This guy is buying marathons:
Ok, not Ari Gold. The guy who inspired the character. Ari Emanuel.
In November, MARI acquired IMG’s action sports portfolio, including the Nike Melbourne Marathon and the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. Then in March it added the Bondi to Manly Ultra, an 80km coastal race in Sydney, to a stable that already includes the Great Ocean Road Running Festival.
UTN readers will remember MARI from Bare Knuckle Brawl, Visceral Capital, Crowded House, and We’ll Do It LIVE!
In The Presence Premium (which came to life on this week’s podcast), I pointed to three converging trends:
Longevity & wellness
Identity-driven affinity groups
Changing status games
These three trends are why the world of endurance competition is booming and capital and talent are flowing in.
Expect even more growth here in the coming years. The driver: GLP-1s. The reason: status.
Not because more people will exercise. Because a prescription alone can’t take you to a finish line.
Let me be clear: the GLP-1 revolution is one of the great public health wins of our lifetime. Eradicating obesity at scale is an unambiguous good. And it’s no longer just a rich-person story.
Roughly one in eight Americans have already used a GLP-1. Under the TrumpRx deals with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound prices have been slashed. The truly determined can get the molecule for the price of a Netflix subscription on the gray market. It feels like every other ad on TV is for a GLP-1.
The price of leanness is collapsing toward zero from every direction at once. There is no version of the future where looking fit stays scarce.
Packy McCormick made the same observation in Scarce Assets, his essay on what happens when abundance arrives: as he put it, you can't fake a sub-2 hour marathon.
Which means the status symbol of "perceived fitness” packs less of a punch. Lose weight in 2026 the old fashioned way and you might find yourself telling everyone you did it “natty”.
A sub-3 marathon, a competitive Hyrox time, an ultra finish line…these can’t be prescribed. A race result is ranked, timestamped, witnessed, and on a clock.
Then there’s the next category: peptides, TRT, and PEDs.This is no longer just about weight loss or recovery. It’s about enhancement, and it’s just getting started.
The stack is going mainstream—testosterone, peptides for recovery, and anti-aging protocols. Soon, names like sermorelin, retatrutide, and BPC-157 may carry the same cultural weight that Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound do now. These won't stay confined to medspas in Miami and podcasters in Austin for long.
Much of it is already available through the same compounding pharmacies that democratized GLP-1s. Injury recovery, muscle growth, longevity: people want these things, and the infrastructure to deliver them legally is being built right now.
Pro leagues will hold the line. Peptides are banned across the NFL, NBA, MLB, and the Olympics, and they’ll likely stay that way.
Even so, players quietly spend tens of thousands on offseason stem cell trips to Nicaragua and Costa Rica to rebuild the knees and shoulders that only made it through the season thanks to copious amounts of Toradol. The official posture and the operational reality are two different things. They always have been.
One company to watch: Hone Health.
As enhancement gets normalized, the market around it fragments too: verified divisions, premium natural categories, testing, and the businesses built to serve each lane. And that creates more places for money to flow — event fees, sponsorships, media, recovery brands, diagnostics, and premium communities. The Enhanced Games isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s an intriguing concept and a sign of more to come.
I had never heard of Hyrox until 2023. I now personally know 10+ people who have traveled to compete in one.
When status migrates, capital chases it. The company had fewer than 700 participants at its 2017 Hamburg debut, over 550,000 athletes last season, and a projected 1.3 million across 85 cities this year. Revenue went from ~$130 million to ~$225 million, without paid marketing. Infront bought majority control in 2022 — institutions moved swiftly on this one.
Once medicine lowers the floor, the ceiling becomes the only thing worth signaling. Endurance races become the new “proof of work” for the body. Which is why Ari is buying marathons.
The leanest decade in American history is coming. So is the most competitive one.
ICYMI: This week’s podcast episode with Matthew Lloyd-Thomas, Founder & CEO of Milky Way Park ⬇️
I publish an essay every other Thursday.
Stay tuned and share this with someone who should be paying attention to where the Sports Economy is headed.
If you’re building, investing, or advising within the Sports Economy — please reach out!
Email: [email protected]
– Brent
