Influencers vs. Athletes: The Bubble Has Burst. What’s Next?

The content-sphere is moving so rapidly, how can we evaluate the state of our sport? Let's attempt to make sense of it and leave with some actionable advice.

This week we have a guest post! Allison Lynch has spent years in marketing at both WHOOP and now COROS where she’s worked directly with both pro athletes and influencers alike. Allison reached out to me with a lot to say on a topic that I think makes for a really interesting discussion. A huge thank you for her contribution.

This Friday I’m launching the second film from Auteur Sportif entitled The Candidate. Gina Lucrezi started Trail Sisters on a mission to lift up the female community across trail running and it grew to over 150 local groups nationwide. After seeing the impact of her efforts she was inspired to run for County Commissioner in her hometown of Buena Vista, Colorado. Could she create a similar impact for her local community? Subscribe on YouTube below or follow AS on Instagram.

This week I am in Austin to attend The Running Event. I’m hoping to learn about the value brands are creating outside of their products. How do they go about contributing to the running community to build a meaningful brand? I’ll report back here so stay tuned!

As always thank you for subscribing, sharing and contributing to the discussion.

And now here’s the article.

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Influencers vs. Athletes: The Bubble Has Burst. What’s Next?

A few weeks ago I sat on my couch watching the New York City Marathon, wishing I was there to experience the excitement. My entire Instagram feed was filled with every possible activation happening in Manhattan. From the Saucony x Minted pop-up in SoHo, to the On Lightspray™ robot crafting a supershoe, to Bandit Running’s 300+ person shakeout run. It felt like the pinnacle of running innovation was happening right in front of my eyes on my phone, one doom scroll at a time.

Coupled with the brand activations was the influx of influencer content. Running content creators I’d never even heard of were popping up on my feed. It was my first time hearing about Wyatt Moss, a guy on Instagram who is trying to run a marathon in all 50 states, so NYRR gave him a special bib to run ahead of the field in a tuxedo. 

I saw Matt James everywhere, again. He was highlighted as a “celebrity” running the New York City Marathon by the New York Times. He was also the 3rd most tracked runner in the TCS app. I have nothing against Matt James–I guess I just never cared about following his running, but apparently a lot of people do. I also don’t watch The Bachelor. 

The crescendo of influencer content reached a head with the infamous Matt Choi e-bike debacle, which may go down in running history as one of the swiftest internet backlashes I’ve ever seen (where were you when Matt Choi got banned from NYRR?!). I watched the drama unfold from the comfort of my phone and the  /runNYC threads. The day of running influencer reckoning had arrived.

When NYCM weekend was over I felt drained for some reason, even though I wasn’t even there. It left me with a lot of thoughts. Are running influencers actually “spreading awareness” about running? Are we making the wrong people running famous? What does this mean for professional athletes trying to make a living? Am I just a millennial runner with an old-school mindset who wants nothing more than to relive my high school cross-country glory days when Instagram didn’t exist and I didn’t own a GPS watch? These are questions I think many people in the running industry are asking, but the content-sphere is moving so rapidly that we don’t have time to evaluate the state of our sport. This is my attempt to make sense of some of these thoughts, and hopefully provide some actionable advice.

Acknowledging We Have an Influencer Crisis On Hand

According to Statista, influencer marketing spend has jumped from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $24 billion by the end of 2024. This isn’t surprising. Brands are prioritizing content creators who reach new audiences and drive sales, because there is a very clear return on investment. Everyone consumes media online and it’s the easiest way to generate millions of impressions, one Instagram post or YouTube video at a time. 

Within the last few years, however, I feel like sponsored content has exploded and become tediously repetitive, with the same creators selling the same products using similar messaging. Two specific instances that come to mind (below) are the Saucony Endorphin Elite campaign, where people used a literal Saucony hammer to smash open a wooden box with the shoes, and most recently the Brooks Glycerin Max launch, which was your standard product launch, but seemingly everywhere on my feed. 

I remember reading a Trail Runner Mag article last year that highlighted this topic and how it’s affecting professional athletes. Brands are allocating their marketing spend towards content creators, reducing budget available for standard athlete contracts. Brands are also expecting professional athletes to create highly produced content to sell product. Many athletes are pushing back, stating that they aren’t here to make cute Instagram Reels–they’re here to make teams and win medals. 

The dichotomy between influencers and athletes highlights a larger problem in Track & Field and professional running. Unless they’re the cream of the crop, pro runners have always struggled to secure contracts with liveable salaries. The oversaturation of influencers just makes this problem worse. According to ZipRecruiter, the average annual salary for a professional runner is $28,409. In 2023, I was quoted $12,000 for a single Instagram post from a top running influencer who has about 300k followers. Many prolific runner YouTubers are making six-figure salaries from a single brand (source: I’ve worked in the running industry for 12 years and I’ve signed these contracts). Being an influencer is a highly, highly profitable venture, if you’re good at it, while being a professional runner has never been lucrative.

Besides the issue of brands now expecting pro athletes with no formal video or photo editing experience to produce highly curated content, the rise of influencers has created new ethical problems in the running world:

1. Bib muling and a disregard for qualifying/entering the lottery: Influencers are getting free bibs to the world’s most sought after races, and people are pissed. Regular runners who hit the qualifying standard, waited for the lottery announcement, and spent their hard-earned dollars to travel to a race are getting overshadowed by influencers getting full VIP treatments to any race of their choice. Some influencers are bib muling, running with someone else’s bib to get into a race, which most races forbid for safety and liability purposes.

2. Content production that impedes other runners: Besides the obvious (zigzagging through marathon crowds on e-bikes), influencers stopping to film themselves or using selfie sticks sometimes impedes the flow of race traffic and can be disruptive to others.

3. Questionable training and nutrition advice: If you have a large following and you are not a certified coach or nutritionist with real-world experience, you should not be giving out running and fueling advice without a disclaimer. You should not be coaching people and writing workouts with zero understanding of periodization, training stimulus, or how to peak for a race. 

Steve Magness put it best in a recent Instagram post:

“I've witnessed way too many health influencers say that we should do 8x1min on/off "as hard as you can go" or 8x10sec ALL OUT with 20 seconds rest. They don't understand what all out means. First, it's impossible. If you went all out from step one, fatigue would kick your ass and you'd be walking a few reps in.”

“We need to do a better job communicating the nuance of intensities and speed online. The online discourse is dominated by people who seem to think there are two modes of exercising: easy and very hard. And that's simply not true. It's all in how you manipulate the workout.”

In my opinion, running influencers have dumbed down the concept of running to the masses to make it more accessible, and they are doing a fantastic job at introducing the sport to new people. However, their advice is not personalized, and most of them aren’t certified coaches. The average person starts thinking, hey, maybe I can run 10 marathons back to back, because [insert influencer name] races every weekend. There’s a lack of understanding of proper training and recovery, which could increase peoples’ risk of injury. 

Running Is Evolving. How Can We Continue Supporting Athletes?

There’s no doubt that the landscape of running is evolving, and it’s driven largely by digital content, which is increasing awareness around the sport. Run clubs are skyrocketing, running brands are collaborating with high-fashion houses (think On x LOEWE), and celebrities like Travis Barker and Diplo are reaching millions of people who otherwise probably wouldn’t run a 5k via their run events. It’s a really exciting time to be a runner.

So it’s no wonder that the pro sphere feels left behind. Consumers are gravitating towards the recreational, fun side of running. They care less about what an elite athlete can do, because it’s simply not as relatable. Elite athletes are aspirational, but they struggle to bridge the gap between performance and accessibility. This is where sponsors can make a huge difference in helping athletes tell their stories and connect with consumers.

Here are just a few ways we can bridge that gap:

1. Athletes should negotiate content stipends within contracts. While I wish athletes could go back to the old-school way of simply competing without the expectation of creating content, it will never be that way again, unless social media disappears, which it won’t. To counteract these obligations, athletes should negotiate budgets for content in their contracts. If brands want stylized photos and Instagram reels, then they should pay for a photographer, videographer, and editing hours. 

2. Brands should invest in storytelling with athletes, especially on YouTube. The best example right now is Clayton Young’s YouTube channel, fully sponsored by Asics, which documents his journey to the Olympic Trials, to Paris, and beyond. It’s extremely well-done and doesn’t force any commercial angle, which actually strengthens the authenticity of the content and is a massive win for the brand. Emma Coburn’s ROLL Recovery video is also one of the most heartful pieces of content I’ve ever seen on a professional athlete, ever. It has over 500k views and totally humanizes Emma and her pro running background.

3. Brands should continue to develop emotionally-driven campaigns that are not based on performance. In working with pro athletes, one of the hardest things is relying on an athlete’s performance to tell a story. If they don’t make a team, or they get injured, it’s hard to leverage big moments. Maurten did an excellent job with this over the summer, featuring a written blog titled “The Road Out Of Ruin” on Molly Seidel and her battle with injury, as well as a very raw piece on Eliud Kipchoge. 

4. Race organizations and brands should take a deep, hard look at the people they work with. It’s very easy for brands to sign a content creator based on views and subscribers, without evaluating the actual quality of the content. It is the responsibility of race organizations and brands to spotlight people who are delivering value to the running community.

5. National and international governing bodies should find more ways to support athletes. I realize this is a loaded statement that requires a ton of policy change, but if USATF can increase prize purses, or create the equivalent of something like the NFLPA, athletes might feel more supported. The Run Elite Program out of Utah founded by Jared Ward is a great example of larger, financially-backed entities supporting runners and connecting them to the community. 

6. More media coverage, more hype. I actually think this is trending in a very positive direction. The more coverage track and field athletes can get, the better. With Netflix documentaries like Sprint and events like Athlos and Grand Slam Track, we are seeing professional running becoming more mainstream, which benefits the athletes by increasing their social following and general awareness. I’m excited to see this trend grow in 2025. 

In summary, running is here to stay, and so are running influencers. However, the conversation is shifting. As we near the end of the year when contracts are waiting to be renewed and budgets are being evaluated, a lot of decisions need to be made on how we elevate professional athletes and content creators. Let’s circle back in Boston 2025 and see where we’ve landed.