Hi Gilliga, yes that's the plan....we aren't quite ready to announce when and where yet!

Big fan of IMTalk..will check it out

If your talking about triathlon in general, I agree - the racing is very fragmented and that means we don't see deep or exciting fields.

Within the sport itself, though there is already phenomenal depth and its in creating the Major events with the right incentives that we believe we can solve this problem (and in doing so, help grow the sport). Outside of Gustav's winning form, we've consistently seen different podiums at all the PTO events so far and at the 2020 PTO Championships at Daytona the 2nd-12th men finished within 2 minutes of each other....that is exciting racing!

I appreciate with Covid these events have been far apart, so its not always obvious to see. This is why we are working hard with our partners and city hosts to get the PTO Tour fully established, this will allow a whole season of the best athletes racing together. Sparks are going to fly!

Thank you....its great to see the World Triathlon Championships going to Abu Dhabi this year, I am sure that will have a big impact on the sport in the region.

We have had a lot of interest by different cities and regions in hosting a PTO 'Major' - which is a great reflection not just of our events but the sport in general.....I cant comment (yet) specifically to where we'll go next, but there is a lot going on behind the scenes

Quite a lot to unpack here....from the tone of writing you might not agree with anything I rely with, but I said to Dan and Ryan I'd join the forum to answer questions that were asked, so here we go:

Q: The PTO made itself out to be some type of athlete's association, it is not anything resembling one. Will it stop making itself out to be one?

A: We are a professional athletes organisation (not a union) - both in our ownership model, governance structure and in our approach to operating. We have provided financial support to circa 250 professionals to date and one of our largest areas of focus/investment is creating content that can shine a light on the incredible athleticism these athletes showcase everyday.

Q: The PTU/PTO for most of its history was just a sour twitter account under the @collinscup moniker, will the PTO start acting differently and stop attacking the organization that drives the sport globally (WTC)?

A: I think you answer your question already here - the PTO/PTU did start on a negative footing with Ironman, but if you look at both the organisation and our social media feeds...we have been acting differently for several years now!

Q: Why did the PTO in its launch/re-launch under you make disingenuous offers to purchase Ironman from Wanda? Why did you attack them over their sale to Advance as if it was the worst thing to happen?

A: It certainly wasn't intended to be disingenuous or negative, Ironman is an amazing brand and a fantastic business - our offer to invest in it was testament to this. Its also important to make a distinction between our concerns about the ownership versus the business itself - ee didn't (and still dont) believe that Wanda was the right owner for the business (arguably 'Mr Market' didn't either) and we wanted to see a very important asset to our sport in more patient, forward thinking hands. We congratulated Advance on their acquisition and we were very happy to see Ironman under a more stable, long term owner. So perhaps some distorted history there (it was after all, several years ago now). Everything is easy with hindsight but the China driven investment model in sport has struggled in far more places than Wanda/Ironman.

Q: Why have you/PTO looked at Ironman as an enemy? It's not. It's the best Triathlon promoter in the world bar none.
A: We haven't and I dont. I've worked with Andrew and the team there for many years - they have a built a brand that thousands of people around the world choose to tattoo on their bodies. Its a cultural phenomenon

Q: Why has the PTO gone full bore into mass participation? It looks like you are copying the only model in triathlon that works. Which is mass participation.
A: I'm not sure how close you are to the mass participation industry, but if we did a straw poll of the vast majority of organisers, they would tell you how much time and effort goes into delivering races that can exist on razor thin margins. So from a 30,000 feet view I would argue the current model doesnt work. We would not have brought on the investors we have if we had only a mass participation model - ours is closer to the professional sports mix of consumer, media, sponsorship, hosting. As for WHY - hopefully you can tune into the Collins Cup this weekend and it will answer

Q: What is the VC runway? Ten years? That's what it looks like as an organization ( a VC play).
A: We agree at last! 10 years+. It took UFC 16 years before their investors had a return......we have some advantages that didn't exist 20 years ago which should make our time horizon faster. That said, if you look at the trend in the very top tier of VC (where our partners come from) there is an increasing trend towards evergreen holdings......this is the definition of patient capital. To add some personal context to this, as someone who has been in the sport for 20 years, I think its an incredible, one in a lifetime opportunity that Triathlon is receiving the expertise and capital of investors like this.....should we, as triathlon fans, not all be shouting from the rooftops rather than criticising every tweet?

Q: Technical stuff, why has the PTO failed to provide live splits on its broadcasts? Why are there not live leaderboards? Why does the PTO use too many commentators on each broadcast?
A: Its been covered on this form already but real-time timing doesn't yet exist in Triathlon. Because we rely on RFID technology to give us timing updates whenever people cross a timing matt, those are the only times we get updates. This means that if we have a leaderboard, we might be following the top 3 athletes and they could change position on the screen, only for the leaderboard not to update until they next cross a timing matt. As a result, we use them less. We are working with a proprietary technology to change this to real-time GPS based live timing next year, which will mean we can move to more consistent data.

Q: What is the plan for the Collins Cup to address the multitude of issues that broadcast had? PTO promised a lot when it came to packaging for TV, it has not delivered, why is that?

A: The Collins Cup is an incredibly challenging format - 12 separate races taking place at the same time over a 60 mile radius. We worked with the top producers and technology providers in the business - here's a quote from one of them.
“it was the most amount of RF frequencies they’ve ever had to request for a single job. We had to get special dispensation from the Slovakian military government to allow us to use military frequencies.”.
This is without doubt one of the reasons Triathlon hasn't emerged as a broadcast product yet - its very hard to do - and the bar for quality to us isn't other triathlon races, its other sports you can choose to watch on TV. Thats a high bar! I will let far more educated people add context here: https://www.svgeurope.org/...s-biggest-challenge/


That all said - creating a sport for TV isn't just about production, its also about distribution - the Collins Cup last year was shown live on linear TV in over 100 markets and translated into over 20 languages. I won't bore you all with the complexity this adds. We dont rest on our laurels here, but for a first event, it was a good step. We had a lot of challenges, we learned a lot - and I hope you'll see the learnings of all that in the production this weekend.



Q: If you're going to call events "US Open" or "Canadian Open" are you going to have a qualifying series that puts elite amateurs in each of the Open Championships like actual Open Championships in Golf and Tennis? To actually model of Open Championships? You said you did so in a previous post on page 1, but there was no open qualifiers for amateurs.
A: We call them Open's because its not a closed league or invitational. Any athlete who's records strong enough performances to qualify will be eligible to race


Q: Why do you attempt to compel athletes to join the PTO, and why do you force members to wear the logo on their kit. Since it's not a Union, are you paying every member for those four square inches of space? If you're not, that's another reason why I'm probably hostile to this whole endeavor.
A: Its a membership body and there are both benefits and asks for being a member. One of those, is that the Pro's represent their membership by showcasing the logo of the body that supports them.


Q: One of the biggest things I've wanted since the big announcement when you were announced as CEO is for the organization to be honest with what it is: A race promoter.
A: As I said at the beginning of my reply - we are going to have to agree to disagree on that! I have worked with and for event business all around the world - and I can tell you from the inside out, the PTO is a completely different structure.


Thanks for the questions and hope you'll feel less hostile in the future!

Thank you for the honest answers. That colors a lot of what I wanted to know, but we do look at things quite a bit differently.

When I look at an athlete's association/union, the members fund it with dues. That was what the organization made itself out to be for a long time and even at the beginning of your tenure.

I also appreciate that the organization has learned and chosen a better path for interaction with WTC. I've raced under Wanda and now under Advanced ownerships, really nothing has changed. Still a world class race product for as much as many on this board bemoan Ironman.

I've looked at the Triathlon model for a long time and what supports pro racing globally is mass participation. Do I know what goes into planning and running events? Yes it's tremendous hard work. I've volunteered numerous times for both small races and "big" races. And then I've raced them. Almost every organization globally relies on mass participation, World Triathlon Champions Series(let's rebrand every two years yay!) has age group racing at almost every event and at conti cups because that is the only way those are viable. Super League knew it had to join the mass participation ranks and it has.

When it came to the development of a broadcast product that would be compelling, the trajectory many of us saw was you staying away from mass participation in every sense. Whether you believe that is to create a fan base or not, it's still delivering a race. Also, Dallas, mid-September 2PM is a horrible time for a race to start. (Guessing you want a decent European broadcast window) Generally triathlon is a participation and not a consumption based sport. People like us who sit and watch an Ironman for 8 hours are strange compared to most.

And yes I know about the complications of integrating RFID to broadcast, but much of that can be solved by deploying a lot more timing mats as we saw in Challenge Daytona.

The bonus pool is interesting, but I don't see how it grows the sport. You have a lot of struggling pros that need support to just get going and giving another 300k to the world number 1 at the end of the season doesn't really grow it much.

Generally struggling to see the long term sustainability of the project. For all my criticism, I've still watched every race.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Not at all putting words in the mouth of the other poster, but this doesn't seem to fully address the question about PTO actually "developing"/ building faster athletes from those who are not currently at the top of the ranks (and thus excluded from the big money PTO races). It doesn't seem that there is any voice / voting rights in PTO for athletes ranked below 50 -- is that correct? If so, why not include a representative for lower ranked athletes in the athlete board, who might advocate for opportunities for lower ranked athletes to also benefit from this organization? Or at least let lower ranked athletes have a vote in elections?

For example- the Fitter Radio podcast hosts have suggested a companion to the Open events for developing athletes, similar to the Continental Cup races in ITU, with smaller prize purses but great opportunities for those not already at the top of the rankings. An advocate/ voice for those developmental athletes could push something like that, which sounds like a great idea.

Locking up shop now that Sam has left to, you know, produce the Collins Cup.

Thanks for the time, thanks all for the good questions.

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