It’s official…….Come visit the first Li-Ning retail store in Portland on 1/4! We will be open Monday-Saturday from 10am-6pm. E-commerce is coming soon at www.li-ningusa.com

Li Ning opened a design office in Nike’s backyard, Portland, Oregon, last January, but has yet to sell any products to Americans so far. The company opened a badminton flagship store in Singapore this July and earlier this month, a badminton store in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.

Previously:

• Li Ning Signs 5-year Deal with Yelena Isinbayeva

Links and Sources:

• Oregon Live: Li Ning to Open in the Pearl
• BusinessWeek: China’s Li Ning Toe-to-Toe Ag
• China Daily: Li-Ning opens flagship store in Singapore

Yelena Isinbayeva set a new pole vault world record of 5.05 meters at the Beijing Olympic Games, and the 26-year-old told press earlier that she wanted to clear 5.20 meters by the end of her career. Yelena started Pole Vault with Evgenii Vasilievich Trofimov in 1997 and ended in November 2005. She’s now coached by Vitalii Afanasievich Petrov.

Li Ning is markedly in seek of a change in their branding route with the latest high-profile signing, especially after Anta, its Chinese competitor, sealed a deal with Jelena Jankovic, the top ranked female tennis player this January. Li Ning signed NBA player Baron Davis last November, a confusing branding move to us. The company’s president, former Olympic champion Li Ning, labeled by Chinese as the “Prince of Gymnastics”,  ignited the cauldron at the Beijing Olympic Games’ opening ceremony.

About Li Ning Company Limited:

Li Ning was established in 1990. The company now has endorsement deals with Shaquille O’Neal, Ivan Ljubicic and Tolossa, and is official partners of Spanish Olympic Committee, Spanish Basketball Association, Sweden Olympic Committee, Argentine Basketball Association and US Table Tennis.

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The new CSL season will be kicked off on March 21, with Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Luneng and Beijing Guoan are among the favorites. While the defending champion Shandon Luneng lost their midfield general Zhou Haibin to PSV Eindhoven, Shanghai Shenhua spent over $ 8 ml USD in the transfer market this winter, snatching Mark Milligan from Newcastle United Jets in Australia’s A-League and another two players from FC MTZ-RIPO, a team in Belarusian Premier League. The Beijing Guo’an FC, or Imperial Guard, received a RMB 20 million yuan (roughly $ 2.92 million USD) boost from Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport (BMBS) this January, and Li Weimiao, head of the Beijing Municipal Football Administrative Center, the football governing body under BMBS, became vice president of Guo’an Club.

There’s been rumors that the decision makers at General Administration of Sport in China (GASC) has been discussing whether to nationalize Chinese football by getting back clubs’ ownerships. “This could be the first step of GASC’s nationalization plan,” said Nan Fang, a former Beijing Guo’an midfielder to China Sports Review, “If they do it, they’re probably going to cross the river by feeling the stones.” Nan, co-founder and coach of Beijing Langyue Football School, attributes the futility of Chinese football to bad environment, namely fixed games and bribes in the league. “You can’t whiz everything back into the 80s. Things changed.” Aside from help fund a friendly match with world champion club Manchester Utd, BMBS will also help Guo’an develop youth players in the government-funded sports schools. “This would bring more young talents into the pool,” Nan noted. “I think the problem is whether they have enough good coaches there.”

China’s FA is currently in talks with Nike for a sponsorship deal. The sportswear manufacturer is reportedly to have prepared a 10-year-long contract for the clubs, with each club in the 2009 season could get equipments worth of RMB 5 ml and another RMB 1.5 ml fund. A lot money for some, the deal might not sound very riveting to big clubs like Beijing Guo’an, who is currently sponsored by Adidas.

Previously:

• Chinese to Enjoy English Premier League for Free?
• Go West! Chinese Footballers Now Can Transfer, Finally
• China May Juguo Its Professional Football League
  

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ANTA Sports Products Limited, the Fujian-based Chinese sportswear maker, signed a deal on Jan 18 with the top ranked female tennis player “JJ” Jelena Jankovic. The historic deal clearly marks the company’s ambition to go global, a very good branding move especially compared with Li Ning, who last year signed a two-year contract with the third-tier NBA player Damon Jones, the then Cleveland Cavaliers’ guard now playing for Milwaukee Bucks.

Jelena previously collaborated with Reebok before penned the deal with the Chinese company. Famous for her explosive forehands and powerful straight backhands, the Serb had a taste in No.1 for WTA on 11 August, 2008. With a record of 65 wins and 19 losses in the season of 2008, Jelena is the 18th WTA tennis player who ranked the first in women’s single, and she has become world No. 1 women’s tennis player since 6 October, 2008.

“The recent success of the Beijing Olympics has firmly established China’s reputation as a world power in sport. I feel very honored to be forming a partnership with the leading Chinese sports brand ANTA. I am delighted with the JJ range of products we have developed and I look forward to working with ANTA to promote the development of tennis and the ANTA brand world-wide,” Jelena said to the AFP.

Under the contract,  ANTA Sports will work with top designers from the US and Japan to tailor-make a range of professional sportswear and apparel for Jelena. In addition, the company will be launching a series of products including footwear, apparel and accessories named as “Jelena Jankovic series”. Jelena will be wearing ANTA gear in the Australian Open 2009, from Jan 19 to Feb 1.

About ANTA Sports Products Limited:

As one of the leading branded sportswear enterprises in China, ANTA Sports Products Limited primarily designs, develops, manufactures and markets sportswear, including sports footwear, apparel and accessory. The Group has established extensive distribution network and nationwide retail outlets in China under the management of the distributors.

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