30 players, of which were eight graduate students and 22 university students, a statistic that the club would proudly proclaim made them the best educated team in Chinese history. Professional football On 2 November 2006 BIT beat Harbin Yiteng 3–0 to win the division championship and gained promotion to the second tier of Chinese football. The promotion drew great national attention because it was the first time a team consisting of full-time college students won such a promotion. Concerns were raised by the Chinese Ministry of Education about the impact that professional football would have on the students and whether a university should allow its sports team to participate in a professional league. The CFA would allow the club to participate in the league after giving them special dispensation, despite failing to move to a 20,000 seater stadium required for all professional football teams in the league. The club complied with the other requirements of professionalism when the owners had to register all the players as footballers rather than students and increased their wages to 1,000 Yuan per month. Sponsorship was required to help pay for running costs, which had risen to 15 million Yuan a year. Their first sponsors were Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology Co., Ltd., who signed a two-year sponsorship contract worth 6 million Yuan over two years. With the new sponsor the club changed its name to Beijing Patriotic Students and finished the league campaign in 11th place. In the 2008 league season Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology Co., Ltd. decided to change the club's name to Beijing Aigo to reflect their ownership of the Aigo brand. In the following season, the club signed a new one-year sponsorship for 3 million Yuan, which changed the club's name to Beijing Guirenniao. When this sponsorship ended at the beginning of the 2010 league season, the club was in a precarious financial situation that required the Beijing Sports Bureau to step in with a 400 million Yuan investment. The departure of Cao Xiandong as coach further exacerbated the difficulties the club were facing and Zhang Ning was appointed to help the club avoid relegation. After avoiding relegation at the beginning of the 2011 league season, the club were able to regain a sponsorship contract with sports manufacturer 361° International Limited for 5.5 million Yuan, which resulted in a change of name to Beijing 361° Students. Throughout this, the club