361 Degrees' "Professional Paradox": It's still not a running brand

(Translation by domain-specific expertise in cryptocurrency, Web3, blockchain, and finance)

(Article / Huo Dongyang Editor / Zhang Guangkai)

The 361 Degrees of 2025 is a company that is difficult to evaluate simply.

Looking at the financial report, this report card is not bad: total revenue of 11.1 billion yuan for the year, an increase of about 11% year-over-year; net profit of 1.3 billion yuan, up 14% year-over-year. In an overall cooling consumer environment, such growth not only outperforms the industry but can even be called a “steady top student.”

But if we move the numbers back by just one year, the comparison becomes less comfortable. In 2024, the same company’s revenue growth rate was 19.6%, and net profit growth was 19.5%.

Growth is still happening, but the momentum has clearly shifted gears. For a company that has repeatedly emphasized “double-digit growth” over the past five years, this is not just a decline in numbers but a loosening of the narrative.

The issue is not whether 361 Degrees is growing, but what its growth is truly based on.

The certainty of scale, and the boundaries of the model

Breaking down this 11.1 billion yuan in revenue reveals a very clear and also very “traditional” growth logic.

By the end of 2025, 361 Degrees owns 5,394 stores in mainland China, of which over 76% are located in third-tier and below cities. This means its core market remains firmly rooted in the mass consumer market.

Compared to brands like Anta and Xtep, which have vigorously promoted DTC (direct-to-consumer) channels in recent years, 361 Degrees instead encourages distributors to expand stores, upgrade their images, and enter shopping mall systems.

This is a very clear trade-off: giving up some brand control in exchange for faster scale expansion and lower capital burden.

Positioned as a mass sports brand, 361 Degrees serves price-sensitive consumers who rely on offline experiences. In this segment, the dealer network is an essential infrastructure that penetrates like capillaries, not a historical burden to be cut.

Within this framework, so-called “channel upgrades” mainly manifest as larger stores in better locations, rather than fundamental changes in business logic.

By 2025, the average size of 361 Degrees brand stores will increase to 165 square meters, with a higher proportion in shopping malls, indeed improving retail efficiency; but at the same time, traditional stores began to shrink, with a net reduction of 81 stores in the first half of the year.

“Super Product Stores” are the most symbolic move in this stage.

In December 2024, 361 Degrees officially launched the “Super Product Store” new store format, and in 2025, “Super Product Stores” entered a rapid expansion phase. By the end of 2025, the group publicly announced 127 “Super Product Stores.”

Compared to traditional stores, the biggest feature of “Super Product Stores” is their larger size, usually between 800-1000㎡. They also have a broader SKU range, more complex product structures, and emphasize “self-service shopping” for consumers. Brokerage research forecasts that their single-store annual sales efficiency is close to ten million yuan, and both Changjiang Securities and international securities have listed them as the group’s “second growth pole.”

It is worth noting that almost simultaneously with 361 Degrees, Anta also launched a “big store” model, emphasizing full-category, one-stop shopping, and expanding into lower-tier markets.

More worth examining is the structural difference between “Super Product Stores” and the competitor “Super Anta.”

Anta’s super stores adopt a fully direct-operated model, with complete control over site selection, display, and pricing. Essentially, they are an extension of brand capability to the terminal, with stores primarily as brand spaces, and sales venues second. In contrast, 361 Degrees’ super product stores still operate with a combination of brand direct operation and regional agents, with distributors as the main store operators, still running within a distribution logic—using larger stores, richer inventory, and higher cross-selling to sell more products.

Some analysis points out that “Super Product Stores” are first and foremost a highly efficient system, with product structures including new/featured items to attract traffic, mid-priced products to ensure sales, and some seasonal old stock to clear quickly.

This system effectively solves the “inventory and store efficiency” problem. Essentially, “Super Product Stores” are closer to “big-box branded stores,” appearing as brand stores but with obvious “channel tool attributes.”

“Super Product Stores” seem to be 361 Degrees’ “brand upgrade,” but what they truly accomplish is transforming a company centered on distribution and cost-performance into a more efficient sales machine.

Brand enhancement, but the sales logic has never changed

On this channel structure, 361 Degrees has begun to ramp up its branding efforts.

Basketball and running have become its two most important lines. Signing Nikola Jokic and creating signature shoes aim to build influence among basketball audiences; continuous investment in marathon events and launching racing products like Feiyuan are attempts to enter more professional running tracks.

At first glance, this is a typical upgrade path for sports brands: using professional sports to rebuild brand storytelling.

But the problem is, the benefits of brand building are not directly captured by the brand itself but are dispersed within a large and scattered dealer network.

Events, IP, signing athletes do generate content and attention; but this attention is not accumulated into brand assets, instead it is quickly channeled into store and e-commerce sales.

For dealers, “short-term sales” from brand activities are far more important than “long-term value.” This creates a subtle dislocation: 361 Degrees talks about “professionalism,” but its core operation still revolves around “sales efficiency.”

This is also reflected in 361 Degrees’ gross profit margin, which in 2025 remains around 41.5%, the lowest among China’s four major sports brands, still rooted in the “cost-performance” segment.

While the narrative of product professionalism is increasingly reinforced, the brand’s pricing power has not kept pace. This is not just short-term noise but a direct consequence of the long-term dislocation between channel structure and brand premium.

This dislocation is less obvious in a pro-cyclical environment when consumption is growing and all traffic can be absorbed; but once the environment tightens, problems quickly surface: the brand lacks enough narrative strength to bear more complex realities.

When “Fast Nurse” Zhang Shuihua mentioned after the Harbin Marathon that she “hopes for time-off support,” public focus quickly shifted from “inspirational” to “fairness.”

People began discussing resource allocation, occupational constraints, whether ordinary people can truly replicate such a path. This is not an accidental public opinion event but an activation of social issues inherently carried by running as a sport.

She is not a professional athlete but can achieve top results; she has a high-intensity job but still insists on training. Her existence is almost a tangible expression of 361 Degrees’ claim that “ordinary people can also be professional.”

For a brand truly centered on running, this should be a moment that can be expanded, explained, and even transformed into deeper empathy.

But in less than 72 hours, 361 Degrees announced termination of the contract in an official live broadcast with a printed notice, citing “adjustment of development paths for both parties.”

The significance of this move is not whether to “cut ties,” but the speed and manner in which it happened: 361 Degrees almost did not try to understand this story or continue telling it, but simply ended it.

The reason is not complicated.

In a system heavily reliant on distribution and e-commerce conversion, any uncertainty in public opinion is quickly equated with sales risk. When traffic costs rise and competition intensifies, the instinctive response of companies is to shrink risk windows rather than extend narrative cycles.

Thus, the company made a decision that was “correct” operationally but “failed” in branding.

Although 361 Degrees later received some sympathy votes: the endorsement controversy was understandable, and termination was not unreasonable. But this defense cannot withstand further questioning.

361 Degrees focuses on running categories, with Feiyuan as its flagship racing product, and its own marathon IP in Track 3. Signing a nurse who achieved top results under amateur training conditions was a deliberate emotional narrative choice by the brand.

Her value lies in being both a top performer and a symbol of ordinary workers. You signed her because she is “the fastest nurse,” but you cannot abandon her with a printed notice when she faces public opinion because she is “a nurse.”

A more fundamental judgment: it is not yet a “running brand”

The Zhang Shuihua incident did not change the fundamentals of 361 Degrees. It can still sell more shoes, open more stores, and maintain stable growth in financial reports.

This is largely because the running track is still booming. Whether domestic brands like Xtep and TuoBo or international brands like Lululemon and On all want to deepen their presence in this field.

But the Zhang Shuihua incident exposes a more critical fact: 361 Degrees is not yet a truly “running brand.”

This does not deny its progress on the product side. The racing capability of Feiyuan series and the parameters of carbon-plated running shoes have already put it into the “entry zone” of professional running shoes.

The problem is, running is never a category defined solely by products, but by the ability to understand “the runner’s situation” and maintain narrative consistency in complex scenarios.

When a brand chooses to enter marathons, it is not just selling gear but participating in a discussion about time, body, and social structure. Such discussions are inherently messy, uncontrollable, and cannot be fully serviceable to sales.

A true running brand must at least master three capabilities: it must define technology (how shoes make you run faster), define people (what kind of people run), and most importantly, explain relationships—the tension between ordinary people and limits, individuals and systems, passion and reality.

Because once in this context, the brand faces not just product evaluation but responses to “the very act of running”: who can run, under what conditions, whether running is fair, whether passion has a cost. These questions do not directly translate into sales but determine whether the brand has a long-term trust foundation.

Looking at 361 Degrees, it has only completed part of the first step—entering the technical competition—but has not yet established a stable discourse power. More critically, it remains almost blank on the latter two levels.

Its current structure makes it difficult to handle these issues.

Its channel system demands quick turnover; its user base cares more about cost-performance; its growth model relies on stable conversions. Under these constraints, any uncertain narrative requiring time to ferment is seen as a risk, not an asset.

Therefore, it can make running shoes but find it hard to become a “running brand”; it can enter the marathon track but cannot truly own the marathon narrative.

361 Degrees is using many correct words to describe itself: professional, international, youthful. But when a brand says it is “professional,” it is not just talking about product parameters. It also reflects its attitude toward athletes, understanding of athletes’ situations, and the logic of balancing brand interests with athlete dignity.

In February 2026, Zhang Shuihua officially signed with Tebu, the “number one running brand,” alongside elite runners He Jie and Yang Shaohui. By then, she had completed her transition from nurse to full-time athlete. Tebu took over a “mature asset” at a relatively low cost—an asset discovered and discarded by 361 Degrees itself.

From 11.1 billion to a higher revenue scale, it is not difficult for 361 Degrees. Relying on existing channels and pricing advantages, it can continue expanding and maintaining a position in the mass market.

The real challenge is whether, when claiming to be “more professional,” that “professionalism” is reflected not only in shoes but also in understanding and choosing people. Zhang Shuihua is not an isolated incident but a mirror. It reflects not just a PR mistake but the boundary of a company’s capabilities.

In the running track, what ultimately determines a brand’s height is not how many shoes it sells but whether it has the capacity to handle human complexity when a real runner appears before it.