TrailMix had Gone Quiet, and the Trail Media is Running on Fumes

After a somewhat quiet summer Matt Walsh is back posting regularly on his blog ‘Trailmix’, and the collective trail media is better for it.

This week he published a banger again asking some questions I’ve been wondering about, and providing numbers about the Golden Trail World Series and well – we hadn’t heard from them in awhile – Satisfy. In ‘GTWS has Gone Quiet, and Satisfy is Running on Fumes’ Matt wonders about Salomon’s strategy on putting GTWS on broadcast TV and if this could’ve contributed to a general sense of disinterest in this series.

GTWS have made many changes over the years to try their darnedest to attract different geographies from across the world, to make it an appealing format for viewing, and cut the national series to channel more resources into the TV product, but as far as we can see, none of that has worked.

I agree with this. Even with Freetrail heading to South Korea to cover the Finals this year it really didn’t much of a hype. Or big stories. This year’s overall winners for both the men and the women were the same as last year’s.

At the moment GTWS are on track to scupper one of the biggest deals in trail running because they couldn’t create a product that kept current fans interested and new viewers glued to their telly.

“Scupper” – I learned a new word today, amazing.

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On Satisfy I haven’t much to add other than I feel Satisfy tried to turn the performance elements of outdoor clothing into fashion statements by adding (TM) behind their “innovations” that weren’t any at all but just fashion hype. An outdoor brand’s two competitive advantages are the athletes who are repping their product and promoting the actual performance: “I climbed Mount Everest in this” is about as valuable as a message as it gets. A fashion brand’s competitive advantage is the ever-evolving designs they are releasing onto the runway. This is what turns people’s heads and opens their customer’s wallets. Considering that Mothtech hasn’t won UTMB and that we – how many years into this now – are still talking about Mothtech makes me think Satisfy is running low on ideas.

And now, after I said I hadn’t much to add I still added my two cents – you’re welcome.

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But back to the general feeling of “running on fumes”. I wonder if it’s just me, or if there’s a bit of a general sense of deflation in the air. Instagram accounts don’t reach their followers anymore, Substacks are not being published regularly anymore. The summer was long and eventful and as Dylan Bowman on the latest Second Nature episode pointed out there’s a personal and general sense of “coming down” after a busy and eventful summer. But also: no drama, nothing spectacular is happening worthy of “emergency podcast episodes”, not major announcements. Things are okay, but not head turning.

We’re four weeks from TRE. Let’s hope we get some new stories, and not just new shoes with super foam.