When the national sports industry is about to explode, as a sponsor, it is no longer possible to satisfy the ambitions of sporting goods companies. Xtep International announced yesterday that it has signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Zhimei. The two sides will conduct comprehensive and deep cooperation in the sports event operations, brand promotion, market development of innovative sports products and equipment, and the integration of the sports industry chain. This also means that Xtep will be involved in the game operation industry chain.

The specific cooperation contents of Xtep and Zhimei Holding include the commercial cooperation of the Marathon Series and the establishment of a sports event operating company. Xtep said it will independently run the 2015-2017 City Marathon and related carnival events with Zhimei Group. On April 16th this year, the Guangzhou Marathon was formally listed on the Guangzhou Property Exchange, and the public solicitation for the selection of the 2015-2017 Guangzhou Marathon Market Development and Tournament Operation Service Partner was hailed by the industry as "the first beat of the Chinese Marathon". The winning bidder is Zhimei Group.

For the observers of the sports industry, for a long time in the past, the gold medal strategy has not only greatly influenced the direction of China's sports, but has also largely limited the development direction of the sports industry to the professional market, but in 2014 it For six months, the State Council’s new policies and interpretations on the sports industry have been issued continuously. The Chinese sports industry has ushered in a period of popularity, and ordinary people occupying an absolute majority of the market will become the focus of sports industry services. The marathon is a popular sport. After 2010, the marathon started all over the country. From the past, no one received any enquiries, free quotas, and applications required spikes. There was a "marathon" fever across the country.

At the same time, Xtep, which is positioned in casual fashion and endorsed by entertaining celebrities, has made a remarkable transition to professional sports in the past two years. Xtep has sponsored 11 marathon events such as Zhengkai International Marathon, Xiamen International Marathon, Yangzhou Jianzhen International Half Marathon and Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon, becoming the most popular sports brand in China. Ding Shuibo, special step president, once said, “The direction of brand transformation is to return to sports. We mainly choose two, one is running and the other is football.”

The Xtep announcement stated that both parties plan to jointly establish Beijing Zhimei Xtep Race Management Company. It is expected that the business of the joint venture company will involve the operation of competitions in the road running industry (road running, hiking), innovative product development sales, marketing, and customer service, etc. In the form of an open platform, large-scale benefits will be quickly formed in the road running industry, and plans will be gradually extended to other sports operations such as football.