Olympic Games dare to take out the Olympic torch relay and sell it by kilometer, can they still care about Kodak's saliva?

Their rules are cute and simple, that is, in the face of money, everyone is equal, everyone has opportunities, and there is no brain hole that cannot be opened.

Tang Huan welcomed this move with both hands, otherwise he, an upstart, would have risen faster, some links of this Olympic Games. It's too late to get involved, and telecasts are an example of this.

No doubt. Television broadcasting plays a pivotal role in revenue streams such as franchise sponsorship programs, televising, licensing, tickets, etc.

Peter Ueberroth and his team knew this, so they studied the sale of television rights and crafted a plan to make a fortune – $200 million for television rights in the United States, while requiring the winning bidder to provide technical equipment.

The three major television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, have become the inevitable traditional contenders. And Turner Broadcasting, which has Tang Huan's support, also joined as a newcomer.

At that time, Ted Turner had not yet acquired the cable network of Metropolitan Media, and the outside world generally believed that he was a marginal character who accompanied the prince to study, after all, no matter how rich and willing you were to spend money, your broadcast range was far behind the other three, which would inevitably affect the effect of the Olympic broadcast.

As a result, Peter Uberroth's determination to attract money was underestimated, and in order to scrape a layer of oil from Ted Turner, he brazenly revised the sales plan and helped CNN create a limited cable license bid.

In the end, the television rights of the Los Angeles Olympics in the United States were invisibly divided between ABC and Turner Broadcasting for $225 million and $100 million, respectively.

Peter Uberros's "anything is negotiable as long as you have money" has caused a lot of criticism.

However, as CNN swallowed up Metropolitan Media's cable network, which quickly swelled to become the fourth-largest television network in the United States, those who suspected that the richest man could not be qualified to broadcast the Olympics by relying on the richest man's fake power of the cable news network automatically went silent.

In fact, businesses are very recognizable of the commercial promotion role of the Olympic Games, but the previous Olympic Organizing Committee did not force the International Olympic Organizing Committee to make special exceptions like Peter Hubroth, and then got rid of the shackles of rules and regulations, and completely revitalized the game of chess.

As one of the many participating merchants, Tang Huan promoted his four major companies - EA, Fangyuan, Zheru and Pacific Telecom on the dynamic business promotion platform of the Los Angeles Olympics.

Among them, only EA and Fang Yuan have been qualified as global top sponsors of the Olympic Games, because they are both public listed companies, and Zheru gave way to Fang Yuan, while Pacific Telecom, although it is doing well, is still an ordinary communication company after all, and it cannot compete with the former parent company that occupies the first-mover advantage - AT&T.

In the bidding process, the challenges encountered by EA and Fangyuan are not too intense: the former is firmly in the industry hegemony, and other chasers are more willing to invest limited resources in product research and development; The latter is facing competition from established companies such as IBM and HP.

It's just that there are differences in focus in marketing concepts, Fangyuan started with personal computers with mass consumer attributes, and became well-known, so it spared no effort in marketing; Traditional technology companies such as IBM and HP have long matured their businesses, so the amount of capital investment is not as good as Fangyuan's cutting-edge pride, so they naturally fall behind.

Noticing Tang Huan's proud advertising performance of Fangyuan Computer and EA at the Olympic Games, Wang An smiled: "It's good to be young. Mr. Tang's company is full of momentum. ”

Another person seated in the box was the 1983 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner. I.M. Pei is known as "thelastmasterofhighmodernistarchitecture" – "the last master of modernist architecture".

He also laughed and said, "When Mr. Tang was discussing the architectural style with me. It also showed a lot of sharpness. ”

Tang Huan smiled slightly, "Everyone thinks that I have the title of the richest man with tens of billions of dollars of paper wealth, which can be described as young and ambitious, enough to have no desires, but meaningful things in the world cannot be defined by the amount of money alone, and I am not so forgetful, I know that there is still a never-ending avenue in the world." ”

This time, taking the opportunity to attend the opening ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, Tang Huan specially invited Wang An and I.M. Pei to come over. I plan to communicate about the establishment of the Chinese Elite Association. He had previously consulted with some other prominent Chinese in North America, and these two were just members of them.

Overall, the plan is going well, but it still needs to be progressed gradually, and there is no need to rush to bring people together.

Although the official name of the Chinese Elite Association has not yet been decided, the main purpose is to confirm the undoubted, that is, to support each other. Everyone works hard in the United States, and no one dares to guarantee that they will have smooth sailing, and there will be no headaches and brain fevers.

Take I.M. Pei, for example. He hit a low point in his life in the 1970s.

With 60 floors and a height of 240 meters, Boston's first skyscraper, the John Hancock Building. It was designed by I.M. Pei and his partner Henry Cobb and completed in 1976.

Viewed from above, the building has a parallelogram in shape, giving it a distinctly modernist feel.

Due to the use of a minimalist large-scale blue-glazed curtain wall, the whole building blends with the sky on a sunny day, and then becomes an all-glass curtain wall building with the largest single glass area.

However, because the glass curtain wall technology was not mature enough at that time, there was an accident of glass falling off in the early days of the building, although it was later solved through technical improvements, but Pei and his partners paid a heavy price.

Fortunately, this old man has a strong ability to resist blows and pressure, and finally got out of this career trough.

Wang An's career is naturally not smooth sailing, otherwise he would not always regard IBM as the biggest opponent in his life.

It's just that the current computer industry, due to Tang Huan's incurrence, has undergone earth-shaking changes, and the situation of Wang An Computer Company has begun to become embarrassing.

Due to the office document editing solution composed of personal computers and word processing software, the advantages are becoming more and more obvious in terms of cost and advanced technology, whether it is Wang An Computer Company or IBM, its once popular word processing machine, began to be strongly impacted, but it has not been completely eliminated by relying on the old foundation.

This market change has had a great impact on the performance of Wang An Computer Company.

Of course, Wang An's computer company is not only engaged in word processing machines, but also its small computers.

However, in recent years, the Fangyuan workstation and Fangyuan server, which have developed from the Fangyuan personal computer technology system, have also had a great impact on the minicomputer market, and Wang An Computer Company will not be spared.

Tang Huan once tried to win over Wang An and let Wang An Computer Company enter his own Fangyuan computer standard system, but Wang An, who had worked hard to build a large foundation, refused, and the conceited thought that he could complete the goal of entering the personal computer industry alone.

But it is a pity that although Wang An Computer Company has taken action, so far, the results have been lackluster.

One of the reasons is that Wang An's computer company has encountered the same confusion as IBM. Big Blue's positioning for IBM-PC is that it cannot affect the traditional mainframe business with greater profit margins; When Wang An Computer Company designed personal computers, it inevitably considered problems under the framework of a small computer.

It's not that no one dares to risk the vested interests of the aging architecture to actively seek fresh prospects for future interests, but IBM, which is known for its conservative style, has a hard time taking that step!

And Wang An, the founder of Wang An's computer company, has no other prestige, and it is equally difficult to take this step! Wang An, who is already over the age of sixteen, is really old for the ever-changing computer industry! After the twilight of the hero, he inevitably loses his keen judgment, and the common diseases of the world, such as self-restraint and self-righteousness, have become more and more obstacles to career development.

At this stage, Wang An Computer Company is losing its leading position in the computer industry and is beginning to show signs of decline.

Maybe Wang An also felt the objective fact that he was indeed old, so in his speech, he unconsciously revealed his feelings for Tang Huan's forge ahead.

Although his previous proposal for cooperation was rejected by Wang Angang for his own use, Tang Huan was still willing to continue to work hard in this direction.

Realistically speaking, Fangyuan computer standards have become a general trend, and Fangyuan personal computers alone have sold millions of units in the three major global markets of North America, Europe and Japan.

On a platform of this scale, a large number of applications have gathered, and the resources that have been invested in them have reached the point where no one will give up easily. It is not an exaggeration to say that Tang Huan, who opened up the market, kidnapped users.

In this case, the possible support role provided by Wang An Computer Company has become dispensable, and the team of Fangyuan computer standard compatible machines that Tang Huan has incorporated alone can be called considerable.

However, Wang An Computer Company, which has been in business for more than 30 years, is not useless, and it still has some irreplaceable role.

The eastern part of the United States, across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, is traditionally the political and economic center. Wang An Computer Company, headquartered in Boston, has been working hard here. If it can reach a strategic tacit cooperation with Fangyuan Computer, which rises in Silicon Valley in the western United States, I believe it can bring practical benefits to both parties.

On the other hand, Tang Huan is willing to have Chinese enterprises like Wang An Computer Company join the alliance so as to grow their momentum together.

Today, no matter how old Wang An is, he has clearly recognized the current situation, and is no longer as stubborn as before, and clearly supports the initiative of establishing a Chinese Elite Association.

At this time, there was a remarkable scene in the process of the entrance ceremony. When the Chinese delegation and the Chinese delegation from Taiwan and North China entered, the background music was the Chinese People's Liberation Army military song "Three Disciplines and Eight Points of Attention". It has to be said that the arrangement is of special significance, regardless of the reason.

I.M. Pei sighed: "Some time ago, when Miss Deng Lijun was touring the United States, the 'billion applause' gave me a surging feeling of Chinese unity. ”

Tang Huan nodded thoughtfully, he remembered that in the original time and space, the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was a huge audience, 840 million viewers watched the opening ceremony through TV media in China alone, and the TV ratings in the United States reached a record 18.6%, which was the highest number of viewers for the Olympic Games held in the United States, and the ratings broadcast in other countries and regions also set a new high.

This is the power that comes with strength and unity, and the Chinese elite can always use it to win a more or less favorable external environment for themselves. (To be continued.) )