Neither do I really and i've watched every minute of both Superleage events, to be honest the prize giving and ceremony after the first day seems utterly pointless to me.

Then you have athletes being eliminated for falling a minute back or whatever then being able to race the next day, they could do with over complicating things.

Just watch their archived event videos for a better idea. Their events have typically been 2-3 days, and they may do one or multiple formats each day, but most formats make for multiple races... At Jersey, day one was Triple mix, so 3 races Swim-Bike-Run, Run-Bike Swim, and Bike-Swim-Run... In Jersey they also introduced a gap to leader cut-off, so if ever you were more than 90sec behind, you were cut, because of the short narrow laps, to avoid congestion (and they carried gaps over between the 3 stages, in Hamilton Island, they didn't...)... Day two in Jersey was the Eliminator, again, one "discipline" but 3 races in a devil takes the hindmost type format, all 3 races were SBR and of the same distance, but race one everyone did, at the end, the top 15 made race 2, and at the end of that, the top 10 raced the final race, to determine the points...

In hamilton island, they had an extra day in the middle, where they did an early morning bike TT, and then did a Swim-bike-run-bike-run format with a pursuit start (based on the morning TT time gaps) in the evening.

If you watch the videos it'll make a lot more sense. I recommend the Jersey videos since they had Ali Brownlee in the commentary booth, and he was on point the whole time.

I am fine with sporting events. I watch the World Surf League - but as a surfer - it makes perfect sense to me but to someone else it would be complicated.

but damn, I just dont get it. Also, who throws in for this prize money. $100,000 for first place for the first one? Who is backing this and how in the world are they making their money back.

Ill watch that tonight when I get home from work. Thanks for explaining. So they adjust formats depending on the venue then. Makes sense. Just seems very complicated and half "standard" and half "free for all depending on the race venue"

They are not (making money).

Billionare bored who got triathlon itch. When that itch gets scratched Super League will be gone like so many other big money tri events in past.

They'll give it a kick at being sustainable... they do sell adds on the live broadcast... (the adds on Jersey were hilarious, the Jersey Tourism authority's add basically promoting the island as a tax haven... The luxury yacht broker who advertised on both, and is a sponsor...). But yes, the prize money was a rich russian oil tycoon who kicked in some coin, to be able to hang out with Macca, and hit up some luxury resorts... They did sell a lot of TV rights as well in different countries, so if they can get that to take off, they may prove to do better than some of the other big money races who struggled to hold onto the TV deals... They have the advantage of an action packed format as well, which is better for TV than Ironman or ITU racing... I suspect that you're right that it'll last a few years and then flame out, but I am cautiously optimistic that it will defy the odds and stick around. The other thing they have going for themselves is that the MTR got olympic status, so this is a way for up and coming and established pros (who sign up for their new qualifying series) to cut their teeth and get experience in super sprint, and multi-day racing, which will become more important for national federations in picking olympic team composition, if they want to target a top placing in the MTR. There are very few other options to race super sprint at the moment, and make some coin at it... Both Superleague, and Major League Tri will likely have increased interest from the Pro fields in the next couple of years for this reason...

I gotchoo mang.

Jersey was more simple than Hamilton Island, but still the same idea.

Day One point + Day Two points = Final Points

More detailed:

Day One - three back to back races, alternating formats. Time carries over, so if you win the first race by 5 seconds you get a 5 second head start.

Day Two - three rounds of S/B/R, narrowing down the field. Everyone starts the first race, top 15 finishers start the second race. The top 10 finishers from the second race start the third. Points from the day come from the third race.

Details

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

I hope so. I absolutely love it and watched both events live and despite being a long course guy by background i was glued to the screen and found it highly entertaining to a point i think there is an audience outside hard core tri people for it.

I am unfortunately a person with a good line on what can and cannot make money

if the super rich want to keep funding these amazing events then i am pumped I'm cynical enough to say i cannot see that happening

Agreed, like the old Tri Dubai team, I'm sure Bahrain endurance in another year or so, before them... billionaires have the attention spans of 3 year olds...

Ok, so watched the whole Jersey race. First Ali Brownlee commentating was pretty rad since he knows and has raced with those guys. Second, it is way more exciting then a regular Olympic distance race.
I hope this race succeeds. Its pretty cool!

Makes way more sense now that I've watched it from start to stop;

Brownlee is wonderful - very insightful. You can tell how much he loves the sport!

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

I tend to agree that it will have a hard time making money in the United States. But I do think that the entertainment value for this is very, very high. The pain and suffering that you can see, the bike crashes, the mistakes of taking your feet out of your shoes a lap early, mixing up the order of the events to showcase there different strengths of the athletes is phenomenal. Look at how Varga dominated when swim gave him the edge and at the end of a race.

I am also glad that Trauma brought up the MTR and Major League Triathlon. Better athletes will start doing these races because they will need to experience to make it in the Olympics.

I have been watching these events on my middle distance stationary bike rides and have been getting the itch to see if some of the faster athletes from the local tri clubs would want to put an event on. Philadelphia is a big city with a lot of triathletes in the surrounding areas. This includes the largest women's triathlon club in the country (800-1000 members, women only).

Hell, Canadian elite nationals this year (also a CAMTRI premium continental cup race, there were strong US and Mexican contingents that made the trek up) went to a two day format, with a super sprint qualifying round, and then a sprint distance final (they also threw Juniors, U23 and elites together, and had massive fields, that ran super fast and super smoothly for an event with 8 qualifying heats). Precisely because of the importance of Super Sprint ability to the MTR, which without increasing team size for the Olympics, will mean that your athletes racing the individual tri, will also need some super sprint skills if you are aiming for a top MTR placing.

If any version of tri is going to make headway stateside in terms of TV viewership, it'll be something like SuperLeague or MLT, because the racing is more exciting. I'm not the typical viewer, in that I subscribe to the ITU channel and watch the WTS races, and will watch some of the IM coverage, but you end up tuning out at points, because it's boring to watch (just like for the TDF, I PVR the races, and on a flat sprint stage, I fast forward to the last 5kms, and on the mountain stages I fast forward between the action on the climbs). The short and fast stuff caters to the North American attention span better...

I took a look last night at the Hamilton race. hope it continues. the athletes were dying. lead out bike got told to slow down by the athletes. love it

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

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I just got an email that the engagement for Super League Triathlon is up 40% event over event. That is some pretty solid growth. They basically do not have any merchandise available...I know, I have looked. I would like to buy some merchandise to support the events if its high quality.

The guy who launched it is worth $1-1.2 Billion.

I would buy something if it was a shirt or something with an athletes name on it and maybe their flag. I emailed them with the suggestion.

Me too. Because I’m a dork like that.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Also, gambling. The structure and locations of Super League facilitate betting on the races.