If you've been following athleteXhub for a while, you've probably noticed that we regularly attend competitions, trade fairs, and community events. This has a simple reason: sports events are much more than just places where people compete. They are meeting points for the endurance sports community, a place for honest conversations, and the best way to experience sports up close.
Of course, we could make many decisions comfortably from our desk. But we are convinced that the best solutions arise where athletes train, companies present their products, and organizers organize their events. That's why sporting events are part of our daily work.
Why sports events are more than just competitions for us
When we're at an event, it's not about taking as many photos as possible or collecting as many contacts as possible.
Our goal is to experience sports from different perspectives. We talk to athletes before the competition, meet companies at their trade fair stands, exchange ideas with organizers, and observe how the scene is developing.
Each of these encounters helps us better understand the daily life of our users. What questions are currently occupying athletes?
How do companies think about sponsoring?
What challenges arise in the collaboration between both sides?
These impressions cannot be replaced by any online survey.
The best ideas arise in conversation
A good example was the Challenge Roth.
There, we deliberately took the time. Instead of collecting as many business cards as possible, we had intensive conversations with around 20 brands. On average, each conversation lasted almost 25 minutes.
It wasn't about presenting athleteXhub or concluding a cooperation. Much more exciting was the question of how companies think about sports sponsorship today.
What qualities do they expect from athletes?
What internal processes make collaborations more difficult?
What content really works?
And where are the biggest challenges currently arising?
Exactly these kinds of conversations give us insights that you can't read about in any study.
At the same time, we talk to athletes about their experiences. Many tell us about uncertainties when searching for sponsors or that they simply don't know how to present themselves professionally. Others report on which partnerships have worked particularly well and why.
Bringing these different perspectives together is one of the most important tasks of athleteXhub.
Why personal encounters are so important to us
Digital platforms often arise from assumptions.
We want to avoid exactly that.
That's why we deliberately spend time where our community is on the go. We observe which topics occupy people, which questions keep coming up, and which developments are currently emerging in endurance sports.
Often, ideas arise from this that we would never have developed in the office.
Sometimes, just one conversation is enough to simplify a process on the platform or develop a new learning module in the academy.
For us, being close to the community doesn't mean being constantly online. It means being regularly on site.
From Roth to the Backyard Ultra – every event brings new insights
Every event has its own character.
At the Challenge Roth, topics such as brand partnerships, professional sports sponsorship, and collaboration between companies and athletes are often at the forefront.
A Backyard Ultra, on the other hand, conveys a completely different picture.
Here, you experience how closely the endurance sports community sticks together. People support each other, spend many hours together on the track, and openly share their experiences with each other.
Exciting conversations also arise there. Not just about competitions, but about motivation, personal goals, and the path that many athletes take alongside their job and family.
Exactly this mix makes sports events so valuable for us. Every weekend expands our view of the scene a little more.
How these experiences directly influence athleteXhub
All the insights flow step by step into athleteXhub.
Sometimes it's about the platform itself. Perhaps a profile is made more straightforward or a process is simplified.
Sometimes new content for the academy or ideas for future courses arise from it.
And sometimes conversations simply confirm that we're on the right track.
Those who have already read our articles What is athleteXhub?, For whom is athleteXhub? or How athleteXhub works know that we don't understand athleteXhub as classic software. The platform develops further together with the people who use it daily.
Topics like the Sponsor Matching Score or future learning content also don't arise by chance. They are oriented towards the questions and challenges that we experience again and again in practice.
Our outlook
We want to continue attending sports events regularly in the future.
Not because it's part of the job, but because we are convinced that the future of athleteXhub arises together with the endurance sports community.
Every conversation expands our view. Every encounter helps us better understand athletes and companies. And every event reminds us why athleteXhub was created in the first place: to make sports sponsorship more transparent, personal, and accessible.
If you see us at an event, feel free to talk to us.
Maybe it's exactly the conversation that makes athleteXhub a little better next time.
