✳️ UTMB is Growing but Where are the Fans?

A deep dive on UTMB’s Livestream viewership data

Hey pals,

As has become an annual tradition, it’s time to analyse UTMB’s media data and see what we can find out beyond the cosy PR announcements. And as always, theres more there beneath the surface.

I promise, this is the last UTMB post for this month. Promise.

Hope you have a great weekend :)

Matt

A few days after UTMB ended, their press team was out extolling the popularity of the event.

Over 1000 articles and reports.

Three times more engagement on social media than previous years.

A 20% increase in viewers of UTMB Live. 

All healthy numbers for an event that many will agree is beginning to hit it's stride. Yet, those stats don't really tell you much. They're surface level numbers that appease the unquestioning press, they're easy to understand and confirm the obvious - UTMB is growing. 

Let's dive a little deeper then shall we, specifically into that 20% number. 

UTMB distributes it's livestream across YouTube globally, Outside in the US and Canada, iQiYI in China, L'Equipe in France, the recently announced DAZN globally and it's own website, UTMB Live. YouTube has been the primary distributor of UTMB's livestream due to its reach and ubiquity across all UTMB's target markets, so the majority of their livestreaming figures will be from YouTube. The other distributors are all free deals to increase the reach of UTMB into new audience groups who may spontaneously happen upon UTMB on their feed. 

Whilst we don't know the viewership numbers of each of those channels, and UTMB have not responded to my many emails about this, we do know the YouTube livestream viewership. (sidenote: i think UTMB don't like me. In the words of Justin Timberlake 'Cry me a river'.)

Here's where it gets interesting.

UTMB's livestream viewership for the week was down 16% YoY to 1.9M, just above 2022 numbers. The main cause for this drop was a 32% drop in viewers on the English livestream feeds, especially around the 17hr mark in UTMB when UK and US markets knew that their male home country athletes had dropped out the race and Bouliard was going to win. Instead, there was a 19% increase in French language viewers drawn in by a national ‘dark horse’ galloping to victory. 

How do we align this with UTMB's +20% growth then? Well, it could be that simply more viewers tuned into UTMB through their owned platform or many 3rd party distributors, making up for the loss in YouTube viewers, and demonstrating more incremental viewers as a result. 

Here's some more data to muddy the waters of their success. YouTube new subscriber numbers were lower than 2023 and have been declining since 2022, and Google search interest for UTMB over UTMB week declined from 2023 globally - even in France. Put in simple terms, despite more people viewing the race, the event failed to intrigue people outside it's core audience who already knew about the event. 

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This is not to say that less people were exposed to the race, but that the people they did reach already knew about UTMB and didn't need to know more about it. 

UTMB made a concerted effort this year in trying to broaden their reach to new audiences, particularly younger audiences. During and after every race, UTMB distributed paid video ads across Meta using race recaps and tense moments during each event, prompting viewers to watch the event live on UTMB Live. The ads were targeted broadly to 20-64yr olds across the EU, but were set up without bid caps, so the ads optimised delivery towards the highest engaging audience - 18-35yr old males in France. That was a very niche comment that would have left anyone who has set up an advertising campaign snickering, but for the layman it simply means the largest audience reached likely already knew about UTMB.

One place they were successful with reach was TikTok. Whilst this was a channel they used sparingly last year, they went into overdrive this year posting over 50 times in 7 days with many videos reaching +1M views. By the looks of it, it was the french language videos that attracted the widest audience. Whilst this means they likely broadened their awareness amongst younger french audiences, it likely didn't expand their reach into other markets.

UTMB’s success hinges on capturing the imagination of younger audiences, who will not only grow the fan base but fill the starting lines in years to come. More fans equal more content engagement, and that’s where the lucrative media rights come into play—a stated goal of UTMB. But there’s a hitch: younger viewers are less inclined to sit through live events. They prefer curated moments, the highlights, the viral clips. It doesn’t make the event any less significant, though; it just means future media deals need to reflect this shift in viewing habits, bundling live with highlights and social content.

What can we learn from this then?

• UTMB viewership is influenced by both compelling stories and fan interest - When the anticipated male podium contenders were eliminated early on, the audience demographics shifted. English and American viewers lost interest in the final hours, while French viewers tuned in to see a new French runner potentially win the race

  As obvious as that seems on paper, it demonstrates the impact of international star power on UTMB’s popularity.

• Social highlights and clips are key to growing the audience - we always knew multi-hour races need shorter clips to generate exposure for new audiences, UTMB’s strategy hopefully proves that out. Now we have to see how UTMB maintain the attention of this younger audience into the next year.

• Despite UTMB’s rapid global rise, the fan numbers haven’t followed suit- You would expect with the now 50 races UTMB has and the growth they have demonstrated over the past year that the amount of viewers would have far exceeded 20% growth and that their main distribution channel, YouTube, would have seen much more viewers than last year. But it didn’t. UTMB have grown their revenue, but not the fanbase. That will take longer than a year. But, is that even UTMB’s goal? When they currently make no money from their livestream (outside sponsorships), the incentive to grow the base isn’t there.

If we had a water cooler, we would have talked about:

• North Face came out with a trippy new campaign “We Play Different’. It’s a punchy ad and manifesto. A strong anchoring to the outdoors for the brand when criticisms have been levelled at their commitment to outdoor innovation when their recent ads have positioned them closer to the lifestyle side of the business. (However this campaign was timed to launch with New York Fashion Week where they have embraced flyposting and NYT ads… )

• Move over Vincent Boulliard, the Cirque series brought us a new underdog to celebrate - a dude who forgot his running shoes, needed gas money to get back home, but fortunately came third in an elite field paying for his ride home. Kudos to Freetrail for amplifying this story, and quite a coo for On who have sponsored the event for the past couple of years without much press covering the series.

• Salomon are trying to make Gravel shoes a thing. Please, let’s not. Not every idea thats written on a whiteboard in a marketing department is gold dust. ‘But we’re creating a new category; a blue ocean where there are no competitors!?’. Gravel does not need a specific shoe to run in. It makes the marketing team sound like they were handed a dud product and had to scramble for a story.