✳️ The Jasmin Paris Effect

A Trailmix of news, opinions and data.

Hey pals 👋 Ultrarunning hit pretty much every major news publication in the western world after Jasmin Paris’ heroic endeavour. With that coverage comes benefits and issues. We explore that as well as podcasting’s new rankings and the rise of business media in trail running. Hope you enjoy! - Matt

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Jasmin takes the Barkley to new heights

What? After Jasmin Paris’ heroic completion of the Barkley Marathon, she not only gained the attention of the worlds media, but also of the general public.

Western media publications of all sizes and categories wrote about Jasmin Paris’ victory, many writing about ultra running for the first time.

• News publications from all political persuasions, such as the New York Times, Guardian, BBC, Daily Mail, and CNN

• Sports media outlets such as ESPN and Sky Sports

• Lifestyle entities, such as Marie Claire, Tatler and LadsBible

Roughly 7,400 articles were written about Jasmin over the past week according to Google News.

Coverage Many news outlets featured non-exclusive ‘exclusive interviews’, but most covered Jasmin’s race by focusing on the difficulty of the Barkley and being the first woman to finish.

• Daily Mail lead with Jasmin having PhD, having two children and being a qualified vet and had a notable introduction:

  • “Jane Austen's Mr Darcy famously said that an accomplished woman must have a 'thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and modern languages' to truly earn this title.

    However Pride & Prejudice's romantic lead may have granted an exception to ultramarathon runner Jasmin Paris.”

• LadBible and New York Post embellished the difficulty of the race with titles such as ‘ First woman ever finishes infamous torture marathon with rules designed to make you lose’ and ‘UK runner becomes first woman to finish sadistic race with torturous rules to make sure people lose’

Big picture - Coverage of women’s racing in trail running has steadily increased over the past few years, from more minutes of airtime in livestreams to receiving more engagement on online articles, according to a new post by IRunFar.

The effect - Following the vast volume of media coverage Jasmin received, searches for Jasmin Paris created a new women’s record for any ultramarathon athlete after finishing a race. This week searches peaked at 54K, far surpassing Courtney Dauwalter’s 20K after finishing UTMB 2023 and Camille Herron 3K after Further earlier this month.

Matt’s Opinion - Visibility within the sport is important, but when the biggest media moment ultrarunning has seen in a few years is from a woman finishing the Barkley, that’s progress.

Whenever publications from outside ultrarunning write about the sport, the focus will always be on embellishing the difficulty of the race, make it sound ‘tortuous’. The Barkley has thrived on that style of coverage for some time, every year capturing a few articles in the NYT or BBC simply because it sounds grotesque to the average person, which in turn captures the attention of someone scrolling through their social feed. So much so the LadBible articles about Jasmin Paris were categorised under the ‘viral’ section.

Jasmin Paris’ completion of the Barkley seemingly came at this intersection between the growth of women’s sport and needing to create articles that pull readers out of their habitual scrolling. The story wasn’t about the race, but a story about women doing the ‘impossible’.

Whether the characterisation of a race as ‘tortuous’ is positive for the sport of ultrarunning is another question. Only a few people with a messianic compulsion to test the limits of their human capability will feel inspired by the framing of a race as ‘tortuous’, for the vast majority that is a massive turn-off.

The Barkley is the pinnacle of ultrarunning’s brutality, few races match it for its challenge. For that reason alone it will always capture the general news for as long as they want viewers. It serves as a beacon of our sports existence, but paints an uncomfortable picture of what the sport is about.

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New data on trail and ultra running podcasts

What? Spotify has released new data on the number of followers a podcast has, which gives an indication of their popularity.

When applied to podcasts that talk predominantly around ultrarunning and trail running, Trail Runner Nation comes out top with 22K followers, with most over 10K away.

It’s important to note this is only followers on Spotify, not listeners, which will change over time. For instance a podcast could have a lot of followers, but not a high percentage that listen, or a not a lot of listeners who follow the podcast on Spotify. However, the numbers are the first method of publicly and transparently ranking podcasts.

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The business of trail running draw more media attention

What? Freetrail has added another podcast to its roster ‘Second Nature’ where Dylan Bowman and Aaron Lutze talk about the outdoor industry.

Vision - In their second podcast the duo spoke about the vision for Second Nature to serve two camps - those that want to learn more about the inner workings of the outdoor industry, and also those that currently work in the industry who are looking for some context to the latest news stories.

Context - Whilst Second Nature doesn’t solely talk about trail and ultra running, it’s not the only media outlet starting to apply more focus on the business of MUT.

Late last year, French sailing media publication, Tip & Shaft (the little boy in me can’t help but giggle at that name. But back to being professional), started a fortnightly newsletter on the business of trail running in and out of France, Mile & Stones.  After a successful launch, in February they hosted their first B2B conference for professionals in the trail running industry.

Matt’s opinion - One of the many reasons i started this newsletter was the lack of discussion about the trail running industry beyond press releases and angsty Twitter and Instagram posts. It was almost as if there was a belief if you didn’t say it was an industry, it wasn’t an industry.

Then the UTMB-Ironman partnership blindsided the sport forcing many out of their innocent cocoon. Yet, trail running was a business way before the Polleti’s decided that they wanted more than the Alps. Fila, Adidas, Salomon and Nike had all played a part in the development of the sport in the two decades before that announcement. They just had been slipping through because they’re just making shoes right? What else is there to say?

People in the industry did not speak up much, owing to the lack of a platform for discussion below the C-level. Slowly, podcasters like Finn at Singletrack and Dylan at Freetrail began speaking with more marketers and RDs, opening up the discourse about business in trail running and making it more accessible and engaging to the general public.

For people who are not involved in the sport, more focused coverage of the business side of the sport results in a better grasp of the larger contexts at play. While for those in the industry, it's recognition that they're making a difference and that they have a lot to learn from one another.

Any reader of Trailmix is bound to enjoy Miles & Stones who cover the B2B side better than I ever could. After all the success Dylan has had with Freetrail, I’m certain Second Nature will be a pivotal moment in opening up trail runners to the behind the scenes of the outdoor industry.