Nick Symmonds returns to racing at Hayward Field, with a twist

Nick Symmonds races his YouTube subscribers at Hayward Field following day two of the Nike Outdoor Nationals. Photo by Logan Hannigan-Downs

By Joe Zochert

The crowd stuck around after day two of the Nike Outdoor Nationals competition was over as two-time Olympian Nick Symmonds took the stage to invite everyone to participate in one of his YouTube videos.

This event was a bonus addition to the “Nick Symmonds Classic” as Symmonds and his team handed out raffle tickets to everyone in attendance. If Symmonds called your number, you would then have the opportunity to race him for tickets to the World Championships at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in July.

Spring Lake’s Carter Phillips was one of the participants in the event who won tickets. As a fan of both Symmonds’ running and social media career, Phillips believes that these videos have brought the running community closer together.

“I love what he does for the running community,” Phillips said. “You know, racing kids and parents of all ages, he’s just great for the sport.”

Phillips’ sentiments about the event are exactly what Symmonds has cultivated on his channel as he tries to highlight the inclusive community of track and field through focusing on fitness.

“I think it's because we have such an inclusive community, I always say everybody's welcome at my events,” Symmonds said. “There's going to be prizes and it's going to be fun. We're going to cheer each other on. There's very little negativity, it's just about fun with fitness. That's what the whole channel is about.”

After launching his YouTube channel in 2017, he discovered that creating these videos brings him the same excitement that racing brought him.

“I'll be honest, it's just so addicting to create something that people are excited about and that's how I used to feel about running,” he said.

Symmonds started the YouTube channel to continue the media attention that his company, RunGum, gained over his running career.

“When I retired, I realized all that earned media was going to disappear,” Symmonds said. “ I'm like, ‘how are we gonna get eyeballs on our brands?”

Since his humble beginnings of talking to a phone while filming, Symmonds has created a team that has helped find a focus for their content to create popular videos.

“It wasn't until like, 2019, that we really found our niche and started making videos that consistently get a million views,” he said.

With this team, Symmonds’ channel has gained over 795,000 subscribers on YouTube and has created a positive environment for people to have fun and enjoy fitness.

One of the crew members, Nicolas “Dolfin” Rodriguez, believes that having fitness as a key component of the videos has made the channel more relatable to viewers.

“He does it with fitness and everyone can relate to fitness at some level,” said Dolfin. “The wide audience and then just being positive, encouraging and then taking some risks, you know, giving away some money doing some crazy stuff, I think that's why (his videos work).”

Ryan Ewert, who has worked with Symmonds since 2018, has seen the channel grow by making the sport of track and field more accessible to those who may not be as familiar.

“I think track is kind of a tough sport to watch, especially if you're not familiar with all the different lingo, I think he makes it really accessible and he makes it fun,” said Ewert.

“A big component of these videos is anyone can participate. It's a sport that’s a lot about time. You don't have to run fast to be out here. We're just trying to have a fun time.”

Even with the positive environment, Ewert credits Symmonds’ relatability with the fans as a reason why the channel continues to receive such high engagement.

“Nick can carry a conversation with anyone, I think he's really charismatic and friendly,” Ewert said. 

Nike runner Cooper Teare also believes that Symmonds’ knowledge of the sport and ability to add an element of fun to his events is what makes his videos successful.

“Nick knows how to unite this sport and get people excited about it,” Teare said about the videos. “He kind of takes your average events and takes them to the next level and he has fun doing it.” 

With his current platform and influence, Symmonds has found a way to continue to be present in a community that he has been a part of since he was 13-years old.

“I never wanted to say goodbye to that, I knew that the track community was going to be important to me forever,” he said. “I just didn't know how I was going to interact with them.”

“It allows me to be creative. It allows me to stay in shape. It allows me to make money. It allows me to interact with my fans. I'm like, ‘I get paid to do this.’ I would do this absolutely for free.”

With his continued presence in the running community and ability to grow his brand, Symmonds plans to continue producing this content as long as he can.

 “I'll literally just keep making YouTube videos until people stop watching them,” he said. “I’ll do this till the day I die. I can't imagine anything else.”