New perk! Get after it with local recommendations just for you. Discover nearby events, routes out your door, and hidden gems when you sign up for the Local Running Drop.
Running is booming. It was the single most uploaded activity on Strava in 2023 and has been trending upward year over year. With the sport’s rise comes an influx of media (yes, like RUN!) and creative content that covers, highlights, and exposes the sport from various angles.
I believe this is an overwhelmingly good thing. The democratization of sports media allows the running to be covered in more interesting, rich, and diverse ways. A study from UK-based sports management firm, Wasserman Group, showed that women’s sports coverage is up 15 percent but is driven primarily by social and emerging media, rather than old-school legacy brands. Platforms like Substack, Patreon, and new subscription channels on Instagram, podcasts, and YouTube (what stodgy legacy journalists often call “new media”) allow creators to monetize their work, which is great because it leads to a higher degree of professionalization. But there’s a fine line between good-faith content creators and hucksters, the latter lacking the necessary experience and expertise needed to back up what they’re selling and therefore lean into theatricality to disguise or distract from the superficiality of their takes.
Much of this growth is driven by fans, who, like content creators, have a strong emotional connection to the sport they’re covering and aren’t as interested in objective, unbiased storytelling. Democratization, diversity, and wage equity are all very positive outcomes of this immense media shift, but what do we lose when sports coverage—for example, endurance sports—becomes primarily fan service?
Fan Service Explained
Fan service was originally derived from Japanese manga and anime cultures, where creators would “service” their primarily male fans with gratuitous nudity or violence to gain a market edge. The term has since evolved to encapsulate a larger trend in media, movies, and television, where creators tweak storylines and approaches to appease the most ardent part of their fan base. Now, fan service references any creative pandering to the impulses of a vocal fan collective. The tail starts to wag the dog.
Fans are great. They’re an important part of any sport’s evolution and growth. In running, most fans of the sport are also regular participants, which contrasts with, say, football or baseball. They have a strong connection to the athletes, many of whom they’ve formed parasocial relationships with via social media or even out on the trails. One of the things that makes writing in the trail world so compelling is the investment of the fans. However, creating content based on the whims, interests, and desires of the most vocal of your fans rarely results in the best storytelling or journalism, particularly at a time when running—trail running especially—is shifting and changing. Hot takes might generate likes, clicks, and, yes, fans, but measured, well-reported journalism that ends in additional questions rarely does. The comments section is not “the community.”
The Rise of Subscription Platforms
While there is significant pressure, even in legacy media institutions like Outside, to generate clicks and convert subscribers, this is typically balanced with some ad revenue to balance incentives between ad dollars and subscribers. Having more than one writer, and heck, brand, under one roof means the work of getting said clicks and ad dollars is spread over more people, ideas, and perspectives. Unless a piece of work is specifically labeled “opinion,” it’s assumed the piece is based on a diverse slate of interviews and data sources. This model isn’t perfect and hasn’t always been as inclusive of certain voices and perspectives. But, to paraphrase the oft-repeated idiom, this model may be the worst form of media, and it might be the best we’ve got. Inevitably, any media that exists in a capitalist society is going to be somewhat beholden to the market. However, the ethics constraining legacy media prevent it from falling fully off the fan-service deep end.
The splintering of fans into niches, or as sports marketing expert Peter Abraham has called it, the “Nicheification of Sports” incentivizes fans to find a creator who best represents their voice and vision for the sport, and follow them. Writers and creators using platforms like Patreon and Substack will have to prioritize tending to their fan base. This phenomenon isn’t confined just to those platforms. Also, it shows up on all social media, podcasts, and any outlet that pairs monetary incentives with an algorithm programmed to deliver “more of the same” content to an audience.
While it’s tempting to assume a “if you build it they will come” strategy is adequate, any content creator who makes enough income to support themselves can tell you that tending to their fans, community, or patrons becomes a major part of the labor. Coverage is increasingly driven by personality and dogma. Balancing cultivating enough of a highly engaged audience–engaged enough to open their wallets to support you–with not becoming beholden to their whims. Influencers have major sway in the running industry, and brands pay them for positive coverage, chaining their narratives.
The Downsides of Fandom
Let’s say you have a podcast dedicated to an appreciation for Pop-Tarts. You’ve put out a few episodes with some success. If you were able to pull a few bucks from listeners, you’d be able to put even more time into the Pop-Cast! So, you dive into the metrics. You notice that episodes, where you give airtime to competing toaster pastry brands don’t perform particularly well. But, episodes with your spiciest snack takes about why Pop-Tarts are the greatest, and really, only snack worth eating, perform really well. Your episodes where you interview huge names with mega followings in the convenience confectionary space perform best. So, in order to most effectively monetize your pursuit, engage the fan base, and take the Pop-Cast to the next level, you do more of what people want and less of what they don’t. This is how fan service starts.
It’s not enough in this day and age to just have followers. To really scale up any media pursuit, you need to have fans. People who like what you’re saying enough to shell out five, 10, or even 50 dollars for your work each month. When the most die-hard and vocal fans have the biggest say and greatest sway via subscriptions, it can warp the content you’re willing to make. Echo chambers can become even echo-ey-er. Content creators get pigeonholed into narrowly defined personas, forced to repeat the same on-brand messaging over and over again, lest they be punished by the algorithm or, worse – their audience.
The cadence of publication has exploded in the digital age. Since I started working at Trail Runner, we’ve increased our output by over 300 percent. The algorithm demands a high and often unsustainable output to satisfy its needs. And while an audience might be satisfied with a lower output, a fan base needs constant feeding and care. Our process involves several rounds of interviewing, editing, review, and fact-checking a production work that slows down the process (in a good way!). Influencers and content creators just working to get their newsletter, blog post, or podcast out the door are beholden to no such process. What you gain in efficiency, you lose in quality.
Podcasts will be incentivized to platform guests who can further grow their audience rather than voices with the best story to tell. Newsletters will be incentivized not to challenge their subscriber base, but to increase their output and push more and more and more of the same content their fans know and love. Creators will be increasingly hesitant to alienate their base, placing the primacy of creation on “what people want.” On platforms like Patreon or pay-to-play social media, creators will have to give more of their time and attention to engaging with fans than creating the work. The primacy will increasingly be placed on the fan’s wants and desires over the work or even the reality of the world we live in. If that sounds extreme, think on how news networks shifted their storytelling to reflect what viewers wanted rather than what any objective evidence portrayed. If we want to continue to support and grow the sport, with media as an important part of that growth, we need to make sure that creators and storytellers are supported in ways that don’t rely on a ravenous fan base.
I love newsletters. I subscribe to more than I can reasonably read, and I enjoy that folks whose work hasn’t been supported by traditional media can thrive elsewhere. I also love podcasts and listen to them on most runs and dishwashing sessions. I love Patreon and have used that tool to support important environmental reporting initiatives and enjoy following writers and creators there. I love that I can use my money to directly support work I care about, but I also love supporting work that isn’t totally focused on caring for me.
Growing a fandom and stewarding a sport can sometimes be at odds with one another. Fair, nuanced reporting and wonky deep dives won’t earn you a ton of clicks, followers, or fans. But it’s important for holding power accountable and telling stories that matter—-rather than just repeatedly platforming the same stories over and over. And while I appreciate media that’s primarily about celebrating athletes and having fun, I also crave complex stories that challenge my opinions and beliefs, even when it’s uncomfortable.
If Nelly tells you “it’s getting hot in here”, it’s not your job as a journalist to take off all your clothes, it’s your job as a journalist to look out the window and find out if it’s true
— gilmour (@gilmgilmgilm) March 14, 2022
Apologies for citing a tweet in an appeal for more professional running coverage, but I think the sentiment pretty perfectly encapsulates the current running media landscape. Lots of folks rushing to take off their clothes by providing quick-turn, hot-take coverage without bothering to check if it’s true or not because what matters less than the truth is in the “like and subscribe” economy is what audiences want. Not all media needs to be hard-hitting journalism, but it does feel like the single-source, take-driven personality media bubble might be about to burst.
While I’d love to see the entire digital publishing industry change overnight to reflect a new preference for wage equity, quality over quantity, and unimpeachable ethics, I’m not holding my breath. Legacy media should learn from the success of influencers and new media to diversify their voices and perspectives and see how we can be more responsive to audiences without compromising our ethics.
As individuals, we need to keep our eyes trained on the deep “why” of what we consume. Do I like this because it makes a good point, or because it makes me feel good? Do I like this because it makes me reevaluate my biases, or does it just affirm them? Much of our modern landscape is powered by the simple push of a “like” button, when it would be better off with a “this challenged me to think deeply, and now I have more questions than when I started” button. The creator economy thrives on provoking the most outrageous emotions possible, feelings over facts.
Audiences don’t have to file obediently in line. While we can’t change some macro factors that contributed to this lopsided attention economy, we can partially help restabilize it. We can all start by investigating our own preferences and desires and supporting voices that challenge our preconceived beliefs and ideas. We can pay attention to our attention and spend that precious attention more wisely.