Champion signs BTS member Kim Tae-hyung, Belle and Authentic restart their China business | Frontline

Champion is seeking new growth drivers for its new development phase in the Chinese market.

On August 10, the century-old American sports lifestyle brand Champion announced a global partnership with V (Kim Tae-hyung), a member of BTS. V will lead the brand's brand-new "True Champion" initiative, and appear in the 2026 autumn/winter brand campaign together with figures from sports, music and cultural fields including Romeo Beckham, SOFI TUKKER and Kyle Kuzma. This initiative has been launched globally starting from August 10.

Compared with the past brand image that emphasized athletic heritage and street trends, this campaign clearly positions Champion more in the context of pop culture and lifestyle. V has cross-border influence spanning music, fashion and art, and Champion hopes to leverage his global influence to redefine the brand concept of "True Champion".

Champion X Kim Tae-hyung

But for Champion, the more noteworthy part of this celebrity cooperation may lie beyond marketing.

Over the past few years, Champion has experienced a relatively obvious operation right adjustment in the Chinese market. Belle Fashion started to operate Champion's China business in 2019, and then obtained the authorization of footwear and accessories categories in 2021. In 2023, Belle further became the exclusive authorized operator of Champion's footwear and accessories in China, and obtained the exclusive agency right of the brand's apparel in China. In the same period, Belle acquired part of Champion's China market business from the original distributor, including the relevant assets of 69 exclusive stores, with a total transaction price of 104 million yuan.

This means that Belle taking over Champion is not simply adding a new brand, but further expanding its control scope on the basis of the original operating system. By the end of November 2023, Belle Fashion had added about 100 new Champion stores compared with the end of February 2022.

The real change took place in 2025.

In March 2025, Authentic Brands Group (Authentic), the parent company of Champion, and Belle Fashion announced the establishment of a joint venture to jointly operate Champion's Greater China business. On the basis of the previous authorization for footwear and accessories, Belle further obtained the authorization of Champion's apparel products in Greater China, and thus obtained the full-category authorization in Greater China.

From the perspective of cooperation mode, Champion's business in China has further shifted from the previous agency and distribution relationship to a model where local operators deeply participate in brand management.

In accordance with the cooperation framework announced by both parties, Belle is responsible for the daily brand operation of Champion in Greater China, covering brand positioning, consumer insight, product planning and design, supply chain, marketing, merchandise management, omni-channel retail and membership system. In other words, Belle is not only responsible for "selling goods", but will also participate more deeply in deciding "what to sell, how to sell and in what brand image to sell" for Champion in the Chinese market.

This is related to Authentic's own business model.

In 2024, Authentic acquired Champion from HanesBrands at a transaction price of 1.2 billion US dollars. For HanesBrands, this is part of its strategy to divest the sportswear business and further focus on core businesses such as underwear; for Authentic, it is a continuation of expanding its brand asset portfolio.

Authentic is not a traditional clothing manufacturer. It is more like a brand management and licensing company that holds brand intellectual property rights, carries out global brand management, and then cooperates with operators in different markets to land the brand in specific markets. Champion's cooperation with Belle in Greater China is a typical case of this model.

Authentic itself also calls this model a "partner network": the headquarters provides global brand strategy, marketing, talent and platform resources, while local partners are responsible for consumer insight, market operation and execution. Champion currently cooperates with Belle Fashion in the Asia-Pacific region, Musinsa in South Korea, and Itochu and Inglewood in Japan respectively.

This model is particularly important for Champion. The brand has more than a century of historical assets in the global market, but history itself does not mean sustained growth. In the past few years, Champion has experienced obvious growth pressure in the European and American markets, which is also one of the important backgrounds for HanesBrands to finally sell the brand. Now that the brand is incorporated into the Authentic system, how to use the existing brand recognition to regain growth has become a new topic.

The Chinese market is one of the important variables in this regard.

Belle Fashion currently has more than 8,000 directly operated stores in more than 300 cities across China, and operates 20 core self-owned and cooperative brands including Champion. Compared with pure overseas brand licensors, Belle has a complete retail infrastructure covering offline retail, e-commerce, supply chain and membership system.

Therefore, the cooperation between Authentic and Belle is essentially a combination of global brand assets and local retail capabilities. For Champion, the brand recognition established in the past relying on trend dividends needs to be further transformed into a more stable product and retail business; for Belle, Champion is a key asset for it to continue expanding its sports and leisure brand territory.

Celebrities can certainly bring short-term attention, but what Champion really needs to solve is still the problems of products, channels and brand positioning.

After Belle obtained the full-category authorization in Greater China and Authentic further strengthened its global brand management, Champion has entered a new operation stage. The addition of V this time is more like a clear signal sent to consumers in this round of brand reshaping: Champion is trying to transform from a once-popular American sports streetwear brand into a lifestyle brand that can continuously enter the daily wardrobes of young people and integrate into pop culture.