Who is backing this and how in the world are they making their money back. There are four general revenue streams for endurance sports events:
1. Participant fees
2. Sponsorship money
3. Some benevolent person writing a big cheque.
4. Merchandise sales
For bigger mass particpation events, other then the major marquee ones, participant fees, is the major source of revenue. In fact, you have to build a model for the business, that ensures you will be able to exist off of ONLY this revenue
Larger marquee endurance sports races/events - say the Boston Marathon, will also get revenue from sponsors paying some big money. The title or presenting sponsor, is often also responsible for the cash that is awarded to top professionals in the race/event. Smaller, elite or professional only races, have to really depend on #2, because total number of participants is small, and/or #3 - someone writing a big cheque!
Merchandise sales and the revenue from them, are again for large marque races/events significant - but it's really only these larger marquee events. Think IRONMAN, or NYC Marathon, etc . . .
Some will chime in here about TV - a major source of revenue for Pro Team and other high profile sports but triathlon is SO small, that the race/event often has to BUY (yes - that's right!) the TV time, to put the race/event on TV - typically sponsors money goes toward this, and when you do watch on TV, it's those sponsors who are running the commercials!! I don't know what the exact arrangement with NBC & IRONMAN is now, but for a long time, my understanding was IRONMAN was buying that time on NBC, for IMH!!
So to answer the question - for SuperLeague, my understanding is that a BIG part of their revenue is #3, and I am sure they are trying to sell on #2 pretty aggressively - they have minimal from #1 and #4 right now. Although, if they are opening things up to AG-ers, they will hope to grow #1
Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog