Sponsor Representation at UTMB

Liam Tryon did the work on Twitter, I did for Western States and Hardrock a few weeks ago:

A shoe (or apparel, if no shoe) sponsorship breakdown of all of the top 10 (male and female) finishers of this week’s #UTMB races (includes OCC, CCC, TDS and UTMB), with info sourced from live.utmb.world/utmb and/or the athlete’s social media, based on my best understanding:

Overall, combined from all 4 #UTMB2022 races:
Hoka – 10
Salomon – 9
Adidas Terrex – 9
The North Face – 9
Brooks Running – 5
ASICS – 5
NNormal – 2
Scarpa – 2
Scott – 2
Merrell – 2
ON – 2
Arcteryx – 2
Evadict – 2

Here’s what I replied to Liam:

Adidas is funny to mean. They have such a successful athletes program but I know no one personally that TRAIL runs in Adidas shoes. I don’t know what shoe is good for what distance and I don’t know who stocks them.

Clearly Adidas is the big success story here, especially if you realize that Nike is nowhere in that mix. The Adidas athlete team is on fire, well-managed and successful. But! How is that marketing translating into sales? We know the names of the best shoes by many of the other brands. We know where to buy the shoes and we know the basic differences in shoes styles and features. For Adidas? No clue. No idea about any of the names, or the features, or the prices, or where to buy them (except maybe directly in adidas.com). Adidas is winning races, but not sure this is a winning strategy going forward?