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Leagues and Governing Bodies

For Wittenberg, a startup with brand power

Mary Wittenberg is leaving New York Road Runners to launch a new business, but she’s hardly a startup underdog in her new role.

The veteran CEO will join nascent Virgin Sport on Tuesday, where she’ll be expected to leverage the Richard Branson-built brand’s worldwide equity and assets into a serious competitor in the burgeoning amateur fitness events industry.

Mary Wittenberg built a year-round schedule of events for the New York Road Runners.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
“It was really intriguing to me to start from scratch, but with the great platform of Virgin,” Wittenberg said, later adding she has “the best of both worlds.”

Wittenberg, 52, grew the New York running club into a major force by building a year-round schedule of events with diverse distances and locales, in turn allowing sponsors such as Airbnb and TCS to buy more sustained engagements with audiences. The nonprofit reported a $2.5 million surplus on nearly $73 million in revenue in 2013.

Virgin believes it can do the same, but on a global scale, allowing even more extensive selling arrangements and cross-promotions. Wittenberg and Virgin Group partner Evan Lovell disclosed few specific plans in an interview, but the assets at her disposal include Virgin Active, a chain of 300 health clubs in Europe, Asia and South Africa; Virgin brands’ existing sponsorships of the London Marathon and London Triathlon; and Virgin Pulse, a maker of wearable biometric tools.

Those assets are catnip to would-be race sponsors, said Vince O’Brien, senior vice president of global sports and entertainment consulting at GMR Marketing, who knows race day itself is a bad time to reach customers compared with the preparation months.

“You have to be part of the whole journey during the process, and then obviously, hopefully afterward,” O’Brien said. “If they’re going to create this lifestyle platform, this is going to be a year-round thing.”

Virgin follows Disney, Nike and the Life Time Fitness gym chain into the events business, along with Providence Equity Partners, which acquired the Ironman Triathlon series in 2008 and has since spurred a big growth push. The Competitor Group is continuing to expand its Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon brand as well.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

“Mary saw running as a sport that hadn’t peaked — and she was right. Her goals are always to do bigger events, and more events, and to build out programs to get more people running.”
— George Hirsch, chairman,
New York Road Runners

“Mary made a huge impact growing the sport of running on a global stage and making it accessible to the young, old, first-timers and seasoned veterans. She raised the bar on corporate partner engagement and has introduced key nonendemic sponsors to the sport of running.”
— Tracey Russell, CEO,
Asics Los Angeles Marathon

“She would think two steps ahead of how every conclusion could help elevate the sport of running and inspire people to be the best versions of themselves. That always seemed to be her barometer, constant improvement and betterment, for the good of the sport.”
— Tim Hadzima, general manager,
Abbott World Marathon Majors

“When you spent long days with her in meetings, you see how much the sport means to her. She’s a top, smart person, but you can see her compassion and her love for running is what drives her.”
— Carey Pinkowski, executive race director,
Bank of America
Chicago Marathon

“Mary was unstinting in sharing everything that she has learned with her race with the [World Marathon Majors] so that the group could be more informed and more effective.”
— Tom Grilk, executive director,
Boston Athletic Association

— Compiled by Fred Dreier

Life Time may be the best insight into Virgin’s likely sales strategy, O’Brien said. Its sales team emphasizes the connection available to gym members who also participate in the events.

O’Brien speculated that Virgin Sport, which launches with no events in its portfolio, would target the half-marathon distance for acquisitions. Research indicates the greatest demand from runners is at the 13.1-mile distance, and there’s less saturation there compared with the large full marathons. “It’s very hard for a city to run more than one major marathon,” he said.

Wittenberg said Virgin Sport would look to absorb the leadership of acquired events in the early going but otherwise declined to elaborate on acquisition plans.

Virgin Sport will start with just three people on its staff full time, including business development lead Freddie Andrewes, based in the U.K., and Victoria Brumfield, who will handle operations from Virgin’s offices in New York. They intend to keep headquarters small and develop more robust teams to run programming and scout deals in each market.

Wittenberg is actively looking for a chief marketing officer. They’re looking for someone strong in consumer business who is also “fun and highly, highly creative and innovative, because obviously the huge opportunity here is with the Virgin brand,” she said.

Virgin is joining an industry that’s attracted outsized attention from private equity investors, entrepreneurs and participants in the last decade.

Between 1990 and 2013, the number of Americans who finished an organized running event quadrupled from 4.8 million to 19 million, according to a 2014 Running USA survey. Women, in particular, drove the surge, making up 57 percent of those race finishers in 2013 compared with 25 percent in 1990. Cycling and running tend to be especially popular among highly educated, high-earning professionals.

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