Uzi, Mlxg, LDL... 2025, the Year RNG Collapsed

Just a few years ago, Royal Never Give Up sat atop the global League of Legends stage. Three Mid-Season Invitational titles (2018, 2021, 2022), five LPL (League of Legends Pro League) championships, three Demacia Cups, a Worlds final appearance, and Jian “Uzi” Zihao at the top of his game — the Chinese powerhouse embodied esports excellence.

Today, RNG is drowning in an unprecedented financial and legal quagmire. The organization has withdrawn its two LDL — the developmental league for academy teams — rosters entirely, while former star players are suing the team in Chinese courts for millions in unpaid wages.

The scale of the disaster matches the severity of the sporting collapse: on June 18, 2025, a judicial enforcement order ruled RNG to pay 162.18 million yuan, with over a dozen ongoing lawsuits and total debts projected to exceed one billion yuan (around $140 million USD). This is the story of RNG’s descent into chaos, and perhaps the final chapter for one of esports’ most iconic names.

The roots of this downfall stretch back well before 2025. Founded in May 2012 as Royal Club, RNG rose rapidly thanks to legendary talents like Uzi, Shi “Ming” Senming, Li “Xiaohu” Yuanhao, and Liu “Mlxg” Shiyu. But behind the trophies and lucrative contracts, the early signs of messy, if not outright flawed, management were already visible.

By 2021, at the height of their competitive dominance, warning lights were flashing. Key executives were leaving, investments in the mobile gaming division collapsed, and debt had already begun to mount. The organization’s business model relied almost entirely on sponsorships and external injections of capital, a dependence that CEO Li Jieming would later admit openly: “The club has never been profitable. It has always survived through blood transfusions.”

The crisis deepened as sponsors began pulling out. From more than a dozen partners at its peak, including heavyweights like Mercedes-Benz and KFC, RNG was down to just one by 2025: Huya Live, ironically the very platform at the center of many of the disputes in this story.

The first contractual scandal broke in 2019 with Douyu, a major Chinese streaming platform. On September 1, 2018, RNG (through its subsidiary LeYou Company) signed an exclusive one-year deal with Douyu worth 31 million yuan ($4.32 million USD): 20 million for cooperation fees and 11 million in bonuses.

But in February 2019, Douyu discovered that RNG player Liu “Zz1tai” Zhihao was streaming on rival platform Huya. Worse still, in January 2019, RNG had transferred the team’s commercial rights, including player image rights and the club brand, to Tian Tong Company without Douyu’s written consent, despite Douyu holding the exclusive rights to exploit these assets commercially.

The club also facilitated the retirements of Mlxg and Yan “LetMe” Jun-Ze, removing key personalities Douyu had banked on for content, while signing lower-profile replacements. To top it off, RNG co-produced a show called Esports Youth Talk with another Douyu competitor.

By October 2020, the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court ruled that LeYou Company must pay Douyu nearly 30 million yuan in damages, plus 237,350 yuan in legal fees, a major financial blow, but far from the last. RNG would fully switch to Huya on September 17, 2019.

Meanwhile, Mlxg, RNG’s former star jungler, was fighting his own legal battle with the club. After retiring in July 2019, he stayed under the RNG banner via a streaming contract with Huya. But focusing more on stock market speculation than streaming, the 2018 MSI champion failed to meet his contractual broadcast hours. “I made in a single day what I’d earn in a month from streaming,” he allegedly boasted on stream, according to Chinese forums.

Huya responded by withholding payments from RNG, which in turn couldn’t pay Mlxg. The jungler then sued RNG for 3 million yuan in unpaid wages, prompting RNG to countersue for breach of contract. The dispute became a very public family feud between the club and one of its most recognizable figures.

On June 17, 2025, after years in court, the Jiangxi Shangrao Intermediate People’s Court ruled decisively in RNG’s favor: Mlxg must pay 25 million yuan ($3.48 million USD), including 6 million withheld by Huya, plus damages, interest, and legal fees. “I do not accept this ruling and intend to appeal to China’s Supreme People’s Court,” Mlxg announced after the verdict. Now financially strained after significant stock market losses, his case serves as a cautionary tale about the reckless financial habits of young players who rose to stardom too quickly.

But the most high-profile case is undoubtedly that of Uzi — the living legend of League of Legends and the club’s greatest historical player. Born April 5, 1997, Uzi isn’t just a player; he’s a cultural icon in China, the first and only esports athlete to sign with Nike.

On March 27, 2025, during a livestream, Uzi broke his silence, accusing RNG of owing him a seven-figure sum (in yuan) and of “forcing him into retirement” without his consent, a fate he claims also befell other high earners at the club. He alleged restrictive non-compete clauses and unpaid streaming revenue shares. “They didn’t pay me what they owed. Last year they said they’d pay it slowly, but this year they say everything’s settled! Where do they get that confidence from? Their shamelessness is off the charts!” he raged live on air.

Unlike Mlxg, Uzi reportedly fulfilled all his contractual obligations. His third court hearing was scheduled for July 13, 2025, but no verdict has yet been reported in Chinese media.

To recover his money, Uzi has even floated the idea of converting debt into equity, turning what RNG owes him into ownership shares, which could give him both a revenue stream and influence over the club’s future.

At the same time, Uzi has been reevaluating his streaming career. In May 2025, he announced a break, citing KPI pressure from platforms and a waning passion for the game, though his legal fight with RNG may also be a factor. Potential platforms for Uzi's comeback include Huya, Douyin (Chinese TikTok), or Bilibili, with most analysts betting on Douyin, which has already had exclusive deals with the player and was rumored as a potential RNG buyer.

Inducted into the Hall of Legends just one year after Korean icon Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, Uzi will receive a share of revenue from the sale of commemorative skins, as will RNG, despite their ongoing court battle. Riot Games’ global head of LoL esports, Chris Greeley, has confirmed that these proceeds are split between Riot, Uzi, and his former teams.

Beyond Uzi’s case, 2025 has been a competitive disaster. In mid-June, RNG and Oh My God finished last in the LPL Summer Split, relegating them to the LDL. Worse, RNG and its youth squad, Royal Club, withdrew entirely from LDL, ending with a historic 0-11 record. The reason: inability to cover basic operational costs, from player salaries to venue fees. Many saw the withdrawal as a desperate cost-cutting move from a club now unable to sustain its multi-million-yuan monthly burn rate.

The impact on the ecosystem was immediate, LDL viewership dropped 23%, and sponsor renewal rates fell below 50%, according to local news outlets. RNG’s retreat triggered a “domino effect,” with other organizations threatening to follow suit, putting the LPL’s talent pipeline at risk.

At the center of the chaos is Yao Jincheng (aka Baixing), RNG’s owner through Shanghai Jingxin Chengfeng Media Co. Ltd. Blacklisted as a “dishonest debtor” since November 2023, he has been subject to strict high-expenditure restrictions. As early as August 2023, both he and his father had been ordered to repay a 18.45 million yuan ($2.5M USD) private loan, signaling the start of a legal spiral that has now exploded into dozens of cases.

CEO Li Jieming tried to keep the club afloat with increasingly odd ventures: NFT launches, digital avatars, renting trophy usage rights for photoshoots, selling “fan shareholder” packages, livestream game promotions… Most were dismissed as fan exploitation and failed to address RNG’s core structural problems.

In April 2024, Li admitted publicly that the club had a shortfall in the tens of millions of yuan, with 80–90% of monthly expenses going to player salaries. He even floated a plan to mimic “New Oriental” — a private education giant that successfully pivoted to livestream e-commerce — envisioning RNG as a “gaming” equivalent in just six months. His admission that creditors had confronted him in his own office became a vivid symbol of RNG’s plight.

Amid the wreckage, takeover rumors have begun to swirl. In mid-June, 2019 world champion Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang claimed a buyer was in talks: “The identity is so unexpected, no one would guess it. Stronger than the Saudi prince,” he teased on stream, a nod to earlier rumors that Team Falcons, backed by Saudi investment, had offered $8M for RNG’s LPL slot in April 2025. Doinb firmly denied that lead, hinting instead at a buyer with close ties to Uzi.

Former RNG jungler Mlxg suggested this could involve a “cooperation model” aimed at building an all-star influencer streaming roster around RNG’s brand. Chinese media have pointed to Douyin as a likely candidate, given its deep pockets and existing ties to Uzi and Mlxg, potentially aiming for a nostalgic resurgence of the club’s old guard.

But the latest rumors now point instead to Meituan, one of those mega-apps that only China seems able to produce. The company specializes in virtually every kind of delivery imaginable and stands as a direct competitor to JD.com (the company behind JD Gaming) and Alibaba. Listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2018, the platform is now estimated to be worth around $95.1 billion and employs over 110,000 people worldwide. It’s an extraordinary investor with deep pockets, exactly the kind of powerhouse that could rescue this historic name in League of Legends and Chinese esports.

Meituan, in fact, has already collaborated with Uzi in the past. The delivery giant has also worked with the LPL on several promotional campaigns, adding further weight to the idea that Meituan could be the perfect candidate to take over this project within Riot Games’ ecosystem. On top of that, the company also supports the Kings Pro League (Chinese Honor of Kings championship) and one of the most-watched esports competition in the country, even surpassing the LPL in viewership. In 2023, Meituan even sponsored a team of senior players, with a one-month training journey documented and released on Weibo — a move that further showcased the brand’s deepening ties to the esports scene.

The RNG collapse exposes deep structural flaws in Chinese professional esports. As one journalist of 游戏大妹 wrote: “Esports isn’t just about thrilling matches on stage, it’s a complex capital game, with corporate operations and legal responsibilities.”

The endless contractual disputes also highlight the lack of legal protection for players, who are often at a disadvantage against their organizations and poorly informed about their rights. Unlike structures like JDG, whose parent company’s e-commerce revenue provides stability, RNG never built a sustainable business model beyond sponsorships, a fatal weakness once the drama scared partners away.