How about this thought...........

for both tri and cycling......most pros make less than the design and marketing employees, I'd bet.

The UCI world tour minimum (often people ride the TdF as domestiques on the league minimum) is what? $40k?

Meanwhile, the faces of your company and products don't even make what the sales, marketing, designers do.

We're not talking NFL/NBA salaries here, c'mon.

you can't seriously be telling me that ironman failing to even provide splits as the pro's come out the water in their world championship event, is the best they can do? seriously? you have no idea there's actually a race going on based off what's shown!

the kona coverage is pretty much just watching one guy out in front exercising, you don't see any of the race dynamics playing out. and that's why it's boring, you don't see any of what is happening!

why should pro's settle for ironman corp to run it into the ground while messick lines his own pockets?

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You finally figured it out. Because pro's dont have a leg to stand on. The pros are just another category like AG category is for the big bad IM corporation. IM needs them to a degree to keep the wheels greased and that's it. The pros have "no hand" in this discussion. The quicker you realize that, the quicker you'll realize why decisions are made the way they are.

And that may not be what we want, or what we want to hear, but that's the reality.

ETA: So what that means is that you as a pro have to figure why people should care about you. What's your story? What's your connection to people, that's how your going to be successful in this sport. Connect with people and sponsors will support you. That's how your going to make it financially in addition to racing really well. But only so many can race well (as Eric said he had what 4 world champions in his race, 5th is one hell of a good placement), if you can't connect with people, you won't be well supported.

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

It doens't have to be the best it can do. Where are all these people complaining about the coverage to force WTC to make a better broadcasting product? So if there isn't this reverence for the coverage and demand for the coverage your going to get what your going to get.

That's the whole thing your missing. You think WTC is doing this to keep the pros "down"?? Don't you think a better advertised product would create more money for WTC. But at the end of the day this is a business and you run with what makes your biz successful. So far maxing out pro potentially isn't a biz savy move.



Go look at the content IM has put out on it's pros on their fb page. Patrick Lange's video has 12k views......12k views......that's zilch in the grand scheme of things. IM's Ventum video has 6k views. And you wonder about why sponsors have all but dried up??

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

Sure, it is boring, but tell me a 3-day cricket match—wildly popular in other countries—isn’t.

obviously I did google before asking here, thus why I stated last race results being 2018.

my personal little interest of mine is finding out what pros do post tri career. I like the stories of ones who pursue new interests other than tri coaching

I can say that I'm a fan of the pros. I spend a specific commodity that also equates to money called time. I watch their videos and follow them on social. So I am in fact financially supporting pros in a way.

Now...there are definitely some things that Ironman could definitely fix, and of course this will cost money. But it would make it much more interactive for families and fans. What's that? Timing mats galore. Every two miles or even every mile on the course of the run. Every 5 miles on the bike. Of EVERY RACE. We also discussed GPS units on the bike, just 10 of those. Five for each of the top women and men seeded for the race.

Everything costs money, and seeing how Sponsorships are working in Triathlon. Ironman is still getting the sponsors in on a regular basis. Although I will tell you, the Vega sponsorship annoys the hell out of. Don't preach to me about nutrition.

The Collins Cup seems to have never been a real thing and PTO remains a joke. Good for Sam to shake that tree for money though.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

The bolder is exactly why when Cam, LS, Jan, and Sebi make jokes about each other and piss on Lange that they create interest in the sport. We NEED more to not be blah. More to say “fuck”. More to talk about “fuck that doper [name]. It creates entertainment and a reason to watch.

Triathlon IS successful. But it's revenue is NOT from TV contracts and advertising. Sports like American football and Tennis make money that way because the general public want to watch the pros. The simple fact is that the general public has no interest in triathlon pros.

Triathlon makes its money from triathletes. The age grouper is the most important person in triathlon, not the pro and not the non-athlete fan. The money is made from entry fees, bike sales, wetsuit sales, shoe sales.... That does not mean pros have no value, it's just their value is generated differently. They are not going to generate 20 million more sales of bars of dove soap to random people. Their influence is limited to the population of about 2 million triathletes in the world (actually fewer who are really in to it) and their value is the extent to which they can influence those triathletes to buy things and enter races.

What do you want people to do in order to get 200 million more triathlon fans? You can't just tell people they should like it and expect them to realize they actually do. Do you watch the facebook coverage of races? It's pretty damn good now and takes a big effort. NBC does their 1 hour Kona summary in a way that they judge the non-triathlete general public to be most interested in it. They are not deliberately trying to hold their ratings down. If the general public does not demand more coverage of professional triathlon, it's just not going to happen. It's not because Andrew Messic is trying to hold it back. That's absurd. And I have no idea what he gets paid, but Ironman makes a lot of money - from Age Groupers - and he deserves to get paid for that.

Edit to add that I LOVE the fact that age groupers are the heart of triathlon. We normal humans get to compete in a global sport against eachother. Compare the stage that we get to compete on compared to our adult friends that play in a local baseball or soccer league. Our "major sport" playing friends have no options for serious competition if they are not among the very best on the planet.

Also edit to add - as a pro having your fan base be made up of people who are also athletes and therefore have a good understanding of what you do and how good you are I would hope would be rewarding. Yes, if I were a pro, I would want to make more money too. And maybe Sebi, Jan, Cam have a good idea in their manufactured drama. They are some of the well-compensated pros...

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I didn't really take it as complaining, more of an affirmation that money isn't why he got into racing and a little bit of context as to why he does the things he does. If you watch Eric's videos I don't think there's any question that he has a great appreciation for the lifestyle he's able to live through triathlon, and that he's an advocate of doing it for the love of the sport and not the money.

It all comes down to each side having power in the discussion. Because there is little broadcast availability within pro triathlon, LC pros will always have very little power and thus have to bend the knee to the “evil greedy” IM Corp. But the reality is, everyone in the industry would benefit from pros becoming more marketable etc. So it’s not that these races are keeping pros down or whatever it’s that the pros have very little negotiating power. And that’s no fault on anyone. That’s just where you are as a niche sport with very little support.

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

Several attempts have been made to unionize pros. You know who killed those attempts? Some of the biggest pro names at the times.
Why? bc they didn't care about the overall long term health of the sport just their immediate earning power.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Pro triathletes can have a trade organization. They can't have a union.

That distinction alone tends to turn off people (Starky and Frodeno immediately said no to the then PTU over the name and associated issues).

To Chad -- if you think for one second that the $30 million in interest payments you deride here would be invested in the professional field, you are sadly mistaken. It'd go to equipment, it'd go to staff, and it'd go to technology investment.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

my point was that the money should be invested in proper race coverage - which actually shows the race happening.

this gives pro's a platform on which to be professional athletes, creates fans and brings in external investment to the sport.

not sure why coverage of the sport is seen as such a radical idea.

imagine the same quality of coverage and commentary that ironman puts on being used for the tdf, in formula 1, tennis, soccer etc. do you seriously think they'd have fans tuning in and paying to watch it?

there can't be fans of the sport without anything to be a fan of, and without the coverage to actually watch a race happening, how could there possibly be fans of the sport?

You...you do know that WTC partnered with ASO (the folks behind TDF) to provide coverage of Kona last year, right?

There's competing interests with additional vehicles needed to provide course coverage as well -- especially given the frequency of athlete interactions with said course coverage. You don't need to go far on this forum to see people calling for the ban of any WTC vehicles on course while athletes are still on it. So...which path do we go down?

I do go back to the underlying point, though -- the participants drive the stakes here. The bread and butter of triathlon as a whole is the recreational athlete. Where do we think the investments are likely to be made right now, with the more likely return on investment on those dollars?

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Paula comes from a well off family... they hang at their vacation home in Canmore often.

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

I have been making many of these same points for years.

The NBC highlight show is the worst thing for the sport of triathlon.

you....you do know that the coverage wasn't even able to provide splits as the athletes got out the water right? splits out of transition, into t2, wasn't able to provide any live splits on the course, any idea where athletes were on the course in relation to each other, any idea who was moving up or down the field through any of the 'live' coverage.

how long was it before we knew what had happened to kienle? did anyone even have any idea aernouts or mcnamee were running on to the podium until they actually arrived at the finish line? or have any idea how close it actually was for the 4th to 7th places during the closing stages of the run?

there's some really, really basic stuff missing here, before you get on to the 'harder' stuff which other sports manage perfectly well with currently available technology.

+1

makes a mockery of the 'sport'

I generally agree with Brooks view. I do wonder why WTC doesn't invest a bit more in a PR budget though. While I agree that viewing is going to be a tough/impossible sell, I do think the pros could be marketed way better and help sell a lot more products and drive interest in the sport. Why not reach an agreement/pay Wheaties to put every Kona winner on the cover every year? Why not push or pay for better advertising leading up to each years Kona broadcast? Why not figure out mutual sponsors of top pros and then enter into a joint tv advertising campaign similar to "Dan vs. Dave" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_%26_Dave which pretty much introduced the world to decathlon back in '92? Know a lot of this will be reasonably costly, but figure WTC could back off in a year or 2 if you weren't seeing a return in the form of increased race entries.

"I play real sports. Not trying to be the best at exercising." Kenny Powers
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We do sports. The moment you add a ball, it become a game.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Splits are typically run off the timing system. Boxes run off of cell coverage. Failure of the comms at any point results in a lack of data being uploaded. There's a trend towards chips that offer memory, which will allow scans to retroactively backfill datapoints at the next box that is actually transmitting. That all being said, that's stuff that is often pushed over to their timing partner, Sportstats.

But you're also now shifting the goalposts.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

The Kona commentators can't even pronounce the names of the pro's correctly.
There are 100 pro names to learn, it should be easy.

Also, instead of filling dead air time with subjective bullshit about "form", bike position, nutrition and all sorts of other stuff try humanizing the athletes.

This would require some (but not terribly hard) research. Hell.. you could even get the pros to write it for them!
- height/weight/age
- years competing
- nationality/residence
- races competed in this season
- big wins
- injuries in the past
- fun facts: "loves dogs", "has 3 kids", "votes for Trump"
- pundit expectations
- etc...


Being a pro is worth nothing if people don't care about the human behind the athlete.

Has anyone else noticed that IM does a pretty poor job of marketing and maximizing advertising? While watching 70.3WC I don't remember a single commercial. Don't get me wrong, I hate commercials like the next guy but during a 4hr race which has very few can't miss moments, a few commercials could increase revenue which could pass onto the pros. Also all the race sponsors, although they are very relatable to the sport, are relatively small companies. Having sponsors which is not triathlon related but appeal to many of the participants ie. Mercedes, Rolex, Dental school or even banks would accurately target the upper middle class and by receiving advertising from much larger companies rather than triathlon specific companies a much greater revenue stream is created. Kinda off topic but knowing that the prize purse for the US Open is over 100x that of that for Kona, I feel like there has to be some ground to make up.

What about the ironman blender?!!