How Spartan Pivoted From an Events Company to a Global Community Content Platform in Less Than 72 Hours

How Spartan Pivoted From an Events Company to a Global Community Content Platform in Less Than 72 Hours

On the morning of March 12, I called our entire New York-based team into our conference room. The COVID-19 crisis was worsening, and we decided to take a test run: All NYC-based employees were to work remotely to ensure that we could keep our communications and fast-paced output going in the event of more drastic developments.  

Little did we know that this situation would become the norm for many companies nationwide in short order.

Our races started to get postponed or cancelled on a case-by-case basis, and with that we saw our ability to bring our engaged community together  dwindle. We had to act swiftly, adapt, and create a platform to keep our incredible community connected, motivated, engaged, and comforted.

Less than 72 hours later, our #BeUnbreakable platform and UNBREAKABLE TV was born.

It was fast and furious, and our incredible team worked tirelessly through the weekend to get it off the ground — amidst challenging and unprecedented circumstances.

We debuted UNBREAKABLE TV on March 15 on our Facebook page, with the goal of bringing at-home workouts, daily inspiration, nutritional tips, and more wellness service to our community of 10 million Spartans, and anyone else who is looking for motivational content to thrive at home, stay focused, and stay motivated.

It took some fine-tuning, but shortly after launch we had our daily programming rundown:

  • 8 a.m.: Wake Up With Joe  Inspiration and training with Spartan CEO Joe De Sena
  • 9 a.m.: Train Harder at Home — Training with our Spartan pros
  • 10 a.m.Never Miss the Gym Again with our GET DEKAFIT workout ALTERNATES WITH 
  • 10 a.m.: Trail Talk —If you love running, you'll love this segment
  • 11 a.m.: We Trained for This — Thought leaders and parenting experts share Spartan philosophies for thriving mentally, physically, and financially during this pandemic
  • 12 p.m.: Eat Like a Spartan with a registered dietician or Spartan pro ALTERNATES WITH
  • 12 p.m.: Under the Wire — All things race with Spartan pros and personalities
  • 12 p.m.: Weekly Yoga Class
  • 3 p.m.: Olympic-level kids training and a kid-approved book recommendation courtesy of Joe De Sena's daughter, Catherine
  • 8 p.m.: (various days): Create Calm and Wind Down — Meditations and mindful sits with yoga legends

But that’s not all. Complementing the daily programming is our editorial hub — with daily recaps and dynamic reporting on nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle — a daily newsletter, and a 24/7 Spartan Zoom video conference, which allows Spartans to communicate with each other at all times.

For even more in-depth learning and interactive education, we are offering our brand new Spartan EDGE online education platform. Influencers, professional athletes, and entrepreneurs from within our community have volunteered to host and be featured on live segments, and we’ve partnered with brilliant experts from different corners of the wellness universe. And focusing on business, Spartan founder and CEO Joe De Sena is on LinkedIn Live at 11 a.m., where he and an all-star lineup of doctors, thinkers, and business leaders discuss the urgent topics of the day. 

The response has been remarkable. 

Quantitatively, our engagement across our social channels and lifestyle site (Life.Spartan.com) has skyrocketed, but the qualitative results have been just as meaningful and impactful. Spartans have reached out in droves, thanking us for keeping them motivated, entertained, and informed, as well as disciplined in times when everyone’s routine has been turned on its head like never before.

Feedback from outside our community has also been extremely exciting and fulfilling.

Among many other examples, one senior vice president at Optum reached out to one of our directors with a note that read, “Spartan’s approach and high-touch client relationships saved me and my 300-person sales force, while I was raising an ADHD son and sending him to college, wondering if he would be equipped.”

So what’s our next step with #BeUnbreakable?

We want to share this content with our corporate partners. Leaders from all over the world are searching for ways to keep their teams and companies healthy, engaged, and motivated, just as we’ve been able to do with our content and community platform. 

Our multi-platform content engine is here to support companies and teams with content, tools, and support in the areas of body, mind, and business.

While our schedule is set days in advance, the subtopics and guests on UNBREAKABLE TV are ever-changing, providing a wide variety of content, hosts, and themes that you can leverage with your teams, company, and customers.

Which content would be most beneficial to your audience? 

Let us know, and we can work together to tailor it and build your company’s custom unbreakable programming, complete with a landing page, live broadcasts on our UNBREAKABLE TV platform, access to Spartan EDGE, and our award-winning editorial content.

As De Sena has said since COVID-19 first began to disrupt our way of life, Spartans have been preparing for obstacles for the past 10 years. We are here to support and inspire you.

Join us.