Hard to imagine PTO putting up a March event when there is no date or any kind of details in mid Jan? For the pros who have contracts, it’s fine, they will train accordingly. But each race now has an AG element running in parallel? I doubt you will get many takers at this point?

i have to say: it's possible that the PTO has shared some pretty firm dates with pros but aren't 100% to go public yet. but man, if i'm a pro and it's mid-january, and you want me to be racing a championship field at full gas over 100k . . . in march? come on! my coach and i need to make plans really soon. like booking flights, planning the training, scheduling our camps. . . etc. hell, by now maybe i've already booked and paid for a month in spain or arizona or something.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

As people say "if you ask the right people, you can find out stuff" most of the people to ask would be the media. Apparently there is a March event in North America. Or at least the pros were told of one. Now, will it actually happen? I don't expect an announcement at the end of this week because the head shed seems to want to be able to announce all the contracts and confirm their entire series in one fell swoop. This will prove incredibly challenging. And it isn't going to be 8 races either for the year. Closer to 4 and if it's perfect maybe 6. I know I'm super cynical on and I'm being as opaque as the guys who say they've seen the contracts.

Partner is not USAT and not Ironman, but a former one. They're burning days at a time right now considering when this race is supposedly scheduled.We'll see if it happens.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

March timeframe in the US......there is the Miami America's Conti Champs draft legal 2nd weekend of March. Becuase it's a continental championship, technically it's through WT as "host" and not the specific host federation (USAT in this instance but this is a "championship" level race so I think *techncailly* it's WT as the host.....so they "partnered" wiith WT at the Ibiza last spring so there is that) and so that's potentially where it is. Miami speedway where Clash pro races have happened (they don't have pro races anymore).

This race would certainly fit the profile PTO needs, the infrastructure is already there with an Conti Champ event (this is a big time event for USA development athletes) and if it stays on site using the speedway, easy venue to broadcast.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

For maybe the first time ever, you seem almost enthused! Welcome to the positive side of life.
The 'Facts not speculation' man has suggested there'll be a March race. You, essaying opacity, suggest a North American venue for that, to be run in partnership with "not USAT or IM". Are there any such races scheduled? Will there be amateur racing alongside (before or after)?

Clash Miami? There was something about a pro race on their schedule for a few days before it disappeared. Would make sense could be a top tier broadcast.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

I believe Clash got out of the pro races, but if it's true NA is hosting an March event, the only races in the entire country due to weather will either going to be Florida or southern Cali. I seriously doubht they would go to Clermont DL challenge the weekend prior to the big America's Championship race that is in Miami (for 10+ years it's been in Sarasota). Miami speedway allows PTO go back to the "glory days" of racing and broadcasting entire race on track that was the unique PTO Championships in '20 at Daytona (still probaly one of the best 1 day quality of fields in history of sport).


ETA: The Clash Miami race (all AG races) is the same time frame as the America's Conti Championship (draft legal on Miami speedway property) so yeah that's going to be the venue. Fits the needs for PTO completely.

March 8-10th weekend. Clash AG races + WT draft legal continental championship + PTO race....yeah that's going to be it.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Looks like LCB is all in on the PTO series

With a few IM races as well

I will healthily admit that I'm a triathlon nerd and will watch their races as long as they are not at 3AM. In one hand I wish they were everything they claim to be, on the other I watched their entire org be a twitter account that constantly attacked WTC and did nothing except steal oxygen.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

PTO website dropdown now includes the following under age group events:

Las vegas Open 2024

Clicking the link leads nowhere but it says it.

Well that would be a smart move. I just hope they have the foresight to actually stick it out more than a year and run the thing for a few years in a row. Vegas could become a marquis event.

Not seeing anything on the site but a google search:

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Man this organization has huge dreams but it’s fucking amateur hour over there. That said, I can drive to Vegas so I’ll pencil that in to the calendar.

404 Error. If they're going to have Amateur Only events, good luck to them. But there should be something on the table, like a slot in the pro race to the winner. You know, so that these "opens" are actually open.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I highly doubt this is an amateur only event. The amateur portion of the Asian Open was called something similar. Would be a crazy waste of resources considering their goal.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

I think I've said a million times over that if they were serious, they would do pro only races, pay for the permits, and do the marketing. They don't want to do that. They want to piggy back off someone else's promotion.

The reason for this is clear. Professional Only events will never happen in triathlon. The economics don't support it. The economic model requires basically 50 amateur athletes racing for every pro racing, if not more than that.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/...egas-open/age-group/

Looks like Vegas will be October 19-20, 2024


And Ibiza registration is up, 270€ early bird pricing.
https://protriathletes.org/...pean-open/age-group/

A week before Kona? Very bold of them

I still don’t quite understand their biz model. So their AG “strategy” is to largely piggyback another established race, so what revenue do they get out of that? Are they completely relying on broadcasting and streaming to fund their endeavours? I really hope it works out? Dishing out 100k contracts and 1/2 million dollar prize money per event is a lot of capital being drained

their business model, or even just their . . . purpose? are they an athlete's union? an events company? a PR company? a media company? sometimes it's hard to know if they're making good moves because i don't know exactly what the end goal is.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

at the same time this is the first time somebody forces ironman to change, in a way its the pto that dictates the pro sport right now or at least its not only ironman that writes the narrative of pro triathlon with a 2 week break around roth .

so isnt that an achievement regardless how long it lasts ,its a bit like leicester winning the premier league a while back .... and i guess 5 years ago if you would have predicted that pto would kind of push around ironman they would have all laughed at you. and of course chances for pto are just as high to end up where leicester is now or likely worse . when pto falls they will cease to exist. at the same time there is a small chance they could become man city.
they think big and outside the box and while they obviously struggle to set up their races they have moved quite a bit since 2019 and are progressing. and by stopping the colins cup they have shown they are willing to adapt.

its certainly not an athlete union, this is very clear for a few years now.

and i guess pto is a bit like lionel sanders everybody seems to realize things could be better yet many want to watch the shipwreck or the win. ie thestrpbro is the most invested guy in this thread. while on the ironman pro series thread he commented 3 times in the first 4 pages.
Despite being the ironman fan boy ,he has no interest in what ironman does, to be the pto hater triggers him way more. without knowing it thestrobro is probably the most useful pto supporter just as the sanders haters drive up sanders revenue on you tube as they help to increase the clicks.
and in a way this is the goal of pto to have many more thestrobros to get emotions into the sport, the more haters they get the better.

I wonder if they will go out to Henderson like Ironman did for 2 years of 70.3 Worlds. It wasn't a bad location for a race, run wasn't the best but the bike was very cool.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

I think the main thing with the PTO is that they are trying to legitimately make pro triathlon a real thing. Which has never really happened beyond basically outside the Olympics for tri.

Their mantra is basically going to turn into “go big or go home”. So whether they have AG races attached to their events right now is almost meaningless. Whether they have big tri name or not is almost irrelevant as well because the general fan has to buy in for the PTO to make it. So ultimately it’s going to turn into the racing product with or without big names. I don’t think you can market the athletes finishing in 14th place cus people just won’t care at that point.

So it’s really cool in that an entity has come in and said “your sport is cool enough to fund to see if we can take this to market”. Athletes are getting 6 figure “salaries” that’s unfathomable in a sport like non revenue making sport like tri. I don’t know how long this runway will last but it’s wild what they are trying to do.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

What I don’t get is WHY they just don’t tell the public the schedule IF the pros know where the races are then they must be solidified.

Why the “We are pros and we know but we can’t tell you yet” sort of vernacular.

Why would they hold it back if pros know and the locations are set. They NEED our money and they need the amateurs to participate but yet they keep it all secret for what reason?

So many triathlon podcasts are saying the same thing: “We know and we can’t tell you but maybe when this podcast comes out the general public will know a thing or two.”

I just don’t understand this. IF you know the locations then just f-in tell us!

Enough with this cloak and dagger stuff!

People need to plan and book rooms and buy tickets and put in for off days at work! What gives?

Stupid.

I think because they are "tentative" dates to get to the pro's "early" so they can kinda fill out their race schedule and/or make decisions on in or out on PTO. IE- there is a tentative race in March and the only weekend will be X, so the athlletes can plan a schedule. It's not as if they are in negotiations with cities and then they'll just flip the dates to a date they haven't been negoatiting with cities. So PTO has gone to cities and said we want to do a race in your city. So they know when and where they want to do the races, it's just a matter of finalizing the contract. I also think the 6 figure contract is sorta PTO's "mea culpa" to the pro's to also get their buy in with all of this still "fuzzy" details.

And as I said, they don't really need AG events for all of them, they are hosting what 1 "PTO distance" AG world championship right? PTO's success or non-success isn't in needing AG money to fund this...They have the funding currenlty....that funding will only stay coming in if the market shares work out.


If the dates were finalized- public would know (PTO would be blasting this info every single day on the socials). I think they don't want to go public now with the chance that something falls through and only have 3/4/5 of an expected 6-8 race schedule. One of the real issues that I see with the PTO- they aren't really in the RD business, they want to piggy back off other races, pay said RD a big sum of money to block of 8 hours of traffic for the PTO pro event. They haven't really shown to be in the business of just going to cities and saying "this is what we are going to do as a single pro event"......

So there potentially are RD's that are simply strong arming PTO essentially. PTO has yet to do 1 single PTO only event; it's always with WT or Challenge or USAT. So it may be as simply, those RD's are saying "you showed the pro's the money, now it's time to show us the money in order to have your race here".

Repeat- If the PTO schedule was finalized it would 100% be published to the general public. It would make zero sense to not have it already published and to grow chatter and get people to want to get excited about this race and that race and how X race sits in the pro calendar. They simply haven't been able to finalize contracts with said RD's/cities/permits. But again they can of course tentatively tell the pro's when and where because well that's the only places they are negoiating with. They simply haven't been able to finalize the contracts. They only look "semi incompotent" right noW and that's only to the insiders like ST who actually care about this (general public doesn't know they are struggling with race announcements). If they published a full schedule in Nov and then only pulled off 1/2 the events they said they would, that's full incompotence territory in the full public spectrum.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II