Interesting paper, I had no idea that WTC has to pay NBC to broadcast the Kona race, amazing!!! Anyway, I think that the groundwork for your proposed ranking system is already in place in the ITU's current pro ranking system. It would seem that it would be relatively easy to expand it to include all of the various distances and formats, and then rank the best overall triathletes based on their performance at the various distances/formats. I believe you need to have just one single ranking system for all pro triathletes, which is what tennis and golf do. Just as the skills needed to win the French Open on the slow red clay of Stade Roland Garros are very diff from those needed to win on the fast grass courts of Wimbledon, the talents needed to win a draft-legal tri, as is raced in ITU olympic dist racing circuit, differ consid from those needed to win at the iron distance. It would make tri more comprehensible to your average man on the street, I think, to have just one ranking system.

In any case, you've written a very nice analysis of the potential for tri to grow in the future.

Cheers,

Eric

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Brilliant article!

Your views on the possible future pathway for triathlon are brilliant and I agree in every way. Hopefully some of the Ironman big dogs give this article a squizz.

I have shared on facebook for you

Brilliant!

I've never seen a building built from the top down......

It's a big sport to us bc we do it, but still a very small sub-set.

You have tremendous insights but it strikes me as a chicken and egg argument - i.e., how do you cross the threshold to a new model when there is very little customer base for what you propose to sell? Regardless of that, Dalian Wanda is already leveraging the talents of their Swiss company Infront Sports & Media with WTC's Ironman brand. DW completed its purchase of Infront early July this year, about 6 weeks before completing the purchase of WTC. Most likely they were working both acquisitions simultaneously. Infront Sport's CEO (son of embattled FIFA president) has completed something like 15 Ironman races. Here's a photo of Infront Sport's CEO with Andrew Messick at the signing ceremony for WTC's purchase.

https://twitter.com/...s/636834814990118913

There is no doubt that they are going to work together to shape the future of Ironman. The following press release announces the partnership and direction towards global sponsorship:

http://www.infrontsports.it/...with/2291/print.html

Thanks for reading/commenting, Eric--a sport-wide ranking hadn't occurred to me--if designed well, it could definitely make the entire sport easier to understand--and even more fun--many more stories to work/play with.

The two challenges I'd see: first, athletes at the shorter end of the sport can race so much more often than those at the long end--the points system and series could be designed to account for that. Second, getting the main players all to buy into a media platform/sports rights structure to go along with that set of rankings--it could be done through a JV--if they'd all agree to it.

I think it's a great idea--even more ambitious than the one I've described. I didn't think that was possible.

I think it's a good business case and a very well-written article, but it would be a good business case for just about any fringe sport you were trying to take mainstream. And if I were going to invest in creating a sports media empire trying to drum up and sell interest surrounding a sport, I'd probably pick one that has more than 1-2 exciting events per hour. Trainspotting is probably more action-packed than long-distance triathlon.

Which remains the big problem: You can create all kinds of interesting programming _around_ the sport, and leaderboards, and make people care about the individual pros, but it's still painful to the business case if the actual sport you're trying to get people interested in is still really, really boring. An optimum triathlete is one that _doesn't_ let their power fluctuate very much, or sticks to their race plan even when getting passed, etc. Live TV content (aka sports) is where the money is at nowadays, and live triathlon coverage (even if they produced it really, really well) is still going to not have much to talk about. Draft-legal bike racing is more exciting since you have attacks, changing terrain, strategic considerations, mid-stage sprints, and so on.

To compare to the other sports you referenced:
NASCAR: Has crashes every 10 minutes, people jostling for the lead, the perception of danger, etc.
F1*: Has the perception of danger.
Golf: Has a action->"will it make it?"->result cycle that lasts like 20-30 seconds. It's easy to get sucked into watching golf because you always want to know if player X's shot went in, and the moment that gets resolved, there's a new player's shot to follow.
Tennis: Very fast-paced, and divided into nice little discrete games that suck the viewer in.

*To be honest, as an F1 fan, it's probably the most boring "mainstream" sport, and when I try to get non-F1-fans to watch a race, I usually resort to "oh, you need to know the driver's backgrounds" like you're proposing with Pro's stories. There's not much passing, and serious crashes are usually only once or twice per race.

If I was going to invest in a digital content and media push to make a fringe sport/event/entertainment product popular, I'd probably pick online gaming like League of Legends / Dota / Heroes of the Storm. A match lasts 30-45 minutes, has lots of back-and-forth, is actually exciting, you can sell viewers the game so they can play at home, etc. Probably too late to get on the ground floor of gaming though. It's been big in Asia for quite a while, and is growing fast in North America. The prize pool for Dota2's world championships this year was $18m. And it isn't even the biggest game in that genre.

Athletically, there's plenty of exciting team sports that for whatever reason haven't taken off in the North America. Cricket, Rugby, Curling, even soccer might be better bets to try and make people care in North America.

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Thanks for kudos/sharing--and for teaching me a new phrase--I had to google "give this a Squizz"--US needs to adopt that.

Marian

Yes, I caught all that--and Dalian Wanda's investment arm and the son of Dalian Wanda's founder are also stake holders in LeTV--which is buying up lots of sports rights in China, including to the US Open, MLS, etc.

The challenge Ironman will face tho'--I think, and I could be wrong--is the one I've described--there is no product, to speak of. Without rankings, without series, with too many pros in a field without much depth, without multiple prize purses that make people sit up and take notice, I think they'll hit an upper threshold to what they can accomplish pretty quickly.

Other individual pro sports leagues and associations have successfully created competition, a reason to follow along. And the media environment is such that you can use digital channels to do that globally--which is perfect for triathlon. It's tricky--and you're right, it is a chicken-egg process--but, doable, I think.

AHare touched on this... I would go so far as to say it's not totally about creating competition (although that's necessary). It's about creating drama - both on the field and especially with the participants. The characters, egos, heroes, villains that we all root for, aspire to be, love to hate, etc. And how those characters engage with each other on the field of battle.

You just don't get that in triathlon. Especially in long course. The athlete's - while in situ - are stone-faced metronomes. Sure, insiders/passionate fans can relate to what they're going through...but that's an extremely small number. Plus, I believe IM attracts more analytical, inward-facing type folks. Sorry, hope no one takes this personally...but engineering types aren't usually the most gregarious personalities. Who's a casual fan supposed to love/hate, etc?

You have a lot of ideas that seem pretty interesting. I'm sorry to say...I just don't see any mass audience really ever giving a flip about pros in triathlon. There aren't personalities to identify with.

Why does NBC focus so heavily on AG special interest stories...and recruits celebrities to race Kona? They have to come up with SOMETHING that a casual viewer can kind of relate to/care about.

Good article.
But I think there is some confusion.

In a running analogy, your article is all about how to grow 'ultramarathons'.

So, still with the running analogy, I think we would all latch on to more solutions (and lots more ideas) if we think more globally, more about growing the whole sport of 'running' and growing the sport of '10k running' and growing the sport of 'marathon running'. Rather than just focus only on 'ultramarathon running' (which is, with little doubt, the least spectator friendly of all running events).

If there were a few developments to reduce drafting (smaller fields, a swim-run-bike order, closed courses that allowed pros to use both sides of the road, etc.), I think there could be a very healthy non-draft pro circuit for olympic distance racing. The 2-hour format makes for a way, way more spectator friendly format than does an IM distance race. Plus, pros could race far more often and at much higher speeds without harming their health or performance. And higher speeds in a shorter format are a lot more entertaining to most spectators. In this day and age, very few people who are not themselves triathletes (or who don't have a relative in the event) have the time or the interest to follow a 8-9-10-11+ hour all day event.

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This is why triathlon needs outspoken athletes like Macca while tennis needs folks like McEnroe. Those personalities are good for the sport!

If you want to grow triathlon you have to focus on short course racing. You have to take off your tri glasses and look at it from a casual viewer point of view. Sprint should be what you are trying to sell to the potential audience. Short quick races with multiple heats. Multiple heats with places advancing to a final. 2 hour max broadcast. First hour is super short races deciding entrants into the finale. Second hour is the sprint with the winner taking all of the glory. Get the short course established, then work on the long course.

Long course is just like cooking with a Crockpot. There is no way to make it exciting. You turn it on, leave it and come back when it is done. Let's compare tri with another sport out there simply because of the uniforms. Let's compare it to beach volleyball. Both have beautiful backdrops. Both have chiseled athletes with minimal clothing on. The males might be topless and the females in athletic swimsuits. So each event starts and we are flipping between the channels. On Tri the channel they are swimming.......towards someplace in the distance. The volleyballers are jumping, digging, spiking and high fiving at the end of each point. The teams are surging back and forth with their scores and the crowd is oooing and ahhing after every effort. Meanwhile, on the tri channel they are still swimming.......towards that place in the distance. The background helps, but not much here to see. So we flip back to the vballers. They have split the first 2 games and are starting the winner take all 3rd game. What is happening on the tri channel. They are still swimming. No wait, they are slowing jogging out of the water towards a transition area. Why are they moving so slow? Now they change clothes and trot their bike out and mount. They start pedaling...........for a place in the distance. Why aren't they racing? One rider will come up and the other slows down and let's him pass. WTF is that? That isn't racing. Let's go back to the vballers. All tied up. The next 2 points decide it all! Sweeet dig! Set, spike to the back corner! Dug out then a dink at the net! Game over! What's happening with the tri channel? They are still pedaling for that place in the distance. Those are some goofy looking helmets. I think I will go to Lowes and get the materials to fix the screen door. I'm guessing nothing will change here for the next couple of hours on the Tri channel.

Sad but true. You have to get some drama and constant action in the sport. You might can create some in the sprints maybe the olys, but just not happening in the long course races

Thanks for the article, it was interesting reading.

Here you have my input.

Long distance triathlon can look at skiing to find a well function ranking system. Not only does skiing has world cup points but also FIS points.

Also I think it will be better to look at other endurance sports than nascar. You can take a look at how biathlon, xc-skiing and even speed skating are organized.

What is interesting is you do not need big prize money to have a successful series. If the sport is in focus, the athletes can get most of their income from sponsors (and I am not talking about equipment sponsors).
Currently in the ski world you have athletes on either national teams or private teams that get salary, then they can have sponsorship on top.

I would also recommend you to look at Ski Classic. This is live long distance xc-skiing http://www.skiclassics.com/

Taking advantage of today's Kona broadcast to bump this thread and also to share an article on pro athletes and sponsorship, published last week on Buzzfeed--which has upped its game considerably--the article is a good/interesting read. Underscores some of the themes and trends that I wrote about.


I really hope the PTU can pull the pros together and create a sound platform and viable operating model. Business opportunities for pro athletes right now are outstanding.


http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/athletes-widely-followed-on-social-media-are-upending-the-sp?#.cwAo6wqBq

In the mid 80's we actually had this ranking system in place through the APT(association of professional triathletes) It ranked sprint, international, long, ultra, and a combined ranking for all. We used the tennis template for the rankings so that they would stay fluid through the year, unlike the USAT rankings which happen once a year and then get locked in stone. ITU also has a similar ranking, so it could also be a template.

I believe we were just too far ahead of our time back then, had the right idea, just not the overall support from the world community for the sport. It was mostly US with a smattering of foreign folks, but we had all that you are calling for today 30 years ago. Really too bad it did not stick, probably makes it even harder to achieve now that things have gotten more complicated..

Regarding the "drama" aspect, you know the main reason Ironman racing took off back in the early 80s was b/c of that iconic video footage of Julie Moss crawling towards the finish line in the Feb 1982 Ironman. That footage was viewed by millions and inspired 1000s to give the sport a try. Then there were a couple of more crawl finishes by PNF, Wendy Ingraham, and a few others back in the mid to late 90s, but after those incidents IM decided to ban crawling which in retrospect was probably a mistake. Perhaps IM, USAT, and ITU need to delete the no-crawling rule and allow "crawl finishes", maybe even encourage crawling, to create more drama. Average Joe and Mary might tune in just to see the possible crawl-fest, kinda like people like to watch pro wrestlers beating the crap out of each other:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Crawling is not banned in Ironman events.

In fact, Rule 6.01(a) specifically says, "Athletes may run, walk, or crawl[]"

Hmm, well, OK, but i could swear i read a tri rule somewhere that banned crawling. Anyway, maybe they should encourage crawling, like give an extra $1000 bonus for the pro's if you slow down and collapse and crawl the last 5 yds to the finish:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Crawling *is not* permitted by USAT rule. The WTC is just deviating from that rule like they do in other areas like wetsuit temp cutoffs.

I will read the article later, but wrt to your title, perhaps Pro Long distance triathlon is already "big enough". Given the dollars in the sport, I am not sure if it warrants a larger pro profession. Look at the dollars in MLB overall versus numbers of athletes. The number of athletes is likely very low relative to total $$$ flowing through the sport. WTC pays out more $$$ in prize money than the Tour de France does for ~200 racers over 23 days of racing.

Ah, thanks, i thought i had read that somewhere:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

That's great history. In fact, when I was writing the article I tried to learn more about the back story of organizing the pros, and I couldn't find anything beyond PROTA.

With your clues, I googled again ... and since all roads lead back to Slowtwitch ... found this article from 1999, loaded with lots more details. It makes it pretty clear why the cynicism around the pros pulling together runs so deep. So many tries, so many dead ends. In some ways it's more complicated today, but maybe the fact that there are more media formats helps--more ways to build an audience, which is so important.

Like you, Eric Mulk suggested above that perhaps using the ITU's existing system as a starting point makes sense--and even perhaps make the ranking all-inclusive, across all pros. I thought it was a good idea.

Will never happen. Too many egos. Continue to be too short sighted.

Good luck.

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