New on Sunday Squad: skip a collab, and tell us why

At Sunday Squad, wanting to be there counts for a lot. Whether someone actually wants to join a collab is one of the first things we look at when we put a sportfluencer in a squad. An application with a worked-out idea says more than a thousand followers.

The opposite is just as valuable, and for a long time we couldn't see it. The number of profiles grows every day, and for every new collab we send an invitation and a couple of reminders. Whoever doesn't respond gets another one. Not because we want to push, but because we know nothing: no time, no interest, wrong brand, an injury — from our side it all looks the same. Silence.

So there's something new: skipping a collab.

Underneath every apply button there's a link: Skip this collab. You pick a reason — no time or timing that doesn't work, injury or illness, the brand isn't a fit for you, the assignment isn't a fit for you, or something else you write yourself. A word of explanation is welcome, not required. Done.

In your inbox rather than on the site? The same link sits at the bottom of our reminder emails, and it works without logging in.

You stop getting reminders about that one collab. The brand sees nothing of it — a skipped collab doesn't appear in the squad report. And it doesn't weigh in at the next selection: skipping doesn't count in your profile or your match score.

Changed your mind? As long as the collab is open, the page shows Apply after all, and your reason disappears. That's the difference with withdrawing after selection: that one is final, because it frees up a spot the brand was counting on.

We read the reasons. Three times "brand isn't a fit" from runners, and that brand won't get runners proposed next time. "Timing" means a collab belongs later in the season. "Assignment isn't a fit" means we have to rewrite the briefing — not you your sport.

Zolder42 is the first collab where this is live. We used to know nothing. By now we already know that some of our runners can't run Zolder42 because they have another race that day. Useful to know, for us and for the brand.