ACG Paints the Gorge Orange this Week

This weekend are the historic Gorge Waterfalls trail races along the Columbia River in Oregon. The event was previously managed by Rainshadow Running and has a long history – in fact if I remember the tour element of the Trail Running Film Festival had its event alongside the Gorge races way back in the days – before my time. But, either way, Daybreak Racing is co-owning the event now with Freetrail, and this year Nike ACG stepped up as sponsor of the event. Following the various IG accounts of Freetrail, ACG and of course hype man Dylan Bowman one can get a good sense – even from afar – of how ACG is taking the marketing around trail races to a new level. The amount of money that’s been spend to plaster the orange ACG logos on everything is truly breathtaking. We’ve seen the orange train at this year’s Winter Olympics, but this was THE OLYMPICS. This here, is “just” a trail race. And one of several high profile ones happening around the world this weekend. Maybe it’s because the Gorge races are close to my home, or maybe it’s just that this event has their own media partner built into the event that it feels different. Maybe it’s just the eye-catching orange, after years and years of Hoka blue everywhere that seems to be cutting through, but to me, from afar – again I don’t have reports from folks on the ground – this feels different, fresh, orange. One to follow along this weekend for sure, even without a livestream.

If this is a taste of what’s to come for Broken Arrow, which is also sponsored by ACG this year, we can look forward to Nike having painted the gondola in the Olympic Valley orange.

Side note: how will competing brands respond to this almost excessive marketing spend by Nike here? Will be fascinating to see what Western States and UTMB will look like this summer.