Track and field is bankrolled by large athletic footwear and apparel companies. What happens when the track and field devotees who founded the big companies age out?
Source: Sneaker companies loom large at Oregon22: ‘Lifeblood of the sport,’ but for how long?
I actually paid for Peacock to watch Oregon22. I didn’t need or want the service, but I wanted full access to the livestream and replays without waiting on the disjointed uploads to YouTube. I’m a #trackgirldad. My daughter is entering her freshman year of high school after winning the middle school high jump championship for our city. I spend long Sundays and Tuesdays in the Memphis heat and humidity watching full days of track and field. The stands at these events are packed with parents and students supporting their teams/teammates. The scene at middle school events is as loud and ramped up as any high school football game. This isn’t in an Olympic year and the athletes probably have no idea of the name of famous track and field athletes. Track and field in the U.S. is barely given a platform. The source link article from Oregon Live presents the compelling hypothetical of when Nike and other brands no longer fund aspects of the sport, but the article misses a critical aspect of a harsh reality. Nike no longer funding has a real foundation overlooked in the article on Oregon Live.
The hypothetical is rooted in the discussion of Nike’s old guard fading away and the company being run by tech people vs Men of Oregon and former track and field veterans. Nike’s Consumer Direct Acceleration created growth via the decimation of wholesale. It signaled a change in strategies away from the core of what made Nike, Nike. The shift from Futures and wholesale accounts to direct-to-consumer is a reality relying on the growth of fashion and lifestyle products. Fashion in the footwear and apparel industry introduces the purposeless sneaker. When sneakers began to be worn as casual footwear, the shoes were created for a particular purpose. They were pulled from the sports they were created to be utilized in. Sneakers originally weren’t created just for style and the cool factor. The shell toe by adidas and the Puma Suede may have been the sneakers of choice for B-Boys, but they began their lives on the hardwood being worn by basketball players. The 80s saw the rise of aerobics and the Reebok Freestyle transitioned women from the gym to their daily routines. Sneakers were made for sport and sport drove the culture. Hip-Hop became a cultural force and the artists wanted to be like the athletes. Today athletes want to be like the celebrities.
A lot of things happened to change this, especially over the last ten years. The decline of sneakers made for sport had two last hurrahs before falling in popularity. The last two moments for signature sneakers were the Big Bang Collection from Nike and the NOLA All Star Collection both made for the NBA’s biggest sneaker moment. All-Star Weekend was once the time of year where brands would debut new models and the Dunk Contest would elevate basketball kicks to the masses. In the last few years NBA All-Star Weekend hasn’t had any real activations around signature or basketball sneakers. The drops have been built around entertainers with a few signature basketball releases sprinkled here and there, but there haven’t been any significant basketball drops at all. The other major sports baseball, football and soccer, have never really driven sneaker sales. While Serena is the GOAT tennis player, Nike never gave her a signature sneaker. They understood the assignment and instead offered her, and her counterpart Naomi Osaka, fashion collections where they designed new versions of existing sneakers for the Swoosh.
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Digital Media and Adspend
Digital media controls marketing adspend. Television once pulled in the dollars from companies looking to reach the consumer. Now, Sneaker blogs attract marketing dollars from sites like eBay and from brands. Sneaker blogs have become so influential as marketing arms, Highsnobiety was purchased by Zalando and Hypebeast is readying an IPO for Nasdaq. Social media became equally as prominent as the remaining bastion of advertising on television: live sports. Live sports held the last location to find a captive audience, but as television ratings decline, viewership is growing on Youtube, on Facebook and sites like, TikTok, Snapchat and now Twitch. Podcasts rival traditional radio causing rappers and comedians to become podcast hosts who are just as influential as the athletes they talk about. Soundcloud turned teens into multimillionaires and basically became a genre of music. Youth culture – which had long been at the forefront of who brands wanted to capture, was harder to reach because advertisers were still caught in the old methods of generating commercials and ads. It didn’t help that youth culture no longer had to look to athletes for inspiration and aspiration. Kids have become the standard in sports and entertainment. Social media influencers garner as many followers and in some instances more followers than athletes. Mikey Williams, a high school basketball player from San Diego, has more followers than his NBA counterpart Kyle Kuzma. Both athletes are signed to Puma. Neither will ever accomplish what Rihanna accomplished for Puma.
Athletes are better able to connect to fans outside of their sports via social media and podcasts. KD hosts a podcast with his Boardroom media platform. Steph Curry has a hilarious golf show on ABC. LeBron moved his talk show The Shop from HBO to YouTube. He rarely wears his own basketball sneakers on the show. He instead opts for lifestyle sneakers from Nike. Neither LeBron, Steph or KD are selling as many sneakers and ranking in the top sneakers sold via their on the court presence. As talented as they are, their games don’t move the needle for their signature sneaker shoes. The value of entertainers is more important than athletes and the signature sneakers created for them to compete in. One look at Kanye West and his ability to completely disrespect his sneaker partner adidas, claiming they are stealing his designs, shows that some brands have lost control of their voice and with that they are losing ground and will eventually have to resort to more purposeless sneaker drops. This will inevitably kill innovation… All of this sounds terrible and true when you consider everything written so far, but when looking towards the hypothetical of Nike removing itself from sponsorship of track and field, the perception of performance sneaker sales is just that, perception.
Performance Basketball May Be Slow, But Running Isn’t
Here is why the hypothetical removal of sponsorship will never happen. The growth of brands like Brooks, HOKA and On Running who have said forget the hype and let’s focus on performance. Is a thorn in the New Nike’s side. As Nike leaves small accounts and opens more of their own stores, they have also left shelf space at traditional retail. I recently wrote a post on Brooks Running growing to 1 billion in sales. HOKA and On Running have shown considerable momentum. All three companies are in the spaces Nike owned because of running and track and field. The Oregon Live article didn’t report on the slowdown in sales for performance footwear. The article also failed to discuss how technical advancements made lifestyle footwear, made for fashion, just as capable of being used for sport as more expensive technically advanced sneakers. In the last few years this reality has resulted in no true performance footwear cracking the lists of most popular sneakers sold. In my own data I’ve discussed the slowdown in signature sneakers designed for athletes. My microset of data mirrors the larger market and establishes that Nike and other brands have a real reason to begin pulling funding from sports and placing more of an emphasis on fashion and lifestyle. It’s definitely justifiable, but I’d challenge brands to read a report I wrote in July of 2021:
Resale Report and Analysis July 2021: Part 2 – Price Tier Breakdown & Amount Sold
Nike never moved away from performance. They are so dominant it seems that “sneakerheads” and fashion dominate their sales. The reality is they still make the most discussed footwear in running with the Next% and ZoomX shoes. They’ve had footwear banned from running competitions and there is a war between brands building super shoes. Nike can’t pull funding because the footsteps are loud in performance running and training. On Running, HOKA, Brooks Running, Salomon and a host of brands are dialing and calling runners to provide support and assistance. These brands realize track and field offers an ability to talk to the consumer’s desire to be fit and healthier. As much as Oregon Live’s article poses a justifiable question, the market makes that question null and void. The Running category is healthier than it’s ever been and the battle there has just begun. Does Track and Field have a problem with sneaker companies controlling the sport? Yes.
However, Track and Field doesn’t understand its influence or opportunity. Look at the viewership of Oregon22 on YouTube. Yesterday (7-19-2022) a 200M event featuring Shirley-Ann Fraser-Price and Abby Steiner drew 562,000 views. MLB – barely beat the viewership of one non-final event in the track and field Worlds with their premier event in the All-Star Game hitting 664,000 views. The WNBA had 9,700 views on a game highlight where Nneka Ogwumike dropped 35 pts. ESPN would have to combine a full day of sports programming to equal the one event of the Worlds on 7-19. If other events were added from the Worlds, sports programming for every major sports event on the same day would be obliterated. It’s nice to create hypotheticals, but if Nike drops track and field, it would be the end of Nike’s dominance. This doesn’t mean Track and Field isn’t due for disruption. YouTube is proving that there is considerable interest in the sport. Search “Doha” and then browse through the thousands of small channels earning thousands of views sharing content. The Oregon Live article offered a solution in its discussion. Since Track and Field doesn’t have any wealthy owners, allow the brands to build their own leagues. They are headed that way anyway. New Balance’s The Track is a foundational brick in this strategy. That’s another discussion, but the fractured viewership and diminishing viewing numbers aren’t evidence of disinterest, they are a sign of the times. Track and Field is healthy, and brands may be moving dollars into different areas, but the athletes in the sport should take a page from NBA athletes and develop their own methods of storytelling. Sydney McLaughlin gets it: Sydney McLaughlin – YouTube. Most of the athletes in the sport don’t get it. They may have Instagram, but IG is not YouTube which will allow for a catalog and playlist format which can be monetized and provide verifiable data for the dollars waiting to be paid by brands. Brands are moving funds to where that money can be quantifiably measured.
