After reviewing both the quantitative metrics and the qualitative moments from this year’s Penn Relays, I felt compelled to take a step back. Not just as a product leader at Fastbreak AI, but as someone who’s lived this sports experience firsthand.
I played Division I football at the University of Richmond, where many of my college teammates also competed at the Penn Relays. And no, I didn’t go on to run track after high school, but I still remember how iconic this race was. It was always the meet everyone talked about (even by my collegiate teammates), whether you were competing or not.
My wife, on the other hand, did continue her track career at James Madison University and competed at Penn Relays herself. When I told her we were going to be activating at the Penn Relays this year, her face lit up immediately. I couldn’t even finish my sentence before she launched into a flood of memories — talking about the atmosphere, the noise, the nerves, the pride.
We both understand what it feels like to be part of something bigger than a race. Penn Relays is more than a meet, it’s the Super Bowl of youth and collegiate track and field.
And this year, it became something even more personal: a powerful case study on what happens when a brand shows up the right way.
100,000+ Fans, Two Defining Moments
Duluth Trading Co. came to Fastbreak with a clear goal: build meaningful brand equity with a new generation of athletes and families. They weren’t looking for only passive impressions, they wanted interaction, trial, and staying power. With Fastbreak Connect, they found a platform designed to turn live events into immersive brand experiences.
At Penn Relays, that partnership came to life. Let’s start with the numbers.
- 100,000+ fans over three days
- 7,500+ one-on-one engagements at the Duluth tent
But, the big impact for Duluth came through two defining moments where two different championship teams brought them to the podium.
The first came when the TCU Women’s Track & Field won the 4x200m relay and then stepped onto the podium wearing Duluth hats. That’s not just visibility, it’s brand alignment with excellence, in real time.
The second? Archbishop Carroll High School’s 4x100m relay team, four-time New Balance National Champions, visited our tent, connected with the team and walked away repping Duluth gear. No pitches. No gimmicks. Just genuine interest and authentic connection with a brand that showed up and fit in.
Both moments were seared into the memories of the fans in the moment, but also resulted in hundreds of thousands of social impressions, engagements and reshares.
As Cole Pressler noted in a piece reflecting on the atmosphere of the Penn Relays:
“A good 4×400 race can split your eardrums... From New England to Jamaica, these fans show up to play a small part in the pandemonium that’s captivated Philadelphia for 127 years.”
— Cole Pressler, in a feature on the legacy of the Penn Relays
That’s the setting we entered — not quietly, but meaningfully.
From Workwear to Youth Sports Culture
Duluth is a brand built on grit, performance, and staying power. Those values don’t just belong on job sites, they belong in sports. Especially youth sports, where the next generation is building identity through hard work, competition, and culture.
Penn Relays proved what happens when you place a brand not just on the field, but in the moment.
This isn’t just exposure, it’s memory encoding. When athletes wear your brand at the most emotionally charged moment of their weekend, the moment they step onto the podium, your brand becomes unforgettable. This is when identity is formed, when phones are out and when pride peaks. The Fastbreak Connect program turns those singular moments into emotional anchors that drive recall, loyalty, and long-term mental availability.
Why This Matters to CMOs
For brand leaders, this isn’t about event sponsorship. It’s about showing up in moments that shape taste, identity, and loyalty. At scale. Fastbreak Connect turns fleeting in-person experiences into powerful brand activations that increase mental availability and drive real consumer behavior.
Whether it’s a teen athlete pulling on a branded shirt at the podium or a parent scanning a QR code to unlock event photos, these are high-emotion, high-attention moments. And they’re exactly where brand equity is built.
Smart CMOs have stopped chasing impressions. They’re going back to experiential events. They’re investing in trial, market penetration, and creating long-term brand memories. Fastbreak Connect gives them a platform to do all three: activate at the grassroots level, gather first-party data, and create continuity between the sideline and the store shelf.
Why This Matters as a Product Leader
As VP of Product, my job isn’t just to build what works, it’s to build what resonates. Products, features and brands succeed when they feel authentic, embedded and real to the people we serve. This activation at Penn Relays reminded us of a few things that matter just as much in product as they do in marketing:
Relatability Is A Growth Channel
When a brand or experience reflects the values, aspirations, and identity of its audience, it drives organic adoption and emotional loyalty, two things we chase constantly in product development.
Cultural Presence Beats Traditional Sponsorship
Just like features can’t exist in isolation, brand activations can’t either. In the same way we think about embedding products into users' daily workflows, we saw Duluth embedded in a moment that mattered to athletes and fans. That’s how relevance scales.
Gen Z And Youth Athletes Connect With Brands That Show Up Authentically
Gen Z has no patience for forced messaging or surface-level partnerships. As product leaders, we need to ensure every touchpoint — app, content or brand moment — feels earned, not inserted.
Duluth wasn’t just at Penn Relays. They were part of a win.
And as any great product leader knows, being part of the win is how you earn the right to grow.
What Comes Next
This isn’t a one-off. It’s a weekly playbook.
If your brand is trying to grow in a new category, especially among the next generation, you don’t need a billboard. You need more moments like this, where performance meets brand presence that becomes part of the audience’s memory.
And the best part? Fastbreak Connect is nationwide, with the event inventory and scale to activate this blueprint week after week. From coast to coast, we’re helping brands show up where Gen Z athletes are already gathered, competing, and forming lifelong brand impressions.
Because when you're part of the win, you're part of the story.And that's how brand awareness becomes cultural relevance.
