To: Joe De Sena

Fr: Jonathan Fine

Cc: Carola Jain, Ian Lawson, Susan Kelley
Date: August 4, 2020
Re: Sportico Interview

DATE: August 4, 2020

TIME: 2:00pm
OUTLET: Sportico
REPORTER: Eben Novy-Williams
FORMAT: Phone Interview

SPORTICO
Launched in June 2020, Sportico is a high-quality digital content company providing sports industry
breaking news, data information, strategies, leadership and insight. The company serves as a resource to
empower readers to understand the evolving sports ecosystem through quality journalism. `

EBEN NOVY-WILLIAMS
Eben Novy-Williams is a Sports Business Reporter at Sportico. He previously worked for Bloomberg for ten
years where he covered sports business with an emphasis on technology, new media, college sports, and
gaming.

*We met with Eben a few years back when he was at Blomberg (along with Scott Soshnicj who is now the
Executive Editor of Sportico)

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FOCUS
Eben would like to discuss updates from Spartan since the last time we spoke (end of 2017) including:
● Spartan’s recent acquisition of Tough Mudder
● Spartan’s Pivot to digital content
● The current state of the sports and event industries – and the sponsorship implications

TALKING POINTS
Review/Updates
2019
● Launched Spartan Trail, traditional trail running races that took place in 5 countries and
planned expansion for 2020
 ● Acquired La Ruta de los Conquistadores multi-day Mountain Bike race in Costa Rica

2020
● Acquired Tough Mudder’s UK, US and Canadian business, which had entered bankruptcy
● Acquired the Patagonia Run and partnered with established trail running events across the
globe to create the “Spartan Trail World Championship”
● Launched DEKAFIT
● Announced the 2020 Spartan World Championship Hosted by Abu Dhabi Sports Council - the
first that would have taken place outside of the US.
● Launched Spartan Nutrition products - all products contain tea from Sparta, Greece

*Prior to the pandemic, combined with Tough Mudder, Spartan now holds more than 300 events
across more than 45 countries and attracts 1.8 million annual participants

IMPACT OF COVID-19
● We’ve been hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 Pandemic - as every event business has
o We just cancelled the remainder of Spartan’s 2020 event season - following the cancelation
of Tough Mudder’s US and UK seasons
o We are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel as we’ve recently hosted and planned events in
Europe
▪ Hungary, Slovakia and upcoming in Poland this weekend
● At all of our events, we are implementing aggressive protocol to protect the
safety of or staff, racers and volunteers - and working closely with the local
governments
● Our Trifecta World Championship is on-schedule to be held in Sparta, Greece
in November
▪ The first Spartan Trail Championship event was held this past weekend in Are,
Sweden - where we held our Ultra World Championship last year
● We are looking forward to a full season in 2021 - and are already seeing ticket sales since
announcing the event last week

Digital Transformation
● The positive in all of this is the fact that we’ve been able to increase our digital growth significantly
○ This is highlighted by the recent launch of our new Spartan Fit app and launch of our new
website, which were years in the making
● Our engagement across our social channels and lifestyle site has skyrocketed, but the qualitative
results have been just as meaningful and impactful.
○ Spartans have reached out in droves, thanking us for keeping them motivated, entertained,
and informed, as well as disciplined in times when everyone’s routine has been turned on its
head like never before.
● Training Content
 ○ We’ve always offered online training and nutrition tools, but have stepped it up with daily
workouts and tips, on top of constant editorial content with our pros and fitness influencers
○ We’re also holding weekly virtual races
● Spartan Fit App
○ The Fit App is a tool for athletes of all abilities to train to be unbreakable
○ Created with FitLab - a leader in the fitness app space
○ Courses are lead by SGX-certified instructors & fitness influencers
○ Designed to train the body’s three energy systems (PCr, Glycolytic, and oxidative)
■ Combination of cardiovascular training, long-distance running, and HIIT
○ Step-by-step workouts that have video demonstrations and audio guidance
■ Ability to filter workouts by difficulty level, target area, and duration
Unbreakable TV
● We’ve created episodic content including a show that features the challenges we’ve endured and
decisions I have am constantly making in “UNBREAKABLE CEO”
● We partnered with bodybuilding legend CT Fletcher to create “Don’t Break with CT Fletcher,” which
is part training/part talk show as CT trains with and interviews top fitness influencers and celebrities

SPONSORSHIP
● Without events, we’ve had to shift our sponsorship strategy, to keep our current sponsors satisfied
while attracting new sponsors to support digital content
○ Cisco WebEx has signed on as our “Video Conferencing Technology.”
■ We’re creating digital content for them and using their video conferencing to power
our internal and community-facing group and peer-to-peer video chats
● This includes my 5:30am video call and all of our podcast/interviews
● We’ve also signed on to promote World’s Toughest Race for Amazon Prime across our channels
including Tough Mudder, Dekaft and my own platform
● There is a clear path to our future with this
● We’ll always offer free content to our community – we’ll always be here to help them achieve their
goals
● While there are opportunities to create subscription services, a key to monetizing this content is with
strategic partnerships
KIDS
● Spending so much time with my kids, we’ve started to focus on creating more kids content as well -
and I am writing a parenting book that will be out next fall
○ As you can imagine, my approach to parenting is a bit unorthodox

ENDURANCE SPORTS COALITION

● We’ve led the charge to create the coalition with IRONMAN, Rock & Roll Marathon Series, Running
USA, USA Triathlon, USA Cycling, and imATHLETE / EnMotive – to advocate for relief for the
endurance and mass participation events industry
● It’s a grassroots coalition that creates one united voice for the endurance sports industry which
accounts for 50,000 events, 500,000 jobs, and provides health and fitness experiences to 30 million
Americans
o It now has close to 900 members and we are making great strides and reaching
congressional leadership
● The PPP was helpful for many, but a recent survey by the coalition showed that nearly 80 percent of
the event business surveyed (made of small mom-and-pop and larger organizations) - showed they
without additional government support, will disappear by 2021

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