Supersports Brand Guidelines: Central Group’s 1997 Thai Sports Chain and CRC Sports

A Central Group shop format that became a sports business of its own.

Supersports is a chain of sporting-goods shops in Thailand run by CRC Sports, a subsidiary of Central Retail Corporation. Central Group, the Bangkok retail business that English Wikipedia says was founded by the Chirathivat family in 1947, lists Supersports in its published milestones under 1997, the same year it launched the electrical chain Powerbuy. The Supersports website gives the same year: it says CRC Sports was founded in 1997, initially as Supersports, and has since grown into a holding company for both sports retail and brand distribution. Inside Retail Asia described Supersports as a 26-year-old company in December 2023, which fits that date.

The structure above the shops has changed more than the name on them. Central Retail Corporation, the group’s retail arm, began trading on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on 20 February 2020, The Nation reported the day before, describing it as a retailer operating in Thailand, Italy and Vietnam. Supersports sits inside that listed company: the footer of its website says Supersports is part of Central Retail Corporation PCL and links to sister businesses including Powerbuy, Officemate and B2S. Central Group itself remained privately owned by the Chirathivat family as of 2025, English Wikipedia says.

CRC Sports both sells and distributes. Its website names three shop formats under the Supersports name, Supersports, Supersports Active and Supersports Outlets, alongside single-brand shops for labels including Fila and Speedo, and it says it acts as distributor for brands including K-Swiss and Wilson. The same page, read in November 2026, gives 98 Supersports stores across Thailand plus 144 franchise and small-format multibrand stores. The Nation gave a different count in May 2026: 88 Supersports stores, 24 Rev Runnr outlets and 17 mono-brand stores operated by CRC Sports. Both figures are given here as each source published them.

Running shops, Vietnam and a stake in JD Sports Thailand.

In recent years CRC Sports has widened the business around the Supersports shops. In September 2024 the Bangkok Post reported that CRC Sports, which it described as the operator of Supersports and a subsidiary of the listed Central Retail Corporation, had announced the purchase of a majority stake in Rev Edition, a Thai distributor and importer of sports performance and lifestyle brands. Rev Edition’s running shops, branded Rev Runnr, appear in later counts of CRC Sports’ stores, and Inside Retail Asia listed Supersports, Rev Runnr and Mono Store as the group’s retail brands in May 2026.

The next step was a partnership with a British chain. The Nation reported on 7 May 2026 that CRC Sports had completed a deal to acquire a 40 per cent stake in JD Sports Thailand, which then had 15 branches in the country. The newspaper said the deal took CRC Sports beyond the sport-performance category sold through Supersports and Rev Runnr and into sports fashion, where trainers and streetwear sit alongside kit. JD Sports, which The Nation described as a British sports fashion retailer, keeps its own name over those shops; Supersports keeps its role as the group’s performance-sport chain.

Supersports is not only a Thai name. CRC Sports’ president told Inside Retail Asia in December 2023 that the company had a presence in Thailand and Vietnam, and the Supersports website describes CRC Sports as a retailer and distributor in both countries. Central Retail’s own listing in 2020 already covered Vietnam, according to The Nation.

The Supersports website groups its catalogue by sport, with running, football and swimming among the main headings, and football club kits and souvenirs sold alongside shoes and apparel. The brands named on the site are those of outside makers, so the Supersports name appears on the shop sign, the store and the website rather than on the goods.

How sporting-goods chains present themselves.

Sporting-goods chains across the Americas, Asia and Oceania tend to present themselves through a few constant elements: a short name on the shop sign, a single strong colour carried from the storefront to the advertising, and a logo set in heavy or slanted capitals. In the United States, Big 5 Sporting Goods uses white capitals on a blue field and Dunham’s Sports a slanted red wordmark, as their logo files on Wikimedia Commons show. The guides in this group look at chains in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, and describe each sign, logo and colour scheme as the company itself publishes it.

Store formats range from small neighbourhood shops to large units in regional malls. Big 5’s stores averaged about 10,000 square feet in 1997, the Los Angeles Times reported, while Dunham’s has taken mall and plaza units, including former department-store spaces, according to SGB Media. Shop counts in these guides are always given with the date and the source that reported them.

Ownership takes several forms. Some chains have stayed in founding families or passed to private owners; some have been listed on a stock exchange and later taken private, as Big 5 was in October 2025; others sit inside larger retail or department-store groups. Each guide states the owner as a dated source gives it, and says plainly when a business has been sold, merged or closed.

Many chains also sell ranges under their own names alongside branded goods, and publish corporate pages about their founders and owners. Each guide separates what a company says about itself from what independent, dated sources record, and treats the palette shown as an unofficial interpretation rather than an official brand colour.

A running track inside a shop.

The clearest picture of how Supersports wants to look comes from its Supersports 3.0 store at Central Westville in Bangkok, which Inside Retail Asia described in December 2023 as the chain’s new flagship. The store covers about 1,500 square metres and carries more than 10,000 items. Its centrepiece is a 25-metre running track where customers can try shoes before buying, next to a 3D foot-scanning machine that measures fit. The shop also has a games-console corner, a golf simulator and a “Jersey Wall” of football shirts.

CRC Sports’ head of strategy told the magazine that the team had updated the look and feel of the store to be more welcoming, with a warmer tone, and that the shop was aimed at the premium end of the market, with running shoes and golf among the categories where customers were trading up. Its president said that customers could order online and pick up in the store, a service the Supersports website now lists as Click & Collect. The website names its flagship stores as those at CentralWorld in Bangkok and at Central Plaza Westgate in Bang Yai, so the chain has more than one shop that it presents as a showcase.

The Supersports name itself is plain English, short and generic, and it sits on shops inside Central Group malls such as CentralWorld, Westgate and Westville, where it appears beside sister chains from the same parent. Central Retail’s other chains, such as Powerbuy and B2S, trade in the same centres, and the Supersports website links to them from its footer.

For a design guide, Supersports shows how a department-store group can turn a shop format into a sports business with its own distribution arm, running shops and partner chains, while the original name stays on the door. Compare Xebio, a Japanese sports chain that grew from a single shop, and Toby’s Sports, a Philippine sports chain in the same region. For this guide we use court blue, chalk and a clay orange with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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