New Balance in training for NYC Marathon

New Balance has already sponsored New York Road Runners races, but departing sponsor Asics will go out big at its final TCS New York City Marathon. Photo by: NYRR (2)

New York Road Runners is juggling two shoe sponsors during its biggest weeks of the year.

The Nov. 6 race marks Asics’ last turn in a quarter-century-long relationship with the TCS New York City Marathon. Asics lost a renewal to New Balance last year, but the Japanese brand isn’t going away quietly in its swan song, launching a new charitable activation, bringing top sponsored athletes to race festivities, and preparing a comprehensive media buy.

But behind the scenes, New Balance is simultaneously diving headfirst into its 10-year, $90 million deal with the running club. While most rights don’t kick in until Jan. 1, the shoemaker has already sponsored two smaller NYRR races and will open a co-branded retail running store in Manhattan’s Columbus Circle district in December. New Balance has no rights to the marathon itself until next year.

Despite the crowded transition, all parties say they’re working together heading into the race. There’s a lot of activity, said Sarah Cummins, head of business development and strategic partnerships for the running club, but the boundaries between activating a single event and ramping up a comprehensive partnership are clearly defined.

“We put out notices to New Balance that we’re going to be behind the sun for the next few weeks on the marathon,” Cummins said.

New Asics America CEO Gene McCarthy, who started one month before the 2015 marathon, is streamlining the brand’s sponsorship portfolio and embracing original events where it has more control, he said. Meanwhile, NYRR has repackaged the shoe/apparel category as a year-round deal covering dozens of races, which tripled the cost from Asics’ roughly $3 million annual price tag.

While it’s walking away from the sponsorship, Asics is showing new energy during its last year with NYRR, Cummins said. Under Roeya Vaughan, its new vice president of marketing and the first person to hold that title for Asics in four years, the brand launched an “Extra Mile” campaign to donate shoes to the nonprofit Girls on the Run based on marathon training results. It did not reprise its “Largest Selfie Stick in the World” stunt from last year, but will advertise heavily throughout New York during race week.

Also, Asics helped with one of the marathon’s big athlete-relations wins, landing sponsored triathlete Gwen Jorgensen, gold medalist at the Rio Olympics, to run her first marathon. McCarthy also will bring four-time NYC marathon champion Bill Rodgers to a gala event during marathon weekend. Asics-sponsored track and field stars Jarrion Lawson, Queen Harrison, Diego Estrada and John Gregorek are confirmed for the gala and other appearances during race week, and Candace Hill and Lolo Jones also may come.

“We’re very gracious and proud of our accomplishments over the past 25 years,” McCarthy said. “We might be slightly nostalgic and work with some people who are NYC marathon favorites from the past, just to highlight the long-term partnership.”

McCarthy said Asics wants to leave on a high note to maintain good relations with NYRR and the running community, even as it seeks a broader market for its shoes and clothing.

New Balance’s name won’t be anywhere near the course on race day, but it has 12 management-level staff, and their teams, working on various aspects of the NYRR relationship, said Tom Carleo, New Balance director of running. The most urgent is the opening of the co-branded retail shop in midtown Manhattan, slated for December. There, NYRR and New Balance will have a permanent retail location and hub for pre-race activities.

Along with sponsorship rights, New Balance becomes the full-time licensee of NYRR-branded shoes and apparel, and will produce more than 300,000 Sport-Tek race participant T-shirts each year for every NYRR race.

New Balance also will manage the back end of NYRR’s e-commerce site. Carleo said the shoemaker will treat New York both as a crucial market but also as a salesroom for the world, noting the strong European participation in the marathon. That’s all on top of more conventional sponsorship duties.

“I’ve never had anything in running as comprehensive as this,” Carleo said. “Even major team deals are bigger in many cases in terms of the dollars spent or the exposure they get, but I’ve never been part of something that truly has a 12-month cadence to the partnership.”