Hi everyone, welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter that tells stories you can’t find anywhere else about the intersection of sports, fashion, business, and culture. Today’s article is the inaugural guest article on SportsVerse by seasoned journalist William Goodman, a fashion, pop culture, and running reporter with bylines in GQ, Complex and others. You can — and should — follow William here!
As in real estate, so goes running: location, location, location. Even before the post-pandemic running boom, half the appeal of attending a race for runners is the chance to travel to a new or beloved city to get some miles in. It’s a compelling way to see a city and get to know it. But as running has gained a higher profile, the locations for race day are becoming more specific and grand in design, which is how I found myself running on an abandoned airfield in Berlin with Saucony, the stalwart American running footwear brand owned by Wolverine Worldwide, the holding group seeing huge growth from the popularity of its running- and outdoors-focused labels like Saucony and Merrell.
The Berlin 10K, held at the historic Berlin Tempelhof Airport, was the latest in a series of brand-owned races, meant to activate all kinds of audiences, from brand-loyalists to those looking to experience a bold, exciting race in a new or unconventional locales, joining the likes of Bandit’s Grand Prix or even Nike After Dark as a way for brands to interface with their audience directly. And, if being on the ground in Berlin was any indication, it certainly feels like the future of running.
“We have been involved in owned races in the past,” said Rob Griffiths, Saucony Brand President, said to me over a Microsoft Teams call before the race. “But as we moved to center in our consumer that we felt needed to be re-energized and reviewed, it was very much a part of that consumer’s life – not to compete at the highest level, per se – but to be involved with cultural moments.” While there’s still value – for both consumers and brands – in being involved in bigger races, spinning something owned is a way to directly speak to their audience as a brand, without the complication or dilution of a bigger overall brand moment. Think of it in the same way that the Electric Entertainment Expo or E3, aka the premier videogame conference for gaming news, eventually went the way of the dodo when hardware developers like Nintendo and Sony realized they could simply... just do their own event and control a news cycle versus having to share the spotlight.
Sure, any brand can jump in and throw enough money around to make a race happen, but excitement, hype, aura, clout, or whatever other internet success metric you’d like has to be earned. Or, more importantly, respected in an authentic way that doesn’t feel like a brand is just glomming onto a scene. “It’s not just, ‘let’s put our sponsorship around this race and let’s put our name on the start and finish line’ and all that,” Griffiths said. “We go deep into the community, work with local retailers so that they feel part of our community.”
For Griffiths, that started with small things, like ensuring the new Saucony flagship store in Covent Garden included on-site lockers so run crews or individual runners had a dedicated space. If runners happen to snag a pair of shoes — like say the newly released Elite 3s (which I ran in for the event and loved), after a run — then that’s gravy. But that’s secondary. “[It’s] us showing that we were serious about this and prepared to give up retail space to help facilitate and build that community,” Griffiths said.
While Nike After Dark has its spectacle – Doechii showing up in LA is certainly a hell of a way to close things – and Bandit Grand Prix looks and feels like a perfect distillation of that brand’s commitment to serious technical gear to help runners feel both fast and fly, the Berlin 10K carried the weight of history with it. Hanging out with a crew of local Berliners and a few folks in from out of town for the race at the high-end fashion shop Yoo, there was a real sense of excitement about the race. In fact, runners were out and about in droves throughout the day, many of them wearing Saucony running shoes.
But the real excitement arrived when I reached the race itself. Tempelhof, located in the middle of the city, was established pre-WWII, used for the city’s separation during the Cold War, and was in use as recently as 2008. There was nothing cold about the race, however, as high-heat temps rocked the course. But spirits remained high despite the heat; the starting line pulsed with a kinetic energy and noise that wouldn’t be uncommon to find in a Berlin club. 5,000 runners ran the sold-out event, and it was far and away the most pulse-pounding start to a race that I’ve experienced in my relatively green racing career (this is only my sixth race since I started seriously running back in 2022, although I’ve been running since I needed to pre-condition for lacrosse conditioning in 2006). To top it off, the evening concluded with DJ sets headlined by the popular German production team, KitschKrieg.
I did feel the sense of community, whether it was the handful of running crews like The Rolling Mile who were on hand for the race, or the kids who climbed the chain link fence on the outskirts of the property to cheer on the runners, lighting up with glee whenever a runner waved to them from the course. Perhaps part of that was due to the distance; a 10K is a little more approachable, distance-wise, than some other races, aligning with the ethos of Saucony. The way I described the brand is that it’s likely your favorite runner’s favorite running brand, mostly due to how approachable it all feels. “There’s no BS,” Griffiths says. “… [there’s a] democratic point of view on running.”
Saucony plans to continue the 10K events, and if Saucony does come to your town, expect it to feel earned at every level. “I’ve seen it before where the circus rolls into town and rolls out again,” Griffiths said. “Ours is a bit more of a lasting impact. We go in there, we work with the community, we put down roots … I just hope that, as has happened in the past, this becomes a local cultural moment that people from the outside the locality appreciate.”
If brands like Saucony can continue to consciously cultivate races that are as distinctive and as cool as the Berlin 10K was, then whatever location they’re in next will be the hottest spot around.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
See you next time,
DYM
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