RunSignup’s Biannual Registration Market Analysis Reviews Impact of COVID-19

September 9, 2020

Moorestown, NJ – RunSignup | GiveSignup released their biannual Registration Market Analysis, an effort to evaluate the true state of the endurance market in an industry without a comprehensive aggregator for data. The report builds a three-dimensional view of the marketplace, with a snapshot of major news in the industry and an assessment of how the market share is currently divided. Due to the impact of COVID-19, many standard measures are inaccurate or not applicable, so this version of the analysis focuses on RunSignup data, web traffic, and publicly available information on various companies.

Internal data from RunSignup | GiveSignup, as well as anecdotal evidence from customers, indicates that the endurance market is recovering – but in many cases, by pivoting to new events or virtual races and challenges. Additionally, both race organizers and race registration companies are implementing staff reductions and cost-saving measures. Smaller vendors may not have the resources to hang on until in-person events resume at a 2019 rate.

On RunSignup, the number of races renewing each week (races from 2019 that go live again in 2020) has rebounded after a significant decline in March. However, the big change is in new races, with the total number of races on RunSignup up about 20% overall from 2019. This suggests the migration of new customers, as well as customers are creating and offering new race concepts that are virtual, smaller, or in some way better suited to the current environment.

A review of website traffic via Alexa rankings, along with information about public companies, gives a snapshot of how some registration companies are managing the pandemic.

• RunSignup | GiveSignup’s Alexa ranking is down about 24% since September 2019, despite the overall web traffic increasing 24%. This suggests that some of the drops in Alexa rankings is likely due to an overall increase in web traffic. In Q2, RunSignup had 1,020,879 registrations on their platform.
• Eventbrite saw their Alexa ranking drop 109%, while their transaction volume in Q2 dropped by 82% and they reported a 45% reduction of staff. They are reporting some improvement more recently, with July down about 75%.
• Race Roster’s Alexa ranking dropped 51%, while the Asics quarterly report noted 260,000 registrations in Q2 of 2020, with 40% of those paid registrations.
• Haku had the only improved Alexa ranking, up 6% compared to last year. While they do not make their data publicly available, it is likely that some of that traffic is due to hosting both the Chicago and Boston Marathon virtual registration and experience.
•  Enmotive was acquired by the media company Gannett last year, and then acquired IMAthlete. With IMAthlete’s website traffic dropping to an unmeasurable rank, it appears that Enmotive (148% drop in Alexa ranking) will be their strategic platform moving forward. With newspapers facing significant financial pressure, they look to be aiming for a turkey strategy and relying the strength of their in-house events.
• Stack Sports appears to be moving forward with GetMeRegistered as their strategic platform over RaceWire, with RaceWire dropping out of the Alexa rankings and GetMeRegistered falling 58%.
• BikeReg has put out new challenge technology, as well as implementing a sales tax solution to limit their liability. While their Alexa ranking is down 101%, they are seeing improvement compared to the spring.
• Active continues to rank at an 80% drop from 2019, although it is hard to know how much of that is Active Endurance business versus Active Community business.
• Other previously well-known platforms have gone out of business (like RaceIt, RacePartner, RaceMine, and Competitor.com) or dropped out of measurable Alexa rankings (like MarathonGuide, The Driven, SignMeUp, and RunReg). With the drop in revenue likely to last for another year, there is likely to be more customer migration to the larger vendors, exacerbating the revenue shortfall for smaller platforms.

While RunSignup is able to share numbers relating to their own growth, the industry lacks a central data point to reliably determine the full extent of the endurance market or estimate the market share of each registration provider. With the uncertainty in the market and the number of postponed races making race calendars less reliable as a source of data, the Alexa rankings and public reports provide a small window into the health and viability of the race registration market.

The analysis is open and available to everyone in the industry for further conclusions or updated data: https://runsignup.blog/2020/09/08/race-registration-market-analysis-2/

About RunSignup | GiveSignup

GiveSignup | RunSignup is the leading all-in-one platform for fundraising and endurance events. More than 21,000 events, supporting over 8,000 nonprofits, use GiveSignup/RunSignup’s free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. Built on a powerful CRM, our expertly crafted, open, and all-in-one solution powers nonprofit revenue generation and supporter engagement from run/walk/rides to ticket events to donation websites, forms, and fundraising campaigns. For more information, visit www.givesignup.org or www.runsignup.com.