Outdoor footwear maker Merrell has signed a deal to become the presenting sponsor of the Tough Mudder obstacle course series. The deal creates the first presenting sponsor in Tough Mudder’s six-year history and constitutes Merrell’s “largest, by far, investment we’ve made in any partnership,” President Jim Gabel said. The event series will now be called Tough Mudder Presented by Merrell. Merrell’s rights also extend to a newly announced line of five-mile races, which will kick off with nine events in '16 under the banner “TM Half Presented by Merrell.” Financial terms were not disclosed. Both sides described the deal as a multiyear agreement, but indicated terms will be revisited after the '17 season. “We’re very clear about what the next two years look like, but we wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t something we thought would be going much longer than that,” Tough Mudder co-Founder & CEO Will Dean said. Merrell, a division of Michigan-based Wolverine Worldwide, will interlock its brand with Tough Mudder on a newly developed Merrell shoe called the “All Out Crush” trail running shoe, designed with the messy obstacle course in mind, and Merrell will also be featured on event finisher T-shirts and headbands. The partners will also collaborate to build a new obstacle for the courses, which already include ice, fire and electricity-enhanced features. Tough Mudder ran more than 60 events last year with 550,000 participants in the U.S., Australia, Europe and Mexico. Gabel said the deal does not include any retail guarantees for the shoe. But Tough Mudder events often destroy shoes worn by first-timers, so execs are optimistic they can use the event platform to sell specially designed trail shoes. “One simple measurement for us,” Gabel said. “At the end of every Tough Mudder, there is a huge stack of shoes that are discarded. Our goal should be that there is no stack of shoes, because everyone’s wearing the right footwear. If we’ve done our job right, then people are wearing Merrell products designed for Tough Mudder and that stack becomes zero.”
MUD ON THE TIRES: Merrell had held title sponsor rights to the smaller Down & Dirty Mud Run through '14 and partnerships with other events, but has ended those affiliations in the U.S. and is winding them down overseas. Tough Mudder, whose existing sponsors include Under Armour, AB InBev’s Shock Top beer brand and Radisson hotels, has never had a title or presenting sponsor. Talks with Merrell did not start with that in mind, Dean said, but evolving to that level over the course of about six months. No agencies were involved. Dean: “The fact that Merrell itself clearly has a very similar mission to ourselves -- helping people live outdoors, living a healthy lifestyle, but not necessarily pushing themselves to the point where they have frostbite on every single finger, and being part of a community -- was key.”
