“Shoe Brands Are Like Teenagers”

This was a comment made by a well-known race director and industry professional whose name I will keep private here. At a chat we had toward the end of TrailCon they replied to the ongoing challenges in our industry to have shoe brands – which are arguably the companies with the deepest pockets – to play nice together and share the communal space we call trail running. At events, be it races or conferences, brands always demand exclusivity and preferred treatment and while this might sound good in their corporate eco chambers in reality it’s impossible – and counter productive for the community – to pull off.

• Broken Arrow was sponsored by Nike/ACG and over the weekend the valley was painted orange.
• This gave way to On’s sponsorship of TrailCon, which to be fair allowed the ACG booth to stay in the prominent place it had been (I assume) for Broken Arrow. ON covered the welcome happy hour. BROOKS covered the tab for one of the happy hours on Tuesday, ACG picked up the tab on the closing day after the TrailCon awards they sponsor.
• On Wednesday evening as the crane picked up the ARC’TERYX container and everyone cleaned up their booths, HOKA and its team was already in full swing setting up for Western States. I believe the gondola already has a new wrap in anticipation to take spectators up to the escarpment on race day morning.

Yes, our sport needs the money from these brands, and yes, in exchange for these promotional dollars these brands want something in return, – this is all fair and good. But sometimes in conversations with them it does feel like they should behave a bit more like grown-ups and not like bickering teenagers fighting for supremacy in the hallways of their high school.