✳️ Is Trail Running Media Failing Its Professionals?
A Trailmix of news and opinions on the business of trail running
Hey pals,
New year, New job for me. A heck of a lot more commuting, but deeper into the worlds on media strategy.
On media, we start this week tying together a couple of stories we’ve seen play out over this free agency season - written trail running media is not covering the competitive side of the sport nearly enough, and that’s hindering it’s growth.
We then end with a response prediction to the last newsletter and the usual round-up of interesting tidbits and stories in the trail running business.
Hope you have a great week,
Matt
Trail Running Media’s Professional Flaws
What? The media coverage of the professional side of the sport received criticism from Francesco Puppi and the “Boulder Boy’s” podcast for separate but related reasons.
Francisco critiqued European trail running media for not covering his decision to leave Nike. In a post on Substack, Francesco lamented that “ So far, The Ultra Minute is the only media talking about me parting ways with Nike. Maybe as Europeans we have a problem with running media”.
Boulder Boys (made up of Matt Daniels, Adam Peterman, Drew Holmen, Seth Ruhling and Adam Merry) in a separate podcast critiqued trail running media more generally for not covering the competitive dynamics in races, the training leading up to the races and the rivalries between runners.
Matt’s opinion: Both pieces of criticism are aimed at trail running media, but hit upon a broader problem in media that is reverberating through the sector - how do you monetise small audiences in a sustainable long term way?
Take Francesco. His argument is that if this were most other sports the movement of athletes between brands would be significant enough to get at least a few articles, podcasts, hot takes and so on. This belief is predicated on a media ecosystem that has journalists that cover the professional side of the sport, have personal contact with athletes and publish articles on them regularly, and have a large enough audience of people that care about the movement of athletes to click on an article or subscribe to a website that publishes that. Out of these things trail running currently lacks most if not all of these things.
Free agency in other sports gets mixed coverage. It’s either a lot of coverage for a big name where there's an audience out there that cares about that news enough that they will click on an article or pay for the privilege to access that information. Or it's a bullet point in an email, line on a rolling ticker tape, or sentence in a newspaper. Trail running publications dedicate their time to things they know will attract the most people with the limited time and resources they have. Free agency, currently, only attracts a small sub section of trail runners.
Then we have the ‘The Boulder Boys’. On their podcast with Finn of Singletrack podcast, they jointly critiqued trail running coverage for their lack of focus on the tensions in races, the rivalries, the training insights, the competitive differences between runners. Simultaneously they admitted that they self-censor in interviews for fears of brand repercussions. Additionally there were points on the show when they started a point, before devolving into hushed tones and cryptic comments before moving on to another point.
This is where the power dynamics within our sport get in the way of developing its professional coverage. To do any sports journalism well, you need access and trust. In our sport you can get access simply and develop a rapport, but few reporters, podcasters, or content creators of any flavor, will talk about what they spoke about with athletes publically. This is for fear of causing a ruckus with the athlete’s sponsor, endangering their livelihood, or simply not wanting to feel like a snitch and ruin their trust. It’s a delicate game, but currently brands wield too much power over athletes' income for any athlete to have a ‘tell all’ interview with anyone about the intricacies of their contracts. And we have limited precedents for journalists creating behind-the-scenes stories about athletes relationships and rivalries.
Without this coverage fans have to speculate on the professional side of the sport based on performative instagram posts, repetitive hour long podcasts and pithy strava captions. It’s an experience that means to be a fan of this sport you need to also be an amateur sleuth or a fortune teller with an ability to read tea leaves.
As I’ve mentioned too many times in this newsletter, there’s always a chicken and egg scenario in media - you can’t create the demand for content without an audience, you can’t create an audience with the content. There’s always a risk that what you create won’t resonate, but you just have to take that leap because you’ll never know otherwise.
The reason the number of podcasts and newsletters has started balloon up recently is because the barrier for entry is low, the model is relatively affordable long term and you can start with a subscription model that allows you to monetise a small dedicated following. That’s why the “Boulder Boys” format of competitors creating their own media works so well - you lose the risks and intermediary of journalism, the initial capital expenditure is minimal, they’re trusted voices, and with podcasts there’s little time commitment for them (unless you’re the editor).
There is an opportunity here that is not covered by the likes of IRunFar or Run247. A publication that breaks news at speed, has a space where they can do both short and long form pieces on the sport and monetises through a blend of subs, ads and merch. We’re just waiting on the brave souls to take up that challenge.
A Response to 2025 Predictions…
I wonder about the continuing growth in the 200+ mile race scene - how many people out there really want to run these, and more importantly, how many people out there are willing to volunteer at aid stations for these? At some point I have to imagine it's going to get harder and harder to put these on, especially as the scene grows and they compete more and more for runners and volunteers. The number of participants is growing, no doubt, but it seems like the number of races is growing faster. -Alex Bond
Matt: I can see this tension between the number of people mad enough to run these distances and the logistics to put them on in the first place being the two anchors that slow the growth of 200 milers. Whilst there’s increasing publicity of these ultra ultras, the number of 200+ milers have only grown by 17 new races globally since 2019 to 95 being run annually, according to German Ultra Running Statistics site, DUV, suggesting they’re receiving disproportionate amount attention compared to other race distances. Nevertheless, one to follow.
If we had a group chat…
UTMB has a new hydration sponsor, Aonijie. If you’ve never heard of them, you’re not the only one. Aonijie is a Chinese brand that started in 2011 that sells trail running backpacks, poles and accessories at vastly discounted prices to their western competitors. The catch - they sell dupes of products in the market. Take their poles that look remarkably like Leki’s poles. Or their backpacks that look exactly the same as Salomon’s. I need to research them more to figure out whether they sell duplicates or if they’re actually the manufacturers of the branded products, but it’s a fascinating precedent in the trail running market.
The free agency is still ongoing and most athletes haven’t announced where they’ll land, but some interesting storylines are forming, particularly around Salomon’s continued cull of American athletes and Terrex’s loss of Tom Evans, Sabrina Stanley and Corrine Malcom. Rumours are also swirling around the news that after Scott Sports dropped Frederic Tranchard, leaving a depleted trail team, and its ongoing firesale of shoes at rock bottom prices, that they’re slowly divesting away from trail running.
Enough has been said about Nike’s copy of Satisfy’s Mothtech, but it’s mad seeing how many people thought that this was a story about how innovative or new holes in t-shirts were, and not about how Satisfy’s design was more about cultural identifiers than perspiration efficiency.
Saucony and Merrell’s parent company Wolverine has been in the doldrums over the past couple of years after raising a lot of debt and having high inventory. They’re now starting to turn the tide with a new CEO and a familiar playbook - building a key city strategy, leaning into physical retail and more brand marketing. In layman's terms, talk about their brands in cities that are important for them to make them more relatable and in-sync with the cultural narrative. What was once a Nike strategy is now being followed by Adidas, Hoka and Saucony (Hoka’s new London Pop-up is a creative example of this). What I'm keen to see is if companies start following this ‘think local’ strategy for the trail running side of their business - e.g. rural regions with high trail running participants. For the UK I'm thinking of the Lake District (more fell than trail), but where else could you do this?
New Balance is also following a similar philosophy of think global, act local, and is reaping the rewards with another bumper 20% year on year growth.
My Comments - - -
Francesco: A great person and runner, while criticizing the media for not covering oneself is a surprising reach. The reason his departure from Nike was not covered, is because while it's huge for him, it's not for anyone else. It's statistically not newsworthy. When someone's life is trail or ultra running they may not realize they exist in a numerically very small bubble.
Boulder Boys: Love it - great guys - do your own podcast! And yet as you wrote, "... they admitted that they self-censor in interviews for fears of brand repercussions." That says it all. I've hosted a podcast for 5 years and athletes won't say anything interesting until the mic is turned off and we're just chatting - those convo's are really good but never recorded. Runners complaining about boring media coverage are the pot calling the kettle black; read their own posts on FB or Strava: "Went for a beautiful run today; it's so good to be alive!" (hashtag, hashtag, hashtag).
Gotta remember: running is a Participation sport, not a Spectator sport! Forgetting this leads discussions on media into dead ends. 95% of runners don't give a s**t who won, let alone "free agency". Tell stories about them and they may read it; tell stories about yourself and they'll blow you off.
I’ve been following Francesco’s story on Instagram, and I truly commend him for stepping away from Nike and taking a leap of faith. That decision couldn’t have been easy, especially when you consider how contracts often limit what athletes can say publicly. I get it—sponsored athletes have to represent the brands they’re tied to. But at what expense? If being a sponsored athlete means losing the ability to speak up, challenge the industry, or tell your own story, then we’ve got it all wrong.
I would love to see athletes, especially those in the trail running or the running industry, take control of their own narratives. Instead of waiting for journalists or podcasters to share their journeys (and hoping they get it right), why not tell the story themselves?
When athletes share their stories in their own words, it creates something truly powerful—authenticity that reveals the layers of who they are beyond their sport. It’s not just about achievements; it’s about uncovering the values, struggles, and triumphs that often remain hidden. Francesco, for example, already has an audience that’s eager to listen. I just think how powerful it would be if he continued to share his story, unfiltered and direct. An insight into his journey and the values behind his decisions in a way that could make a huge impact in the industry.
And let’s be real—it’s good for people to use their voices, especially when it comes to calling out mega-corporations. We have these platforms, so why not use them? If we don’t, large corporations will just keep doing what they do: taking ideas from smaller, innovative brands like Satisfy and silencing their athletes or forcing them to conform to narratives that suit the company. These large corporations are powerhouses, no doubt—but they’ve gotten way too comfortable playing puppet master.
The bottom line? If you’ve got a story to tell, don’t wait for someone else to tell it for you—because they won’t tell it right. Take the reins, hit publish, and let the world hear it straight from you. It’s your story, after all.