Interesting read. I don't ever see 140.6 events, outside of Kona, being big TV draws and thus, big sponsor draws. There isn't enough action taking place to the casual viewer to draw them in. ITU races have the best shot in my opinion to draw in a global audience and more sponsor revenue. I've always been behind WTC, except for that whole not allowing 50 female pros thing, in how they are trying to reformat the KQ process for pros in an effort to create "bigger" races and hopefully bring in revenue from sponsors and possibly television. For me, it makes following the pro packed races much more interesting and worth my time.

+1

I will say that article pretty much confirmed my opinion that business school professors are in the business of using as many words as possible to say as little as possible.

Honestly, I thought that article was pretty awful. I think there were some interesting points, but they got buried under excessive verbiage. And I say this as someone admittedly prone to pleonasm.

What's interesting, to me, anyway is that the dominance of the various professional sporting leagues would seem to argue AGAINST your Madison quote. I mean, sure, there have been blunders - Ray Rice, most recently. But, overall, there seems to be a pretty effective balance in most of the big leagues. Granted, you do have the balance of power between owners, players, and "the league," but I don't see her making any sort of offer as to how such a balance might exist within triathlon where it is - by nature - a participant driven sport. I always fail to understand the analogies between Ironman and the NBA/NFL/MLB, as opposed to drawing analogies between Ironman and golf, tennis, or even marathon.

I think the ITU has the opportunity to follow the "league" model, but Ironman is more likely to follow the event model. Both are successful, but in different ways.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

As a business major, majoring in business, at a school for business, it has been my view the business professors are in the business of using the word business as much as business.

All joking aside, I couldn't agree with you more on this.

x2. Could have been a good article if it weren't so terribly written.

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http://trainingwheelsrequired.wordpress.com
@KellyNCollier

[quote Rappstar
What's interesting, to me, anyway is that the dominance of the various professional sporting leagues would seem to argue AGAINST your Madison quote. I mean, sure, there have been blunders - Ray Rice, most recently. But, overall, there seems to be a pretty effective balance in most of the big leagues. Granted, you do have the balance of power between owners, players, and "the league," but I don't see her making any sort of offer as to how such a balance might exist within triathlon where it is - by nature - a participant driven sport. I always fail to understand the analogies between Ironman and the NBA/NFL/MLB, as opposed to drawing analogies between Ironman and golf, tennis, or even marathon.

I think the ITU has the opportunity to follow the "league" model, but Ironman is more likely to follow the event model. Both are successful, but in different ways.[/quote]
You highlighted the key distinction between Ironman and the other leagues -- namely, the individual owners' interests are not always the same as the league interest. By decoupling the institution that sets the rules -- including the playoff or championship series qualifications -- from the teams there is a balance of power that better advances the multiplicity of interests from fans, owners, players and the league. In Ironman the pro athletes are like the player to these other sports. The WTC is both the league (for purposes of setting the rules for the economically important championships) and the owner (for purposes of maximizing profit, growth etc.)

I'm not trying to tear down WTC. The sport and industry grew this way organically. My point is simply that when it comes to making trade-offs between a host city/country, race director, age-group preference, pro preference etc. that WTC enters the calculation with an enviable hand. In each two-way relationship, WTC holds a strong, if not stacked, bargaining position. In essence, it gets to judge what is best for triathlon by assessing what is best for WTC growth.

I agree with your preference for analogies to golf, tennis and marathon. They are stronger. But I don't think that Wimbledon and the French Open are owned by the same group of people.