Recently, Nike (NKE) released its first batch of "local origin creation series" products, following its establishment of the position of Vice President of the first local product origin creation team in Greater China. Adidas announced that its China market team no longer needs to go through the Asia-Pacific level and now reports directly to global headquarters, possessing a high degree of autonomy in product development, marketing, and channel strategy.

From treating China as a production base and sales market, to establishing independent decision-making entities and building local creative R&D centers, to enabling Chinese teams to deeply participate in product innovation... For foreign sportswear brands represented by Nike and Adidas, the Chinese market is transforming from a "product recipient" into an important "source of creativity."

Shift in Role: Local Decision-Making Moves Downward, China Defines New Products

China possesses a super-large-scale consumer market, a complete industrial chain system, and continuously released policy dividends. In the global layout of foreign brands, the role of the Chinese market and enterprises is changing.

For a long time in the past, many international sportswear brands adopted a model of "overseas headquarters set direction, China market executes," with product planning and marketing plans deployed top-down, and Chinese teams mainly focused on implementation. With the rapid iteration of consumer preferences and the continued rise of local sportswear brands, the China strategy of foreign sportswear brands is upgrading to "China defines new products." China no longer merely undertakes manufacturing, but is gradually becoming one of the brand's global sources of creativity.

The Adidas Shanghai Creative Center (CCS) has become an important R&D hub. Currently, 65% of Adidas products in the Chinese market are designed by the team at this center; 25% of the product lines have already gone overseas, launched in multiple markets and recognized, achieving Shanghai design, China manufacturing, and global landing. The brand has also partnered with Fudan University to conduct joint research and development of materials and fabrics, exploring a path of industry-university-research collaborative innovation.

Nike, meanwhile, continues to increase investment in the Shanghai ICON Creative Production Center and the China Sports Research Laboratory (NSRL). Puma plans to jointly build a laboratory with local new material enterprises in Suzhou, relying on the domestic supply chain for rapid prototyping and verification, with related technological achievements expected to simultaneously empower global product lines.

An agile and complete local supply chain is an important support for the innovation transformation of foreign brands. The combination of local creative design, nearby trial production, and rapid production can significantly compress the new product iteration cycle. In addition, market competition is also forcing multinational brands to advance organizational innovation. Chinese consumers no longer simply chase global identical models; only by basing themselves on local consumer insights and flexibly adjusting supply can foreign sportswear brands better grasp market opportunities.

Ecosystem Shift: Integrating into National Fitness, Cultivating Diverse Scenarios

Currently, the sports industry has moved beyond the single track of equipment sales, and new industry growth is hidden in diverse scenarios such as the popularization of mass sports, urban event operations, and the cultivation of sports culture. According to the main indicators proposed in the "14th Five-Year Plan for Building a Sports Power," by 2030, the total scale of the sports industry will exceed 7 trillion yuan, and the proportion of people regularly participating in physical exercise will reach about 40%... The continuous release of policy dividends provides new opportunities for foreign brands to "make the cake bigger."

Echoing the development trend of the sports industry, many foreign brands have extended their layout focus to national fitness. For example, Adidas has deeply cultivated the popularization of youth sports, laid out tracks such as running, outdoor, and women's training, and focused on creating local IPs that fit Chinese people's lifestyles, in order to tap the blue ocean of urban outdoor consumption and integrate into the national fitness system. Nike continues to operate mass sports IPs such as urban running groups and high school basketball leagues, applying global sports scientific research results to domestic mass sports scenarios.Puma reaches local young groups through football youth activities and campus sports projects.

In an open environment, benign competition and collaborative development coexist. Foreign brands can both continue to share the growth dividends of the Chinese market and export mature event operation experience and sports scientific research technology. With internationally renowned brands "defining new products in China," domestic upstream and downstream supply chain manufacturers in fabrics, shoe materials, accessories, etc., can participate in product planning, material testing, and solution co-creation in advance, which is conducive to transforming manufacturing supporting capabilities into global innovation collaboration capabilities and better understanding global market demand.

Supply Chain Shift: Local Brands Urgently Need to Advance to the Global Innovation Frontier

Of course, while the Chinese market is rapidly developing from a "recipient" to an "innovator," the gap between China's local sportswear brand industrial chain and the international advanced level remains relatively obvious. At present, many domestic sportswear brand supply chain enterprises still remain at the level of process supporting and flexible production, lacking core capabilities in original functional material basic research and sports human science research; R&D investment intensity is relatively low, and independent technology reserves are relatively few; some high-end functional raw materials and additives still rely on external sources; the linkage between supply chain enterprises and universities and sports research institutions is insufficient, and the construction of intellectual property layout and international authoritative certification systems lags behind, making it easy to fall into the dilemma of "can quickly prototype, but difficult to lead standards," and still positioned in the middle and back end of the global innovation division of labor.

For long-term development, the domestic sportswear brand supply chain should seize the window period of foreign brands increasing local innovation and proactively upgrade from OEM supporting to joint research and development. Increase R&D investment in functional fabrics, environmentally friendly new materials, lightweight structures, etc., build in-house material and testing laboratories, and accumulate independent technology; deepen industry-university-research collaboration, link with universities and sports research institutes, and transform years of manufacturing experience into underlying technical capabilities; simultaneously lay out international testing and certification and overseas patents to build an independent technology moat; rely on industrial clusters to build public innovation platforms, open up the entire chain from material R&D, performance testing, to mass production landing, form a collaborative innovation network, and strive for a higher value position in the global sports industry innovation division of labor.

From manufacturing base to creative highland, from commodity sales to industrial co-construction, foreign sportswear brands and China's sports industry are becoming more closely linked. Local supply chain enterprises, local brands, and foreign brands promote each other in the same market, and are expected to explore a sustainable win-win path in the wave of national fitness and sports consumption upgrading.