14// Themes for 2023 Trail Running Media

What storylines I’ll be following this year.

Hey pals,

Hope you had a great break. I’m a big believer in rest, recuperation and unnecessary amounts of food, so Christmas is my favourite kind of holiday.

Back to it. We’re starting off by focusing on the themes for media that I’ll be following throughout this year - the macro effects on advertising in the trail running space, livestreaming’s coming of age and the struggle over who gets to decide the fate of trail running.

These are just my themes, I would love to hear about what you see as the key themes for trail running. Either comment below or respond to this email (my email is Matt@wearetrailmix.com).

Hope you enjoy,

Matt

An Advertising Recalibration

It’s not going to be an easy year for our beloved endemic shoe brands.

Almost every brand has reported huge excesses of inventory created by the logistical maelstrom of two years of supply chain pressures and a forced pivot to online DTC selling. Consequently brands have to swiftly offload a lot of shoes at a discounted price (wondering why the sales have been longer and more aggressive than before? Well now you know).

Typically this means brands will lean in on e-commerce and affiliate partners to shift more product for them, increasing their advertising revenue, but as far as I’ve heard that hasn’t been the case.

You also have a combined recession and cost of living crisis across most Western markets that’s making consumers more concerned where their money is going and cutting down on big purchases. In these situations, brands would normally cut their ad spend and double down on short-term high converting promotions in channels such as social and retail to turn a quick buck. Yet what we’re seeing across most categories is brands realising the higher cost of goods for consumers and leaning in on longer lasting brand campaigns to quell price sensitivity (in basic terms, to remind people why they buy that brand in the first place). In our world think about Hoka’s massive investment in trail running over the past year - you don’t remember the brand because of a few banner ads, you remember the large sponsorship with UTMB and other race organisations, the video campaign they pushed through Instagram and endemic trail running media partners, you might have even seen the TV ad.

With a few of our trail running media brands largely ad-funded, volatility in the ad market impacts the health of our publishers and creators. Will brands continue to maintain their ad budgets and continue to invest in the trail running media ecosystem, or will they refocus on performance ads to ride out the economic storm?

Livestreaming’s Coming of Age

2022 was the year that many trail running fans had the realisation that ‘holy shit i can watch races on YouTube!?’

With more significant investment in technology and capabilities from race organisations and directors, live-streaming came of age. Seemingly every week now there’s a new race to watch on YouTube (anyone want a Trail Running TV guide?). All of this was born of the desire by organisations to increase the awareness and profile of their races, and in the case of UTMB, to increase their advertising space and sponsorship fees.

As the knowledge required and investment needed by race directors to build out a small scale live streaming operation declines, we can expect more ambitious smaller organisations take on livestreaming their signature races. But the core question remains for the growth of both big and small scale races is the incentive to invest - what’s the ROI of plowing tonnes of time and resource into livestreaming?

For UTMB and GTS, the primary reason why is to build a large enough audience and case study for media rights buyers to want to invest. Yet even if livestreaming is an investment for future cash flow, how much is enough? Should UTMB try and get all events live-streamed, or should they stick to a core group and UTMB week? With so few running events bought and televised via broadcast, cable or online streaming platforms, the valuation for these events is largely unknown.

UTMB is already ahead of the game with deals with L’Equipe last year. If you can use French Twitter as a gauge of success, it went down pretty well. But since we don’t know the details of deals, we don’t know whether L’Equipe paid for the rights or UTMB paid L’Equipe for the space in what is known as a ‘time buy’.

Livestreaming is here, but how it is distributed, how many races can afford it and how many people will watch is all up in the air.

Who gets to decide the fate of Trail Running?

Every action has a reaction. The commercialisation of trail running has led to a new born struggle for power between race directors, brands and runners.

On the race director’s side, the acquisition and investment in multiple ultramarathons by UTMB has led to increased competition for runner registrations. Additionally, their encroachment in trail running has sparked a debate over what the values of the sport are and whether UTMB is representing them properly. The recent uproar around High Lonesome’s stance against UTMB is emblematic of the tensions that race directors and trail running has not previously encountered at this scale.

On the runner’s side, before Christmas a group of professional trail runners unionised to form the Pro Trail Runners Association (PTRA) to strengthen their bargaining power in the development of the sport. Current issues revolve around runner’s contract negotiations with brands, alignment of racing schedules between race organisations, doping regulation and environmental policies for both brand and races.

Whilst the minutiae of the issues are unique to trail running, the broader growing pains of commercialisation are a common phenomena that every sport must face. How the product of trail running evolves through these power struggles is going to be the story of the decade.