How far can Li-Ning’s sporting credibility stretch?

A Chinese executive can admire Li-Ning’s basketball shoes and still choose another label for a client meeting. In some professional circles I know, clothing communicates standing most effectively when it does so discreetly. A familiar logo can mark belonging without demanding attention.

That distinction matters as Li-Ning expands beyond its established sporting strengths. Gold Label is seeking a place in the business wardrobe; Li-Ning 1990 is building credibility in golf; and the partnership with Stephen Curry and Curry Brand must turn global attention into sustainable sales.

These are not simply three additional product categories. Each asks consumers to trust something different.

After more than two decades working in China’s sportswear industry, I respect Li-Ning’s product capabilities. My question is whether its brand architecture and organization can support such different businesses.

In the first half of 2026, revenue rose 2.8 percent to RMB 15.235 billion (€2.03bn), while selling and distribution expenses increased 8.1 percent. The figures do not indicate a crisis or identify the cost of any one venture. They do sharpen the question of what new investment is delivering.

Sporting prestige is not social status

Li-Ning continues to describe its approach as “single brand, multi-categories, diversified channels.” This has advantages in performance sport: technology, athlete relationships and sporting heritage can work across basketball, running, badminton and training. But those assets do not have identical meaning in every setting.

Among some entrepreneurs, managers and public-sector professionals I encounter in China, a wardrobe choice can express both position and discretion. Descente, Kolon Sport and the Chinese golf and lifestyle apparel brand Biemlofen (比音勒芬) have become familiar choices in parts of these circles.

The brands offer different products, yet their appeal includes a social shorthand: colleagues and peers understand what the wearer is trying to convey. A restrained logo may carry more meaning within a particular group than a conspicuous luxury label.

Gold Label brings sports technology, understated styling and Chinese Olympic Committee credentials into footwear and apparel for commuting, business and light sport. For some consumers, those are credible advantages.

But Olympic credibility is not the same as social credibility. Pride in national sporting achievement does not automatically make a label the preferred choice for a client meeting.

Li-Ning has reported an encouraging launch figure: 60 percent of hero styles (the lead models) in its Chao business-commuting footwear series sold out within a week at a Beijing Sanlitun pop-up. That is a specific footwear result, not a measure of Gold Label’s overall performance or of repeat demand. Better materials and a premium store can support the proposition, but neither establishes what wearing the label says about someone.

Li-Ning 1990 is a different proposition. Launched in 2021 as an independent premium sports-fashion brand, it now places golf at the center of its identity, backed by specialized products and professional sporting relationships.

Some collections also cover business and commuting, but Gold Label and 1990 do not primarily serve the same occasion. Both nevertheless need a reason for customers to choose them over established alternatives, and a reason to return.

What Anta’s Champion can tell us

Anta offers a useful comparison. Its Guanjun (Champion) initiative uses national-team technology and a dedicated retail format to extend the Anta name into higher-priced outdoor sport. Anta’s 2025 interim report recorded 97 Champion stores as of June 30, 2025.

In January, Hong Kong brokerage Crosby Securities reported in a research note that Champion had reached 150 stores by the end of 2025, with retail sales (gross merchandise value, or GMV) exceeding RMB 1 billion (€134m).

Separately, a February article by YuanSight, published by Jiemian News, quoted Anta Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Zhu Chenye as saying in June 2025 that more than 13 stores had annual sales above RMB 10 million (€1.3m).

Those are meaningful reported retail achievements. They show the format gained scale, but cannot establish durable brand preference, store-level profitability or repeat demand beyond leading locations.

In the first half of 2026, Anta brand revenue grew 4.8 percent, against 12.9 percent for the group and 44.2 percent for other brands. These figures reflect different business mixes and acquisition effects; they do not isolate Champion’s contribution.

Anta brand CEO Xu Yang stepped down in July. Neither development establishes that Champion stores were closed or converted to standard formats.

The comparison is relevant because Anta Group also operates Descente and Kolon Sport in China as separately run brands. Champion asks consumers to see a familiar mass-market name as a premium outdoor proposition; Li-Ning’s Gold Label faces a related challenge in business commuting.

Store growth and strong GMV show commercial reach, but whether they become sustained consumer preference, profitable demand and a distinct brand meaning is a different test.

Curry brings an audience. Retailers need a business.

Curry Brand is not another Li-Ning collection. It enters the relationship with an identity of its own. Li-Ning has proven basketball product capability through Way of Wade, but the agreement with Curry spans basketball, golf and lifestyle, and carries ambitions beyond China.

Curry told CNBC in September that he expected his first Li-Ning signature shoe to debut in early 2027. Way of Wade 12 models from the Curry Moments collection already provide an initial product offering. The signature-shoe timing is not necessarily a mistake; it does mean the commercial work begins before that model arrives.

Li-Ning is not starting overseas from zero. Its interim report describes a limited Way of Wade 12 release at US fashion retailer Revolve in Los Angeles.

Yet revenue booked to “other regions” (markets outside mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, which the company reports together) was RMB 188.8 million (€25.2m) in the first half. That is 1.2 percent of group revenue, down 24.5 percent year over year. This is the starting position, not a measure of Curry’s performance.

Curry can attract attention. The test is whether he brings customers Li-Ning could not otherwise reach, and whether retailers want to reorder.

Retailers need dependable availability, commercial terms that justify stocking the range and support beyond a launch event. Local teams need authority to shape assortments, pricing and presentation. Those are operating capabilities, not simply extensions of a successful product brief.

For Nike and Adidas, the immediate competitive question may be in China: can Curry strengthen a local rival’s basketball business and win more of the same customers’ spending? Overseas, the partnership will become a broader competitive threat only if Li-Ning can turn that appeal into distribution and repeat orders.

For European sportswear brands, the implication runs in two directions. In China, Li-Ning’s next competitive frontier is not simply product technology but the credibility to serve distinct consumer occasions, from professional wardrobes to golf and outdoor sport.

Internationally, Curry brings recognition, but not an established retail business. Local assortments, distribution economics and repeat orders will determine whether attention converts into durable competition.

European executives should watch not only how quickly Chinese rivals improve their products, but whether they can build separate, commercially sustainable reasons for consumers to choose them.

The limits of sharing

Li-Ning’s new partnership with World Gymnastics, the sport’s international governing body, is a useful contrast. Gymnastics is closely linked to founder Li Ning and the company’s sporting history.

Gold Label, 1990 and Curry ask the organization to win different kinds of trust. They can share research, manufacturing and supply-chain systems, but not necessarily the same consumer understanding, merchandising teams or route to market.

Li-Ning’s 2026 interim report states that it introduced a Chief Product Officer and established a new retail department. Those steps matter. What public reporting cannot tell us is whether each emerging business has sufficient decision-making authority, a realistic development horizon and accountability for its full commercial return.

If each venture needs its own customer proposition, specialized marketing, product decisions and distribution relationships, a company can accumulate many of the costs of a multi-brand organization without gaining the full clarity of separate brands. This does not invalidate Li-Ning’s shared identity. It means the advantages of that identity should be tested rather than assumed.

What I would look for:

• Gold Label: repeat purchases among professional consumers,
• Li-Ning 1990: durable golf credibility and profitable demand,
• Curry Brand: additional international customers and retailers returning for subsequent seasons.

Across all three, the question is whether incremental gross profit justifies the costs of winning and keeping that business.

Li-Ning has spent decades proving that a Chinese sports brand can make world-class products. Its next task is harder: proving that it can build several businesses customers choose, and that each earns the right to continued investment.

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