Caley Fretz | Is This An Extinction-Level Moment For Endurance Sports Journalism?

Caley Fretz is the Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Escape Collective, a member-funded independent cycling media company. As Caley says in his LinkedIn bio, he's “used everything learned over a decade in journalism to build a more sustainable media company”. And that’s what we discuss in this episode - whether his experiences in the cycling space translate over to what current operations and the future of media look like in the trail running world. If you’re interested in the business of sports and have enjoyed our conversations on these topics in the past, you’ll enjoy this one too. Timestamps: (0:58) - Escape Collective backstory, Caley's sports journalism background (10:05) - explaining how we got to the current state of endurance sports media (23:38) - pros and cons of owned versus rented media channels (33:03) - pros and cons of alignment with fans versus versus partners, advertisers (39:11) - what happens next for the middle of the media market (43:03) - replicating parts of the Athletic business model (53:38) - future of endurance sports media, possible business models Sponsors: Naak - use code SINGLETRACK20 at checkout on their website ( https://www.naak.com/ ) to get 20% off your purchase. Rabbit - use code Singletrack20 at checkout on their website ( https://www.runinrabbit.com/ ) to get 20% off your next order. deltaG Ketones - use code Singletrack20 at checkout on their website ( https://www.deltagketones.com/SINGLETRACK20 ) to get 20% off your next order. Links: Follow Caley on LinkedIn Email Caley ( editor@escapecollective.com ) Escape Collective Escape Collective Transparency Report Ketone Study Follow Singletrack on Instagram , Strava , Youtube Support the show