The Billion-Dollar Race: What Marathon Organizers Don’t Want You to Know About the Explosive Business Booming Behind the Finish Line
Ever wonder how a dusty old footrace that started over two millennia ago morphed into a billion-dollar branding bonanza? Picture this: a lone Greek courier, Pheidippides, pounding the pavement with a message of victory, collapsing as history was made. Fast forward through centuries, and that epic run has exploded into a global phenomenon, evolving far beyond just a test of endurance—it’s turned into the ultimate storytelling stage for brands hungry to connect. Today, marathons aren’t just races—they’re year-round marketing goldmines attracting over a million applicants for events like the London Marathon alone, fueled by shifting cultural vibes around health, community, and identity. But here’s the kicker—while marathon fields swell with eager runners, the real opportunity for brands lies in joining the story authentically, capturing that emotional pulse from newbie joggers to elite record breakers. Dive into how this ancient challenge became the slickest playground for business giants and disruptors alike, tapping into everything from stellar athlete feats to community spirit and clever sponsor activations that keep the momentum charging. Ready to lace up and learn the secrets behind marathon marketing’s unstoppable surge? LEARN MORE
Marathons have ballooned into a nearly year-round brand opportunity. Kate Demolder explores how the gruelling events have become big business.
According to legend, or more specifically the historian Herodotus, the world’s first marathon took place in Greece in 490BC when the courier Pheidippides ran from the site of the Battle of Marathon to Athens with the message of ‘Nike’ (Victory) before promptly collapsing from exhaustion.
Some 2,500 years later, the feat was revived for the inaugural 1896 Olympic Games in Athens. And one year after that, the Boston Marathon, the first of its kind, saw 15 runners race across a 24.5-mile dirt course.
Today, marathon applications are more sophisticated endeavours and are surging in popularity year-on-year. Applications for this year’s London Marathon exceeded 1.3 million, making it the largest mass-participation sporting event in history.
Closer to home, a record 47,000 applications were received for the Dublin 2026 ballot, causing another event peak.This draw to run can be linked to a few modern values, experts say.
Health has emerged as a modern status signifier, celebrity endorsements come by way of stars including Harry Styles, and the desire for community has grown ever larger post-pandemic.
“People are drawn to running not only for the physical challenge, but for the feeling, the community and the stories around it,” says Stephan Scholten, VP of Product at Adidas. “That emotional layer is now a major part of why the sport keeps expanding.”
Running also typically booms following big societal challenges, according to David O’Leary, the general manager of the Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon.
“In the past they were typically economic shocks, because the thing about running is that you don’t need equipment, you just need running shoes. Post-lockdown, the uptick in running is undeniable. Before the pandemic, our biggest categories were made up of women aged between 35 and 55. Now our eight biggest categories are all women in their 20s. That shift of the bell curve is huge, and brands see [the] opportunities instantly.”
According to Brand Finance’s 2025 report, the top 50 marathons worldwide brought $5.2 billion into local economies in 2024. This is exactly why legacy brands like Adidas, Hoka, Asics, Nike and New Balance all led group runs in the week before the 2025 New York City Marathon as well as setting up cheer zones along race routes.
“Marathons have become a platform,” O’Leary continues. “Particularly today, when storytelling is the most important part of brand strategy. For an event like a marathon, you’ll often get people dedicating themselves to getting fit or raising money for a cause, which is essentially a story in itself. If you place a brand in that story and do it believably, it’s essentially a win-win.”
The FTD Brothers, Jordan and Cian Adams, recently ran 33 marathons in 33 days to raise money for frontotemporal dementia research. In April, two athletes (winner Sabastian Sawe and runner-up Yomif Kejelcha) broke the sub-two-hour record at the London Marathon while both were wearing Adidas’s new Pro Evo 3 supershoe.
As did Tigst Assefa, who also set a new women’s world record of 2:15.41. The moment was so great, so hugely public, that even Nike, Adidas’s main competitor, congratulated Sawe.
According to Launchmetrics, Adidas generated $11m in media impact value from the London Marathon, despite it not being the only brand to have a presence on-site. The FTD Brothers have been featured on nearly every prominent Irish and UK news channel, and raised nearly £2m.
“Running is now a space for identity, community, creativity and self-expression,” Scholten says. “Which is why the culture around running is evolving so quickly.”
As per Sport Ireland’s Irish Sports Monitor, running is now the third most popular physical activity here. The global running shoe market is projected to reach $38bn by 2030. Events like the London Marathon now function as the most expensive free customer-acquisition opportunity in the consumer fitness industry.
This is exactly why Hugh Brasher, the chief executive of London Marathon Events, has confirmed that organisers are actively modelling a two-day race that forecasts suggest could deliver a £400m boost to the city’s economy.
And they’re not alone. More brands are aligning themselves with runners to exact bigger programming and community-based marketing, just like in the Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon, where physiotherapists were available at the finish line, or in London where staff from fashion favourites on Chiltern Street were seen dishing out pizzas to participants.
“Marathons do a very neat job of segmenting out the people you want to talk to, from a sponsor’s point of view,” Professor Robert Galavan, director of the MSc in Strategy & Innovation at Maynooth University, says.
“It provides a channel of ABC1 consumers who will likely have interest in your product. Then you add the feel-good perspective, while avoiding the severity of ironmans and triathlons, and it’s simply a nice product with good outcomes… and customers with money in the middle of it.”
There are many touchpoints for brands to tap, Galavan says.
“While the marathon itself is a single event, the campaigns for it are year-long. There is the preparation, the celebration, recovery and then getting back up on the horse. That story is just as valuable as witnessing the elite runners break records.”
“The strongest touchpoints are authentic ones,” Scholten echoes. “Product innovation, athlete performance, creative collaborations, community experiences and formats that feel culturally relevant. The key is to contribute meaningfully, not just to follow the conversation.”
There are also lessons to be learned from the niche, accessory businesses increasingly showing up at marathon weekends. Whereas legacy brands tend to speak to these consumers in terms like performance and agility, companies like Combat Care (which manufactures a hypochlorous spray to prevent bacteria and sweat-related skin concerns) and Swifter, Olympian Nadia Power’s running socks business, bridge innovation with cultural clout.
“We’re witnessing a huge shift in how we prepare for fitness events like marathons, as well as how we document them and recover from them,” Aoife Chaney, founder of Combat Care, shares.
“Running, which has been around forever, has evolved with the modern world to become not just an accessible form of exercise, but a whole subculture. We see people search the internet now for tickets to sold-out races like we used to for sold-out gigs. That says it all about how running, like music, has become much more about community and connection.”
Despite all of this, one major gap in the market is still waiting to be filled: women. According to an analysis by Loughborough University of over 107.9m race results, women now make up 50.24 per cent of runners. In May 2025 a report by Sport England corroborated this, showing that the 349,000 more runners in England in 2024 compared with 2023 were almost entirely women.
“Ignoring women is mad,” O’Leary says. “By and large, they’re the ones making the purchasing decisions behind the likes of children’s clothes, health, school and lifestyle [products]. The vast majority of the world’s economic decisions are made by women. Ignoring them is a really bad decision from a marketing point of view.”
The future for marathons might well be China and the Middle East, with the similar “sport as soft power” strategy that placed LIV Golf, Premier Padel and the Saudi Pro League on the map.
“The big marathons are without doubt playing a global game,” Galavan says. “Particularly as more and more people consider their health. But what they have that others don’t is a low barrier to entry, which doesn’t exist for the likes of Hyrox or mountain biking.”
The only worry? That they take away the truest aspect of marathon running.
“There are people who want better times, but the majority are the ones engaging with the race because of personal achievement, charity involvement, that sort of stuff. The bigger events typically keep that in mind because of the huge charity involvement, but there is a danger that [it] could get overlooked with the elites and the brand opportunities.
“To be quite real about it all, I think if you forgot about the person at the centre… you would miss an awful lot of what it is about.”
Photo: Aoife Chaney, founder of Combat Care. (Pic: Justin Farrelly)
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