Li Ning s basketball shoes are finally saved

Text|SightSight

June 26, 2025, was a very meaningful day for Yang Hansen, Li Ning and all Chinese basketball fans.

At the NBA Draft that just ended, NBA President Adam Silver announced that Yang Hansen became the 16th pick in the first round of the Portland Trail Blazers.

As a result, Yang Hansen became the ninth Chinese player to be selected after Song Tao, Wang Zhizhi, Yao Ming, Xue Yuyang, Yi Jianlian, Sun Yue, Zhou Qi and Wang Zhelin, and the third Chinese player to appear in the first round of the NBA draft. The other two are Yao Ming, No. 1, who was selected by the Houston Rockets in 2002, and Yi Jianlian, No. 6, who was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007.

It is worth mentioning that the day of the draft is also Yang Hansen's 20th birthday. On the day before her birthday, Yang Hansen had received a gift - Yushuai 19V2 from Li Ning; on her birthday, Yang Hansen also appeared in front of audiences all over the world in a white suit with Li Ning's logo printed on it.

In recent years, Li Ning, who will focus on promotion to CBA players, has been questioned a lot. Many fans believe that the CBA event system and player skills are not mature enough, and most of the idols of basketball fans are NBA superstars... Relatively speaking, the CBA has low attractiveness and attention, and looking for CBA endorsements will not improve Li Ning's influence too much.

But Li Ning still leaves seeds in the CBA. After signing Yang Hansen in 2023, in 2024, Li Ning handed over all the endorsements of the team sneakers to a group of post-00s stars in the CBA.

Although Li Ning followed the trend and turned his focus to running shoes, Li Ning still has a considerable advantage in the domestic basketball shoes field.

When Yang Hansen becomes the first Chinese player to compete in the NBA wearing Li Ning sneakers, Li Ning's basketball business and even the entire brand may also usher in a new opportunity to take off again. After the last dance in 2019, Dwyane Wade retired and Li Ning lost an important spokesperson in the NBA.

In order to establish a spokesperson matrix, Li Ning took great pains to contact or sign players such as D'Angelo Russell, CJ McAlem, RJ Hampton, Fred VanVleet, Jimmy Butler.

However, these athletes either failed to perform as expected, were not talked enough, or failed to exert their influence to create a hit, which instead made Li Ning full of doubts such as poor vision and failed betting.

In the past two years, compared with Anta and 361°, Li Ning has shifted the focus of signing spokespersons to the CBA arena. According to the official website of

, since 2012, Li Ning has signed a contract to become a equipment sponsor for CBA for 15 seasons from 2012 to 2026 to 2027. According to the results of Li Ning's cooperation with the CBA within 12 years, Li Ning's basketball equipment has become the choice of more than 1,160 professional players. After more than 5,020 top events, more than 47,650 pairs of sneakers appeared in the event.

In the process of casting wide nets, in July 2023, Li Ning signed Yang Hansen to join the "Li Ning Basketball Family".

In 2024, Li Ning once again announced that the four new generation CBA players he had signed were, except Yang Hansen, the other three were Zeng Fanbo, Chen Guohao and Xu Jie. Among them, the shoes that Zeng Fanbo, Chen Guohao and Xu Jie mainly recommend include Blitz 11, Air Raid 11 and Sonic 12.

Yang Hansen endorsed the longest-running Yushuai series, mainly including Yushuai 18, Yushuai Ultra, Yushuai 18V2, etc. The shoe series design adopts a simple style, and Yushuai Ultra is a carbon-integrated Li Ning carbon core support system, bringing athletes a better practical experience.

At that time, Yang Hansen, who was under 20 years old, was regarded by the outside world as a Chinese player most likely to be close to the NBA. This time, Li Ning did not miss the opportunity, which strengthened the deep binding of the brand with potential athletes.

In April this year, on the day Yang Hansen announced his decision to go to the United States, Li Ning's basketball official blog released Yang Hansen's personal poster, which was then forwarded by Yang Hansen. During Yang Hansen's official joint trial and separate trials between each team, Li Ning also participated in his draft trial journey in depth.

Finally, at the Barclays Center in New York, USA, when the spotlight was on 20-year-old Yang Hansen, the Li Ning he was wearing was also seen by media and audiences all over the world.

Yang Hansen's selection has undoubtedly had a huge impact, both on himself and the brands bound to it.

According to data released by the NBA salary website, the Trail Blazers won the 16th pick through the transaction and selected Yang Hansen. The contract was a "2+1+1" structure, with a four-year contract salary of up to US$21.39 million. That is, Yang Hansen's salary in the 2025-2026 season will be US$4.42 million; his salary in the 2026-2027 season will rise to US$4.64 million; his salary in the 2027-2028 season will rise to US$4.86 million; his salary in the 2028-2029 season will reach US$7.46 million.

From the perspective of brand, some industry insiders said that in the past, Chinese men's basketball leaders had almost never cooperated with domestic brands. For example, when Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian, Sun Yue, Zhou Qi and others competed in the NBA, they basically chose international brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and AND1.

The towers near the water will get the moon first. Li Ning took the lead in signing Yang Hansen two years ago. It can be said that it is the first time that a Chinese sports shoe and clothing brand has signed an NBA player with the potential of a first round pick. The widespread attention it brings will feed back to Li Ning's basketball sport and even the increase in the influence of the entire brand.

Dewu platform data shows that within less than 48 hours of its release, nearly 200 pairs of Yushuai 19V2, the same model as Yang Hansen, sold a total of nearly 200 pairs; Tmall official flags have been purchased by more than 200 people.. On June 27, Li Ning's stock price surged to HK$17.14 per share, an increase of nearly 3%, and the stock price hit a new high in the past three months.

Another adjustment

In fact, Li Ning basketball also had a glorious period in previous years.

After the wild rise of national trend consumption caused by the Xinjiang cotton incident, domestic sports brands represented by Li Ning and Anta quickly seized the exit share of international big brands, and their influence gradually increased.

In April 2021, Li Ning Wade's Way 4 All-Star Silver Style was hung on the shelves of goods, with a price of 48,889 yuan. It is reported that the reference price of the shoe is only 1,499 yuan, an increase of about 33 times. Li Ning basketball was in the limelight for a while.

On the 2024 Shoe King List released by Dewu, in the actual sneaker list, Li Ning's Gamma Ray Blast became the first in the sub-track, Anta Irving's Generation followed closely, and it was the third turn of Nike AirZoomG.T.Cut3.

However, it is also in recent years that the entire basketball field, especially the NBA league, has attracted attention.

Nelson's ratings data show that the G1 of the NBA Finals broadcast by ABC TV this year has an average viewership of only 8.91 million and a rating of 4.7, setting a new low for the NBA playoffs this season, setting a record for the lowest ratings in the first NBA Finals since Nelson had a complete record in 1988 (except for the 2020 and 2021 Bubble Park Games affected by the epidemic).

According to SportsMediaWatch, the G2 viewership of this season's finals was only 8.76 million, and the G2 ratings were lower than G1 for the first time since 2007, setting a record for the lowest ratings since the 2020 park finals.

For domestic basketball fans, the number of Chinese players in the NBA is becoming less and less, which is also an important reason for the decline in the game's attention. In addition, for the CBA, many domestic fans criticized the competition system, referees, or the player's technical level limitations, and even the attendance rate of the All-Star Game is worrying.

In addition, the trends in the sports industry have also changed in recent years. Basketball is declining relatively, and running is popular.

Tianyan Check data shows that as of now, there are more than 700,000 sports-related companies in my country that have existing industries and existing states. While sports are booming, due to the lower entry threshold, the number of people participating in running is larger and the market is particularly broad.

The "2025 Annual Report on the Use of Running Shoes in China" shows that China's running market revenue will reach US$3.7 billion in 2024, and the annual average growth rate is expected to be 1.17% from 2024 to 2029.

As basketball has more challenges in attracting pan-sports audiences and starters, many sports brands have gradually shifted their focus to running sports products to stabilize corporate operations.

Li Ning is naturally no exception. The 2024 annual report mentioned that Li Ning Group has launched three leading innovative achievements in the industry this year, two of which are running shoe products, namely Jueying 3 running shoes and racing running shoes Longque; it has iterated and upgraded the three core running shoes IPs of Ultralight, Chitu and Feidian, and the three series have achieved a steady sales of more than 10.6 million pairs.

After the attention to basketball changed, Li Ning's basketball business intends to control it.

data shows that Li Ning's operating retail sales in 2024 increased by 25% year-on-year, and basketball retail sales declined by 21% year-on-year. With the conscious adjustment of the proportion of core products based on consumption trends, the group's main footwear revenue increased by 6.8% year-on-year to 14.3 billion yuan, and its total revenue increased by 3.9% to 28.676 billion yuan.

turned to the running track, which stabilized Li Ning's 2024. But the situation in the business world is constantly changing. After taking the lead in taking over the "potential stocks" of Yang Hansen and seizing the opportunity, Li Ning's basketball business can be adjusted and new developments can be put on the agenda.

It can be said that while also achieving growth through running, Li Ning, who owns Yang Hansen, has more basketball breakthrough tricks than his peers.

On June 26, Yang Hansen wrote on his personal Weibo, "On the first day of 20 years old, the story of chasing dreams ushered in the finale... But my journey has just begun." For Li Ning, the new stage of sailing may also begin.