The 2025 Brooks XC Championships, a wonderful day in San Diego, Jackson Spencer and Natasza Dudek win Brooks’ first cross-country championships!
The story behind the story…
After forty-five years, the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships were KAPUT! While rumors had been going on that Foot Locker was having a tough time in keeping the iconic series going, the Meet Directors and their teams wanted to keep the events alive. In the fall, when Foot Locker, with no notice, told the meet directors that the 45 year old series was going to shut down, a small cadre of interested folks got together and pursued a sponsor, hoping against hope that they could keep the series alive.
Truth is, the Foot Locker series was never about business. In 1979, Kinney started the series, due, according to some rumors, that a higher-up at Kinney had a high schooler in cross-country. The Kinney executive saw that there was no National championship for cross country and the race was on.
Kinney morphed to Foot Locker, which morphed to East Bay and which morphed back to Foot Locker. In that time, Foot Locker went through at least eight to ten footwear sponsors. Foot Locker was notoriously tough to deal with, and the likes of Reebok, New Balance, Saucony, ASICS, adidas, NIKE among others sponsored the beloved event and it somehow chugged along.
HOKA was the sponsor in 2024, and had two more years in their 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 to eject the Foot Locker Cross Country.
DICKS Sporting Goods sells alot of running shoes, but truth is, they know very little about performance running. If they had one person in management who had gotten it, they would have held onto Foot Locker for dear life. The event, cost $350k a year to do, and that does not include the swag the athletes recieve. The top 40, now 50 athletes, 40 boys (49 this year), 40 girls (48 this year) are flown to San Diego after finishing in top ten in their regions. Three regions are held on last Saturday in November, and one regional, West is held in first weekend of December.
In 2005, Foot Locker annoyed NIKE enough that they started the NIKE Cross Nationals, now it its twentieth year, and a true celebration of the team aspect of cross-country. NIKE does it up like few others and the event in 2025 on December 6, was no exception.
In early September 2025, Foot Locker shut down the event. Within hours, New Balance, HOKA and now, Brooks were in the fight for FL ownership or legacy of FL ownership. The meet directors insisted on the event going on in 2025, and that was a hanging point for HOKA. Brooks responded, signed sealed and delivered in 96 hours. NINETY-SIX HOURS!
Garrett Heath, a former world class miler, cross country runner and then, trail runner, is now the Head of Sports Marketing at Brooks. While RunBlogRun has not spoken to Mr. Heath for this story, a decade plus of conversations with the then athlete, now sports marketing executive, gives this writer the impression that Garrett Heath, enthused with this possibility, put his team to work and did the political machincations within the nearly 2 billion dollar footwear company to get the job done. In 4 days, Brooks signed the contract, for a reported seven figures.
Now the hard stuff began…
A small cadre of Julia Stamps (FL winner), Jesse Williams (Sound Running), Craig Vanderhoff (Sound Running, apparel genius), Garrett Heath (Brooks sports marketing), Jorge Torres and Peter Henkes, along with the two other meet directors of the former FL series, were hard at work.
In ninety days, they brought in other sponsors (presenting was Fleet Feet Sports, a brilliant move for the brand, as their 333 stores reach out to the 37,553 head cross country and track coaches, the conduit to 1.56 million 14-18 year olds competing in cross country and track, the proverbial running pot of gold in past, present and future).
FloTrack was recruited to put on the broadcast, and Ryan Fenton, Track and Field director, and man with best three day beard on the planet, put together a fine broadcast, with Carrie Tollefson and Kara Goucher and a superb inhouse team.
Brooks underwrote the free streaming broadcast, to insure that thousands were able to enjoy two fantastic races and that the first year of the Brooks XC.
The Brooks XC Regionals happened…
A huge part of the success of the series has been that the four regionals give boys and girls from around the U.S. a chance to make a national championships. Show up to the NorthEast, SouthEast, Midwest or West regional, finish in the top ten Boys and Girls and you are off to San Diego!
This year, under Brooks’ imprimatur, Sound Running, one of the partners with Brooks introduced the Golden Ticket, a promotion that is used in the Brooks PR Invite, Brooks decade plus old track and field