A DJ Swapping Nightclubs for Parks
Diplo made his name playing to late night crowds holding cocktails in dark rooms. Now he is staging daytime sets in parks, where the dress code is athleisure and the drink of choice is electrolytes. His team's five-kilometer series, Diplo's Run Club, finishes with cold plunges, peptide samples and a Diplo-led dance party.
At the latest stop in Queens, New York, about 12,000 runners paid to enter, with prices starting around $70 and VIP tickets near $250. The finish festival included several bars selling cocktails and beer. As Diplo put it, "There's a big generational shift right now, with young people realizing that they want to spend their time working on themselves and their bodies."
The Data Behind the Shift
Younger adults are frequenting bars less and staying home more than older groups, a pattern that persisted after the pandemic and fed talk of a loneliness problem. Yet sports leagues and races are drawing them out. A CivicScience survey earlier this year found about seven in ten under 30s plan to join a recreational league in the next six months, while 37% across all ages planned to sign up, up five percentage points from 2025.
Spending trends echo that mood, with Bank of America reporting that early in 2026 Gen Z and millennials lifted fitness outlays faster than bar tabs, while Gen X and older showed the opposite. Economist Joe Wadford called it a shift "from barstools to barbells," consistent with a longer decline in the share of Americans who say they drink alcohol.
Fitness Is the New Social
Once-seen-as-solo workouts are turning group-based, with running clubs and races skewing younger. In New York, runners in their twenties made up nearly 24% of NYC Marathon finishers in 2025 versus about 15% in 2019, and New York Road Runners says twenty-somethings are 27% of registered runners for this weekend's 2026 race, while organizers in Chicago and Boston also report increases among runners in their 20s. Triathlon shows the same tilt: Ironman says under-30 athletes now account for a quarter of entrants in its half and full-distance events, up from 13% a decade ago, and this cohort is its fastest-growing North American market.
Recreation leagues are scaling too, with Volo Sports projecting 950,000 registrations this year across volleyball, kickball and soccer, up about 34% from 710,000 last year and nearly 500% from 160,000 in 2019. The company has attracted private equity and bought smaller rivals, but founder and CEO Giovanni Marcantoni says roughly three-fourths of growth has come organically as more Americans look to build community. "I think 'Volo,' I think 'friends,'" he said.
"Both those things put a smile on your face, and that's what our goal is as a brand."
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Where Community Meets Commerce
The social layer is showing up in data and on race courses. Strava's 2025 survey found Gen Z reported using fitness to meet like-minded people at a rate 39% higher than Gen X. The prior year, almost one in five Gen Z respondents reported that exercise had been the avenue through which they connected with someone and later went out together on a date. Hyrox, which blends running and strength stations, partnered with Surf Dating to set up blind date teams for its doubles format.
Singles get wristbands to signal status and post race parties to mingle. "Matching with someone based off a shared interest or passion is a better way to meet your person than hot or not swiping," said Rob Long, Surf's co founder and CEO.
Business outcomes vary. Post-pandemic, some gym chains like Life Time and studios such as Solidcore expanded, while others pulled back. Alcohol remains part of these events, with Volo partnering with bars for pre- and post-match specials and Diplo's post-race festival featuring cocktail and beer vendors. "I definitely don't think there's a death to drinking," said Autumn Rossi, a 30 year old sales analyst. "I think people are just doing it in a different way, which is important."
On the ground, it looks like friendship as much as fitness. In Liberty Lake, Washington, 26 year old Brody Short launched Energy, a run club that meets weekly, raises money for local nonprofits and organizes cheering sections for members' races. She has become a bridesmaid and maid of honor for friends she met through the club.
"It's deeper than the running," Short said. When older relatives ask about dating or kids, she answers differently: "We're not raising kids; what are we doing?
What This Means For Your Portfolio
Learning about new trends and tools can give investors a thoughtful long term edge. On 11/17, our CEO Jaspreet Singh goes live for our first ever investor livestream on how to use ChatGPT and Claude to invest like a pro. Register to join him.
