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 attention in the nation, because it was the first time a team consisting of full-time college students won such a promotion. Concerns were raised regarding the impact that professional football will 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 within the league after giving them special dispensation despite failing to move to a 20,000 seater stadium required for all professional football teams within the league. The club would comply 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 1000 Yuan a mouth. 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 their name to Beijing Patriotic Students and finished the league campaign in 11th.