TV’s the answer, what’s the question?

Are TV rights deals the only way for Trail Running to professionalise?

Hey pals,

This will be a short one.

I wanted this year to be the year that I put more energy into Trailmix and my running. But life has given me more bouts of illness and intense weeks of work than I have had in years. A consequence of that has been less new stories or interviews, or interesting side quests, from me in Trailmix.

Heck, we still have the rest of the year and the sun is finally shining in the UK, so here’s to a better H2!

For now, I’ve been thinking about TV rights deals and whether trail running actually needs them or understands what that would mean for the sport.

As always, let me know what you think. Like, share, subscribe, you know the drill 😅

Onwards,

Matt

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Let me start this like a Malcolm Gladwell novel.

When India was ruled by colonial Britain, the British government became concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, so they offered a bounty for every dead cobra.

A fairly obvious goal; killing cobras equals eliminating cobras.

Initially this was a successful strategy, large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward.

Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. When cobra breeders set their snakes free, the wild cobra population multiplied.

This obscure tale is often cited as an example of Goodhart’s Law; when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

In this case the measure of eliminating the population of cobras was counting the number of cobras killed, a seemingly correct way to measuring success. But when people realised that the British Government were only measuring the absolute number of cobras shown to them, it made sense to profit from this by just breeding more.

It’s a classic case of when you set one measure, or thing, as a goal, you set up a system that aims for that goal, regardless of what getting to that goal entails.

This abstract economic law came to mind recently when I’ve been thinking about the quest for paid TV rights deals in professional trail running.

See the goal, as UTMB and GTWS keep stating, is to be paid for their video coverage. It’s the 21st century hallmark of when a sport has made it - a broadcaster/streamer will pay you to show your content.

Hallelujah, job done, get the tinnys in, have a steak, why not, you’ve earned it.

For the past few decades this has been the primary methodology of a sport becoming a business.

The way to do this is to alter your sport to make it as attractive as possible to a TV audience. This typically entails playing with the format of the sport. Make it short, with a fast turn of pace, dynamic action, tension throughout, crowds going wild, and something you can talk about on your breakfast Teams call the next day.

For GTWS, Greg Vollet has already embraced this mantra by changing the format of some races. Last year’s Final and this year’s new Kobe race was a flower format, designed to increase the number of times crowds saw racers and made it more accessible for mountain bikers to follow for better live streaming signal.

With any format you change, questions arise around what is lost when the change is made. Put another way, when the goal is TV rights deals, and your action to achieve that goal is amending the format design, what is the unintended consequence of rights deals being the goal?

Any change in format brings different discussion points.

• Authenticity vs fakery. For any tension to form we want to know what we’re seeing comes from real sporting competition, not some running on Marble Arch mound.

• Radical changes vs incremental differences. Do we need to wholesale change things to make it TV ready or can we just slightly tweak what we have?

• Shifting incentives. What is the new goal of the format and does it stimulate the same results and competition that we expect to see?

• Essence. Does it maintain the same ‘essence’ of the sport (or however you want to phrase that)?

Ultimately after all that you then have to question, is TV rights deals what we really want? Sometimes when I’m hearing about some trail running commentator baffling on about the sport’s future it seems TV rights deals is the answer, but no one quite knows the question.

With UTMB also expanding into DAZN, they’re making themselves pretty in the shop window for some broadcasting suitor to come along and splash their cash for their content, but how far will UTMB go to get those deals? I sure can’t see a broadcaster paying for 16 hours of mountain running in this environment.

I’m undecided on whether trail running’s future is TV rights deals. I think it can grow and become a more sustainable business for athletes and organisers through other means. But when the past two decades of sporting professionalisation and a sea of consultants tell you that TV deals is the goal, the only stairway to capitalist heaven, you’re damned going to aim for that target regardless of the unintended consequences.