2025 Brooks XC Championships On a beautiful day in San Diego, Jackson Spencer and Natasha Dudek win the first Brooks cross country championships.
The story behind the story…
Forty-five years later, the Foot Locker Cross Country Championship was KAPUT. While rumors swirled that Foot Locker was struggling to maintain the iconic line, the Meet Directors and their teams wanted to keep things alive. In the fall, when Foot Locker told meet directors, without notice, that the 45-year-old streak was going to close, a small cadre of interested people gathered and chased the sponsor, hoping they could keep the streak alive.
The truth is, the Foot Locker line has never been about business. In 1979, Kinney started the series because, according to some rumors, Kinney’s high school teacher had a high school crush. The Kinney executive saw that there was no national championship for cross country and the race was on.
Kinney turned into Foot Locker, which turned into East Bay, and which turned into Foot Locker. During that time, Foot Locker went through at least eight to ten shoe sponsors. Dealing with Foot Locker was pretty tough and companies like Reebok, New Balance, Saucony, ASICS, adidas, NIKE among others sponsored the beloved event and it somehow succeeded.
HOKA was a sponsor in 2024 and had another two years under contract. When DICKS Sporting goods purchased Foot Locker, which had been ailing for years, DICKS had to make some business decisions. One of them was throwing out Foot Locker Cross Country.
DICKS Sporting Goods sells a lot of running shoes, but the truth is, they know very little about performance running. If they had one management person who got it, they would be holding on to Foot Locker for dear life. The event cost $350k a year, and that doesn’t include the face the athletes get. Top 40, now 50 athletes, 40 boys (49 this year), 40 girls (48 this year) fly to San Diego after finishing in the top ten in their regions. Three Regionals are held on the last Saturday in November, and one Western Regional is held on the first weekend in December.
In 2005, Foot Locker pissed off NIKE enough that they started the NIKE Cross Nationals, now in its twentieth year, and a true celebration of the team aspect. NIKE does it like few others, and the event on December 6, 2025 was no exception.
In early September 2025, Foot Locker closed the event. Within hours, New Balance, HOKA, and now Brooks were fighting for ownership of FL, or the legacy of ownership of FL. The meeting’s directors insisted that the event would take place in 2025, and that was a sticking point for the HOCA. Brooks responded, signed sealed and shipped within 96 hours. NINETY SIX HOURS.
Gareth Heath, a former world-class sprinter, cross-country runner and then sprinter, is now head of sports marketing at Brooks. While RunBlogRun did not speak with Mr. Heath for this story, conversations spanning more than a decade with the then-athlete, now sports marketing executive, give the writer the impression that Garrett Heath, excited by the opportunity, mobilized his team and politically maneuvered the nearly $2 billion footwear company to get the job done. Within 4 days, Brooks signed a contract for a reported seven figures.
Now the hard work began…
Julia Stamps (FL winner), Jesse Williams (Sound Running), Craig Vanderhoff (Sound Running, apparel genius), Garrett Heath (Brooks Sports Marketing), Jorge Torres and Peter Hankes, along with two other former FL series directors, were hard at work.
Within ninety days, they brought in other sponsors (introduced Fleet Feet Sports, a brilliant move for the brand as their 333 stores reach 37,553 executives, cross country and track coaches, 1.56 million 14-18 year olds competing in cross country and track, past and future running gold).
FloTrack was recruited for the broadcast, and Ryan Fenton, director of routing, and the man with the best three-day beard on the planet, put together a good broadcast with Kerry Tollefson and Kara Goucher and a great in-house team.
Brooks took over the free streaming to ensure thousands of people could enjoy two fantastic races and that the first year of the Brooks XC.
The Brooks XC Regionals took place…
A huge part of the series’ success is that the four regions give boys and girls from across the United States the opportunity to compete at national championships. Point to the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, or West regions, complete the boys’ and girls’ top ten, and you’re headed to San Diego.
This year, under Brooks’ imprimatur, Sound Running, one of Brooks’ partners introduced the Golden Ticket, a promotion used in the Brooks PR Invite, the Brooks Decade, as well as at older tracks.
