There’s a new half marathon in town — kind of.
What was previously the NYCRUNS Brooklyn Half Marathon has been reintroduced as the NYCRUNS Brooklyn Experience Half Marathon after the organization settled a trademark lawsuit with the New York Road Runners.
Aside from its name, the race — scheduled for April 27 — is unchanged. Its 13.1 mile course starts in northern Brooklyn, continues along the Williamsburg waterfront, winds through Fulton Street and Flatbush Avenue, and ends in Brooklyn’s Backyard, Prospect Park.
“The NYCRUNS Brooklyn Experience Half Marathon is more than a race, it’s the ultimate Brooklyn experience,” said NYCRUNS founder and CEO Steve Lastoe, in a statement. “The course is a one-of-a-kind journey through the iconic streets of NYC’s greatest borough. From hip and historic neighborhoods to world-class riverfront views, to the energy created by the city’s most bustling borough, it’s pure Brooklyn.”
What is now the NYCRUNS Brooklyn Experience Half Marathon started in 2011 as the NYCRUNS Brooklyn Marathon, a 26.2-mile race contained entirely within Prospect Park. The race went through several iterations before it became the NYCRUNS Brooklyn Half Marathon in 2023.
That was where the trouble began. The name was almost identical to the New York Road Runners Brooklyn Half Marathon, which had been run in the borough every year for more than 30 years, and Road Runners had trademarked the name “Brooklyn Half Marathon” in the 1980s.
Last year, after the organizations unsuccessfully tried to come to an agreement out of court, Road Runners filed a trademark lawsuit against NYCRUNS, hoping to force a name change.
The suit accused NYCRUNS of choosing a similar name “with the intent to confuse consumers and capitalize on the enormous goodwill” associated with the New York Road Runners.
Court documents — and runners themselves — claimed some people had mistakenly signed up to participate in the NYCRUNS event, instead of the Road Runners race. That was particularly concerning since taking part in Road Runners events can help athletes score a spot in future races.
“In addition, consumers have criticized NYCRUNS’ events as inadequately staffed and poorly organized, which has caused harm to NYRR and to consumers who have been confused by the Infringing Marks and mistakenly run NYCRUNS’ events bearing the Infringing Marks thinking that they were NYRR’s events,” the suit said.
While NYCRUNS initially denied trademark infringement and claimed Road Runners’ trademarks were “weak and unenforceable with respect to the conduct of NYCRUNS,” the two parties quickly decided to work with a private mediator to work out the issue out of court, documents show.
By late October, the parties had agreed to a “settlement in principle,” and they jointly moved to dismiss the lawsuit in December. On Jan. 7, NYCRUNS announced it was “welcoming an old friend with a new name to the streets of Brooklyn,” the newly-renamed WiBrooklyn Experience Half Marathon.
Representatives for NYRR and NYCRUNS confirmed the parties had come to an amicable agreement, but declined to comment further.
“Brooklyn Experience Half Marathon is a pretty good name,” one Reddit user commented on a post about the change.
“Keeping the word ‘Brooklyn’ in the name will still confuse a lot [of] people,” another wrote. “That’s like NYCRUNS creating a marathon in the fall and calling it the iconic ‘New York Marathon’ without the word ‘city’ in the name.”
