It’s Gotta Be More Than the Shoes
A marathon milestone has us thinking about Nike, gut health, and ... clogs?
Here are six sports business takeaways from Sabastian Sawe’s milestone-shattering London Marathon performance…
Sportico Story of the Weekend 👟: On Sunday, not one but two men broke the once unfathomable two-hour marathon mark. Sabastian Sawe won the London Marathon in 1:59:30. Yomif Kejelcha claimed second with a 1:59:41 time in his official marathon debut. And they both did it wearing Adidas.
Advances in shoe technology over the last 10 years brought a “Sub-2” time into the realm of possibility. Sara Germano fully lays out how we get from there to here.
Non-Sportico Story of the Week 💨: Rachel Bachman delivered a prescient story last week on the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 31, which the runners wore for the first time in London. At 3.4 ounces, it weighs less than half as much as an average running shoe.
A limited number of the shoes went on sale at 10 a.m. ET Monday for $500 a pair. The broader brand lift from Sunday, which also saw Adidas athlete Tigst Assefa break her own women-only world record, helped the company’s stock rise 1.5% as the markets opened.2
What it Means for Nike 😜: Of course, you can’t mention a Sub-2 marathon without also talking about Nike. The Swoosh spent millions on the concept from 2015-2020, a push that culminated in Eliud Kipchoge breaking the barrier in a very unofficial and manufactured way—utilizing 41 pacers, a wind-resistant V formation and a car with a laser. In running circles that whole quest was widely considered a marketing gimmick, and Sawe cracking the two-hour mark wearing shoes made by Nike’s biggest rival was catnip for the internet.
A lot has been written about Nike’s recent struggles—bad leadership, an overemphasis on digital, the “China problem,” etc.—all of which have undoubtedly contributed to a stock that’s lost 66% of its value in the last five years. But we see a much more fundamental issue.
Nike has seemingly crossed that threshold at the confluence of ubiquity, success and complacency where it has become cooler to hate on the company than to stan it.3 Nike gets criticized for being too woke, and for being too exclusionary. For having products that are too cheap, and for products that are too expensive. Its marketing, once the envy of virtually every other consumer brand in the world, no longer inspires. That’s the real fear if I’m Nike. For decades Nike was the most aspirational brand in sports, now it has crested that mountain, and the other side appears dark, hostile and full of trendy online hate.
What Bothers Us a Little 🙄: All that said, don’t let #SportsBusinessBrain distract from the real achievement. We appreciated that neither ESPN’s nor The Athletic’s first stories on the race results appeared to mention Adidas.
Sawe has been setting records for years. He conquered the field in London in 2025 too. He has run more than 125 miles per week in the lead-up to the race and has the potential to go even faster later this year, according to his agent.
He deserves just as much facetime as his sneaker.
What We Still Don’t Fully Understand 🧪: Less visible than the footwear (and less well-marketed than “super shoes”), there has also been a revolution in how endurance athletes refuel during events.4 Chemical advances now help them consume twice as many grams of carbs per hour, without upsetting their stomachs. As performance coach Steve Magness put it, without getting too technical, “In many ways, we’ve shortened the marathon.”
The race to beat the two-hour mark has clearly inspired a number of tech advances. It also seems to have injected more money into the distance running economy. That means more investment in recruiting top athletes and more of the world’s best focusing on marathons earlier in their career.
Sawe likely doesn’t set the record Sunday if he’s not pushed by a pack of other elite runners, both throughout the competition calendar and during the run through London. I’m fascinated to see whether the sport can build on the momentum of its most recent breakthrough, or whether that financial focus will slowly drift to taking down the next marketable milestone in human performance.
What We Love 😍: After the race, Guinness World Records celebrated Sawe’s achievement on X. About an hour later, they honored Matt Batchelor, who “ran the fastest marathon dressed as a three dimensional toy (male) in 4:19:23.”
The Sun tallied 38 records in total broken Sunday including “Longest scarf knitted whilst running a marathon” (5.59 meters) and “Fastest marathon wearing clogs (male)” (06:27:17). Maybe that’s the next frontier for Nike to take on.
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
Soon it will take longer to say the names of these shoes than to run 26.2 miles in them.
This happens with athletes, too. And actors, and musicians, and sports teams, and even MrBeast. Unless you’re Dolly Parton, it’s basically impossible to be successful and universally liked forever.
If you’re curious about this, it appears Sawe was using Maurten’s “Bicarb” system.