Welcoming The Stride Report

It wasn’t easy to read.

On June 14 earlier this year, I (and most of our staff here at Streamline Athletes) saw this post from The Stride Report on Instagram:

A publication producing quality NCAA track and cross-country content was calling it quits, citing reasons to do with admin and writer burnout from exhausting weeks and lack of ability to fairly pay writers.

Being the passionate and curious folk we are at Streamline Athletes, we wanted to congratulate The Stride Report on what they’d accomplished, express our apologies for the decision they had to make, and learn more about what would happen to its loyal base of readers. We reached out to founder and admin at TSR, Garrett Zatlin, and started a conversation that went much deeper and lasted several months.

Here’s what we learned about Garrett and The Stride Report over a few months beginning last June:

• Garrett is a sharp content-producer with a brand he’s proud of and a team of writers he cares about (we got to meet TSR's writers, too and they are awesome).
• Garrett wasn’t ready to let TSR go completely. In TSR’s farewell Instagram post, he wrote, “Maybe we won’t be able to stay away. Maybe we’ll eventually come out of retirement and give it another go.” And he meant it.
• If it would be possible for Garrett to focus on TSR full-time to grow the site in a sustainable fashion alongside his writers, perhaps TSR could have another life.

And now I’ll get to today’s announcement…

Streamline Athletes has acquired The Stride Report! 🎉

Here’s what that means for The Stride Report:

• THE STRIDE REPORT IS BACK.
• Garrett - for the first time - will have the opportunity to work full-time on TSR and avoid those 90-hour work weeks.
• TSR writers will have boosted pay.
• TSR will have access to new resources and opportunities with our team, brand, and community here at Streamline Athletes.

It probably goes without saying, but we’re ecstatic to welcome The Stride Report to the Streamline Athletes family. TSR’s articles, podcasts, transfer news, rankings, and projections are carefully crafted, well-informed, and the best content in collegiate middle-distance/distance running.

How will this impact athletes using Streamline Athletes?

Simply put, our acquisition of The Stride Report will not change the experience of athletes using Streamline Athletes for their recruitment journeys today. Our goal is to provide the best recruiting experience imaginable - and with TSR under our umbrella, we believe we’ll get there faster.

Beyond the core recruiting experience, athletes might see some more TSR nods and mentions on social media or receive the odd TSR discount/promotion. But overall, my business partner, Alex, put it best: “By adding The Stride Report to the Streamline Athletes family, we’ll be able to not only help high schoolers with their college recruitment, but also give them and their families a place to stay connected through their time at university.”

The Stride Report covers middle distance and distance running at the collegiate level - and they do a really good job of it. Our hope is that, if you’re a runner transitioning from high school to college, we can help you with your recruitment and subsequently offer you and your family a place to stay connected to the collegiate running landscape. That place is The Stride Report.

Link up with TSR here:

• Website (this is where the good stuff is)
• Instagram
• Twitter

For more insights on the acquisition, we interviewed Brett Montrose (Co-Founder of Streamline Athletes) and Garrett Zatlin (Founder of The Stride Report). The video can be found below.