Who's Actually Betting on Trail Running?
Nine publicly visible brands. Over $100B in combined revenues. One framework for telling the believers from the dabblers.
Nike put ACG on Olympic athletes, decked out the Western States champion in a prototype cooling kit, and spent $225,000 to sponsor major prize purses for Broken Arrow and Gorge Waterfalls. Yet the company discloses $0 in trail or outdoor revenue and barely mentions ACG on its earnings calls.
Meanwhile, Amer Sports — parent company for Salomon, Arc’teryx, and others — separately reports financials for its Outdoor Performance category, a $2.4B division that’s still growing. What a company puts on its income statement is a choice, and that choice tells you whether trail is a real bet or a drop in the marketing expense bucket.
When we think of incumbents in trail running, it’s natural to group them all together in a category of big brands. The reality is more uneven. Nike alone is roughly twice the size of Amer Sports, Deckers (HOKA), On, ASICS, and Brooks combined. The binary framing of incumbents versus insurgents still holds, but the incumbents themselves don’t behave as a single coherent category.
Public filings let us see the true scale of each brand, including which of them are actually betting on trail versus just dabbling. It’s as important to read the filings as it is to read the press releases.
The Trail Incumbents
Nine large companies dominate the trail running landscape in terms of scale:
Nike (ACG) | NKE 0.00%↑ | $46.3B annual revenues
VF Corporation (The North Face, Altra) | VFC 0.00%↑ | $9.6B
Amer Sports (Salomon, Arc’teryx) | AS 0.00%↑ | $6.6B
Deckers (HOKA) | DECK 0.00%↑ | $5.0B3
On | ONON 0.00%↑ | $3.4B4
Wolverine Worldwide (Saucony, Merrell) | WWW 0.00%↑ | $1.9B
Brooks | Not publicly listed | ~$1.5B5
With a more than 30x spread between Nike’s annual revenue ($46.3B) and Brooks (~$1.5B estimated), “incumbent” stops being a useful category title. These companies share almost nothing in common financially, considering Brooks is 100% focused on running while Nike serves a dozen sports across multiple brands under one umbrella.
So which of these companies is truly dedicated to trail running (or to running in general)? It’s tempting to focus on the flashy signings and press releases, but marketing dollars only show who wants the trail story. The income statements and earnings transcripts show who’s actually prioritizing trail and outdoor as a core part of the business.
Concentration vs. Conviction
Mapping trail incumbents by concentration (% of parent company revenue in running/outdoor) and conviction (how visibly they invest in trail) reveals which large companies view trail running as a long-term strategy and how mature their investments are today.
Conviction is estimated using four signals: athlete signings, race sponsorships, earnings call mentions, and trail-specific product release cadence. Each brand was scored 1-10 based on equal weighting of these signals, drawing from publicly available information. These are judgment scores grounded in public evidence, not precise measurements.
None of this perfectly encapsulates each company’s behind-closed-doors strategy, but their public actions and investor communications are a useful proxy for where their priorities lie.
High concentration / high conviction (“All In”) — Salomon, On, Brooks, HOKA
Running/outdoor is a core focus of the parent and they’re visibly investing in trail running. These are the true believers, evidenced by what they say, what they do, and where they spend their money.
Low concentration / high conviction (“Placing Bets”) — Nike ACG, adidas TERREX
Trail is a rounding error to the parent company, but they’re spending visibly on athletes, races, and trail running products.
High concentration / low conviction (“Coasting”) — Saucony, Merrell, Arc’teryx, ASICS, Altra, The North Face
Running/outdoor is a core to the parent company, but the trail-specific investment still lags, at least publicly.
Low concentration / low conviction (“Sitting Out”)
This quadrant is empty, and that itself is a finding. Nearly every publicly disclosed brand that touches running is doing something to compete in trail, whether through structural focus or deliberate marketing bets. There’s no neutral position in this market.
The sharpest read from these brands isn’t just their raw spend on athletes, race sponsorships, or new product lines. It’s also what they put on the page and where they focus on earnings calls. A company that segments its income statement by brands or categories signals something fundamentally different than one without that granularity that focuses elsewhere.
Takeaways
(1) Visibility isn’t a substitute for commitment.
Nike ACG has made recent splashes through athlete signings (Jenn Lichter, Adam Merry, Yao Miao), race sponsorships (Gorge Waterfalls, Broken Arrow), and product releases (the Radical Air shirt is finally coming soon). Still, trail is a drop in the bucket for a company Nike’s size. The raw spend shows an increased commitment to the sport, but true conviction would mean a larger % bet.
As it stands, Nike’s return to trail via ACG functions more like a call option. If trail continues to grow, Nike can scale its investment to build out the line. If the ROI underwhelms, the company can cut its losses without ever committing more than a sliver of total revenue.
(2) The income statement structure reveals priority better than any press release.
Press releases spin news as public marketing. A company’s income statement is a transparent signal to investors about what it actually values and how it runs the business.
Amer Sports separately reports its Outdoor Performance segment (~36% of total revenues).
Deckers gives HOKA its own segment with quarterly granularity.
Meanwhile, Nike doesn’t separately disclose ACG (likely because it’s still relatively nascent), and adidas folds its Outdoor segment into several other categories.
What gets broken out as a segment is a choice, and that choice signals part of a company’s near-term strategy.
(3) Conviction leads revenue by 18-36 months.
Amer Sports’ earnings-call mentions of Salomon rose starting in 2022–23, while the brand’s revenue crossed $2B in 2025. Nike’s ACG is early in that curve now. Watch what gets talked about, then look for more granular revenue reporting to follow with a lag. At $46B in revenue and $9.2B cash on hand (more than many incumbents generate in total revenue), Nike could invest in trail at a scale no other brand could match, which makes them worth watching closely in the coming years.
These three takeaways combine into a single, sharper bet about who keeps investing through the next cycle.
The Bet
The framework reveals a bet that’s easy to miss. Concentrated brands, those that are fully run-focused or that separately report running/outdoor segments, can’t pull back on trail investments without it showing up in consolidated results. Diversified parents like Nike and adidas can dial trail spending up or down without materially affecting their financials.
The high-conviction brands are the canaries in the coal mine. They signal whether trail running continues to grow and remain a profitable category. Watch closely if Nike starts disclosing more on ACG, or breaks it out as a separate segment. That would be a clear sign the relaunch is yielding real financial results.
I previously wrote about how “the middle” of the trail economy is where all the action is. These giant brands set the financial baseline. Together, they’re the map for where the industry is headed.
If they mention trail running, the outdoor category, or one of their trail brands on an earnings call, that’s a signal. If they break out a trail or outdoor segment in their reporting, that’s a bigger one. If there’s a lot of marketing noise without either, that’s a tell.
Announcements and press releases tell you what a brand wants you to believe. The filings can tell you what they actually believe themselves.
The Aid Station
Miscellaneous quick hits. Trail style. Actionable, digestible, essential.
📖 Recommended Weekend Reading — Kilian and Jeff Mogavero
Two recent Substack articles I really enjoyed. Kilian Jornet, one of the greatest to ever do it, reflects on a recent flare-up of an old injury and how it’s shaping his prep for upcoming races, including Western States. I appreciate his reframing of the situation as “an experiment,” planning to toe the WSER start line with “the same curiosity to see what the body can do.”
Next, Jeff Mogavero’s recap of his WSER prep, which he frames as “becoming BFFs with the Western States course” during a WSER training camp. This quote really stuck with me and has me intrigued to see how Jeff approaches the race:
“During the race, I can calm my mind and body knowing I’m running with a friend. The course and I can work together to squeeze the most out of myself.”
🎥 Hans Troyer’s “Western States Build | Ep. 1 - The Miles Don’t Run Themselves”
“The Kid” is back with another vlog, with this one kicking off the behind-the-scenes coverage of his build to Western States. Looking forward to more athlete content in the lead up to the race, which is somehow only three weeks away!
👀 All Eyes Turning Toward TrailCon!
TrailCon just released its full schedule, including more than 20 panels, 60+ vendors and nonprofits, and three action-packed days focused on trail running. I’m stoked that I’ll be there in person to take it all in, followed by what I can only imagine will be another legendary edition of the Western States Endurance Run. Looking forward to meeting up with other folks who will be in town for the event.
adidas reports financials in EUR. Revenues estimated by converting €24.8B reported revenues from EUR to USD.
Estimated. ASICS is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and reports in Japanese Yen. Annualized revenue in USD is converted from JPY using estimated exchange rates.
Based on FY 2025 financials to allow same-year comparison for other brands. Deckers recently released its FY 2026 financials, reporting $5.47B in revenues, a 9.6% year-over-year increase.
On reports financial figures in Swiss Francs (CHF). Revenues estimated by converting from CHF to USD.
Brooks is not a publicly traded and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. Annual revenues are not disclosed, but annual revenue growth rates are. The annual revenue figure is estimated using previously report revenue figures and publicly-disclosed annual growth rates since.
Wow what a piece of research. Answered so many of the questions I had around true investment into the sport vs "trailwashing"
At a glance, I thought you meant betting on athletes like horse racing. Now THAT would be interesting