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Monster news this week in trail athlete free agency – Jazmine Lowther signs with Arc’teryx and Cat Bradley signs with Satisfy, moves for both women that seem to align incredibly well with the personal brands they’ve cultivated. Those moves were quickly followed by the long-awaited announcement of Riley Brady signing with Nike, while Sabrina Stanley made a historic announcement signing with OnlyFans. Today, we are going to explore these two very different partnerships and what these moves mean for the present and future of brand/athlete collaboration.
Riley Brady was on the podcast two weeks ago where we discussed their free agent status and where Riley conveyed a personal philosophy about the importance of holding the line, not settling for deals that don’t fully reflect an athlete’s value. After two enormous Golden Ticket victories, I imagine Riley’s patience paid off with negotiation leverage, something that can’t be underestimated in the contract dance between brand and talent.
As I understand it, the person doing the negotiation on Riley’s behalf was Kelly Newlon, the rising star of trail athlete representation. Back in my day, agents were nonexistent in trail running because they were simply unnecessary – nobody was making enough money to live, so nobody could justify outsourcing their business affairs to a professional. Suffice to say, times have changed.
In closing new partnerships for both Riley Brady and Tara Dower, I see Kelly Newlon’s recent impact as another datapoint that the trail running economy is reaching new levels of maturation. In the next few years, I suspect athlete representation will evolve from cottage industry to table stakes, as the top athletes and their agents come to better appreciate their market value and commercial impact. And I suspect Kelly will remain on the leading edge.
Outside of engaging professional management, Riley’s deal looks pretty straightforward on its face. What’s refreshing to me – at the risk of using a tired word – is that the partnership feels authentic. Riley has been winning races in Nike footwear without the obligation of a contract. Clearly Nike products were critical in helping Riley to explode into the upper echelon of the sport. What a perfect foundation upon which genuine, long-term collaboration can emerge. Kudos to the Swoosh for landing the most coveted free agent on the market. I can’t wait to buy a pair of the forthcoming AirBradys. 😉
Now, let’s spend a few minutes on Sabrina Stanley and her deal with OnlyFans – a much less traditional partnership model.
First, let’s be honest and acknowledge the reality of the OnlyFans business. Yes, it is a platform that empowers creators to directly monetize their audiences through subscription. While OnlyFans is used by fitness trainers and influencers, the majority of creators on the platform are “adult entertainers” whose content is extremely NSFW. Potentially out of a desire to expand its addressable market, or to diversify beyond the content format that drives the business, OnlyFans has begun sponsoring athletes, using a model that’s different and therefore harder for me to understand.
How might OnlyFans hope to leverage Sabrina Stanley, a two-time Hardrock champion, to drive business outcomes? Putting my speculation hat on, I suspect Sabrina will be training and racing in OnlyFans branded apparel, similar to Swedish pro mountain biker, Emma Olofsson. She will also likely be expected to share behind-the-scenes content and training insights with a paying fanbase, using the OnlyFans subscription software, splitting revenue with the platform.
So, in evaluating the potential for this to be a successful two-way partnership, the question becomes, how big is Sabrina’s paying fanbase? Is there a major brand hurdle to cross in persuading people to pay for Sabrina’s content? In other words, as a happily married dad who’s also a Sabrina Stanley fan, would I download an app filled with x-rated content in order to check-in on Sabrina’s training?
Overall, I appreciate the idea and innovative approach to being a professional athlete. I’ve talked about building the “Patreon for outdoor” on the Galaxy Brain segment of Second Nature many times – effectively the playbook OnlyFans is running here. I think there’s clearly an opportunity for athletes to monetize their fanbases better, delivering knowledge and high-touch experiences to people who share their passion, potentially creating less reliance on traditional sponsorships over the longterm. To me, this is an exciting step in that direction even if I have personal hesitation about the OnlyFans brand.
Acknowledging my lack of insight into the deal, I’ve messaged with Sabrina’s agent, hoping to talk about it on the pod in the coming weeks. Let’s see how it shakes out.
Miscellaneous Stuff
- Strava File Of The Week – David Roche dropped a banger workout last Wednesday. His patented 16x1min on/off with some “steady” miles on either end. In this case, “steady” means “fast af.” It’s funny, Riley Brady – who’s coached by David – mentioned this workout on the podcast as being a bread and butter session en route to their Black Canyon CR.
As an honorable mention SFotW, I need to throw kudos to Garrett Corcoran who blasted a 2:15 marathon last weekend. One of the great characters in the sport, Garrett also has WHEELS. - Chuckanut Fantasy – The 31st running of the Chuckanut 50k takes place on Saturday in Bellingham, WA. I’m very excited to experience this North American classic for the first time. As usual, the fields are very strong with many top pros using the race as their season opener. Go play fantasy!
- The Big Alta Watch – In two weeks time, we’ll be co-directing the first of our two racing events in 2025 alongside our partners at Daybreak Racing. The Big Alta returns for the second edition, hosted literally in my neighborhood on the trails I run everyday. There is quite a strong field assembling in both the 50k & 28k. Can’t wait to welcome everyone to Marinwood, CA!
- Katie Goes Cross – Katie Schide has RANGE. Winning the two biggest 100 mile races in the world in 2024, last weekend, Katie finished 3rd in the French Cross Country Championship – a race of only 5.6 miles. The cool thing is you can see fellow trail star Blandine L’Hirondel not far behind Katie in her IG photos. Check out the strava here.
- Ryan is a Boulder Boy – Freetrail’s own Ryan Thrower was a guest on the Boulder Boys podcast. In town for a film project, Ryan got called into the studio to rap out with the squad. A very fun listen.
- Cool New Brand Alert – For many months, I’ve been keeping my eyes on Portal – a cool new brand in the endurance space, surfaced to me by several fellow brand/product nerds. After much anticipation, they launched this week. We’ll be hosting the founders on Second Nature in the coming weeks.
- Satisfy Reveals The Rocker – Speaking of cool brands, Satisfy officially revealed their first footwear product on Instagram today. Mile & Stone also published an interviewwith new Satisfy CEO, Antoine Auvinet. With much anticipation around the launch of the shoe, it’s cool to get a deeper view into their strategy and vision.
- Jim Goes HAM – A few fun clips emerged from Jim Walmsley’s win and CR at the Mesquite Canyon 50k over the weekend. A successful tuneup for Chianti by UTMB, it appears the GOAT is on form!
- Courtney’s Season Opener – The Run Through Time Marathon in Salida has long been an early season rust buster for Colorado trail runners. Just down the road from her Leadville home, Courtney opened her 2025 season with a winning time of 3:30:51. Jeshurun Small won the men’s race 2:58:49. Full results here.
- Cocodona Film – Late to the party, but if you haven’t seen the trailer for The Chase, get ready to run through a brick wall. Holy smokes, I can’t wait to see this film documenting the 2024 Cocodona 250. I’m hoping to attend a screening at the San Francisco Running Company in a few weeks.