16// Trail Running Podcasts Are Doing Just Fine

On podcaster’s perspectives on the year ahead

Hey pals,

Podcasts make up a large portion of the trail running media ecosystem and i have yet to cover them properly. Which is odd considering they also make up the majority of my content consumption in this sport.

I thought I’d kick off some coverage by finding out what some of the more popular podcaster’s thoughts were going into the new year and how they’re fairing relative to the rest of the podcasting landscape. It turns out, they’re doing just fine.

Hope you enjoy and as always i’d love to hear your thoughts! Either reply to this email, comment below or write to me on matt@wearetrailmix.com

Matt

With it being the start of the new year, everybody in media and marketing love to publish a ‘trends’ report. I’ll save you the time and give you the general gist: thing’s aren’t looking good, but we really don’t know what to expect.

One element that was consistent was audio is reaching a plateau. Funding is drying up. Advertising spend is decelerating largely due to the inability to comprehensively audit the effects of audio ads, and it’s still in a ‘innovative spend’ bucket. Plus, not many marketers are feeling very fruity right now.

Yet despite this talk of doom and gloom, the trail running podcast industry claims to be sitting at the eye of the hurricane; aware of the storm going on around it, but not feeling any pressure to change.

I spoke to Finn Melanson (Singletrack), Jonathan Levitt (For the Long Run) and David Roche (Some Work, All Play) about their thoughts on the market and they all seemed unruffled. None of them had felt or heard from any fellow podcasters about difficulties in renewing sponsorship, securing new investment or listener drop offs. They even seemed hopeful for the year ahead.

Finn see’s this year as the start of the journey towards his North Star

“ideally, we want to be something like Citius Mag for trail. Or ESPN Sportscenter for trail”.

This means testing out new formats, such as live podcasts and daily shows around major races, and trialling out live commentary for other brands (as he demonstrated at Bandera 100K).

Part of this general optimism stems from podcasters' efforts to make their business models more sustainable in the long-term.

Jonathan’s done this by branching out from DTC or smaller brand sponsorships that measure success by high volume of sales or conversion rates. Instead he’s moved towards brands that require a lower volume of conversions to generate an ROI or are focused more on upper-funnel metrics, such as awareness. When Freedom Solar sponsored “For the Long Run” last year, they generated a 10x ROI on less than one sale a month. For Jonathan’s new sponsor, his realtor, Lauren Daniels, she only needs one referral to generate an ROI from the sponsorship. This diversification outside of smaller brands means there is less pressure for the podcast to continually generate short term sales (on a medium that isn’t well equipped to drive sales) and can instead develop long term partnerships that are mutually beneficial.

Similarly David is looking to grow SWAP’s Patreon memberships to make the podcast a more sustainable business by having a direct relationship with their supporters. In an email, David wrote

“Patreon has been a fantastic resource for us to connect with listeners directly as friends, and we're turning that into a media venture in its own right as a result (weekly subscriber-only podcasts, science corner articles, videos, etc).”

Ultimately, David views Patreon as a ‘proof-of-concept” on the potential profitability of running an independent media business supported by the community. Whilst the SWAP podcast is sponsored by Athletic Green, this balance of ad and reader funded media is a resilient mix that girders them against most economic volatility.

It should also be said that trail running podcasters are mostly independent creators with very little overheads, so operationally they can be more flexible in the face of adversity. Also, they’re not exposed to some of the big podcast advertisers, so most macro trends in advertising spend have a smaller impact on our comparatively small scale media industry.

It wasn’t all unicorn birthdays and brand-new book smells (Oh hey, GingerRunner). Finn highlighted the plethora of podcasts in trail running, all with a similar format doing the same interviews with the same athletes. Admittedly, trail running has settled on the athlete interview as the format du jour, with very little innovation outside of that structure (I’m waiting for a trail running docu-series podcast with true crime style cliffhangers). Finn forecasts the podcast hosts who are aware of this standardised approach will “either opt out of this type of content and/or work harder to differentiate their conversation with these types of guests.”

In spite of the new year bringing with it doomsday headlines such as Vulture’s “This Could Be a Rough Year for the Podcast Industry”, it actually might be a great year for our trail running podcast industry.