Professionals do not pay the bills, age groupers do. The last thing Ironman, and by extension, age groupers, need is an organization like PTO to have anything to do with decision making on professionals. Let PTO go build their own race series ... good luck with that.

Right now, pros need WTC much more than WTC needs pros.

-Given all the pent up demand and deferrals, WTC can sell out events (that they can hold) even w/o a pro field as a draw.

-Pros desperately need to race to provide some value to their sponsors, especially after a full year on the sidelines. Youtube videos of training only go so far.


The PTO's business model is very likely non-viable even in normal times. The idea that large pro prize purses/payments can be paid for via media rights is laughable. Look at Challenge Miami; the ppv revenue wouldn't even come close to covering the Texas 70.3 prize purse, let alone production costs and the prizes at Miami. The PE dollars they were gifted buy them some time to find a viable business model and pivot, but they haven't found one.
They use the ATP as a model, but tennis is a spectator sport (with only pros competing) in its major events, triathlon is not. Pros are not as essential in tri and simply don't have the same leverage.

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I get your point if Ironman is wholly invested in making pro triathlon "viable" but pro triathlon has contracted to only two promoters in the non-drafting space. Ironman which has the the brand and history. And Challenge. Challenge also doesn't care as much as you think. They're only doing what they're doing as a differentiator in the market, which is fine of course. But what pays the bills for Challenge is the amateur athlete. What also will pay Super League's bills is the amateur, Age Group triathlon Super League will be part of an integrated Super League platform and was always in the model!

Now after watching what Challenge and Super League have done with the outward facing professional product? Yeah it's really great, I like it. Would I like Ironman to do the same? Sure. But it is significantly cheaper to produce a race on a race track than it is to produce a race on as two loop 56 mile course for a whole Ironman. Or the Run at a lot of races just won't work for a broadcast product.

I consume a lot of pro triathlon, but it's a bit of a novelty. And honestly in running, 90% of people who run marathons aren't watching professional marathoners.

(Slowtwitch, Letsrun, etc are the exception to the rule)

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

The lack of coverage annoys me the most. I'm sure I'm has a media person or two hired, why are they not hyping the race on social media etc?

And then the lack of race coverage! With many full distance races.cancellee, why don't they record some of the 70.3 which are objectively more fun to watch as a spectator anyway?

I’m with Paul on this. I still cannot believe after all these years that people don’t understand how the triathlon race event market works. Nothing against the professionals but they’re almost irrelevant to the equation.

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Not only are pros irrelevant for the normal biz model, but increasingly during a pandemic when age groupers can't do sport (who are the only potential fans of our sport) , I've talked to several age grouper who said, "the last thing I want to do is tune in online to watch pros who jetted around to events we can't go to, do sport we can't do". I'll still personally tune into Superleague and Challenge events, but I can see how that resentment builds up. I think it is more so where there are severe lockdowns and people can't do their normal professions (forget about sport), and can't socialize. Watching pros do sport, including the socialization aspects can grate on some age groupers. On my side I say, "good for them".

Also Pros without a platform to race at are just a bunch of people training in their pain caves putting up self promotion videos. After a while of no competing they become irrelevant. They need Ironman racing to happen to stay relevant. Its why there are athletes from obscure sport become mini celebrities every 4 years. Without the Olympics, they are nothing. Without Ironman racing, most LC pros are just another exerciser who happens to exercise faster than the rest of us.

They (the pros) have one card but it is an Ace. The world championship race is the crown jewel of the sport (talking long distance here, personally I prefer ITU racing) so they need the pros to be on board enough to have a legitimate world championship.

I also want to point out that Captex tri became a not-special race to me when I - and not Andy Potts - was leading the race for twenty minutes.

i feel like there have been a few cracks at "unionizing" over the years, but they haven't amounted to much. i think it would be really interesting for someone to mount a middle/long distance race, in october, in a more accessible/cheap location (western europe/north america) with way better prize money than kona . . . and see what happens.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

This was Nice in the 80's before there was prize money Kona. Finally Kona woke up and did prize money.

That ship sailed decades ago ... Nice ... and it didn't work out. Too much time and history is now on the side of Kona and I doubt it would be successful. It's be like trying to host a top level gold tournament on the weekend of The Masters. It's not gonna happen.

Some fair points here, but also a lot of the same tedious self righteousness and closed minded thinking.

A few points, in no particular order:

1. @Dev_Paul: I generally find your posts really well reasoned, but I can’t get my head around anyone being resentful of pro triathletes that on average make less than I was making when I was a pool manager in college. Maybe if the pros were actually making money and had health insurance, I could understand any resentment. And where are all these events that pros are jetting around to? Daytona, Miami and maybe 70.3 Dubai in over a year’s time? (excluded 70.3 Geelong and IM NZ because those were de facto local events due to Australia and NZ travel restrictions)

2. @Angry Age Groupers: I appreciate the AG centric viewpoints here, and yes age groupers are the revenue engine for Ironman. But guess what, age groupers would be at the PTO events as well. If there is one thing I know about triathletes, it’s that we are a *really* narcissistic bunch. If you don’t think the PTO “majors” and PTO world championship events would max out on AG entries—ESPECIALLY if there is good media coverage and said age groupers thought they could bask in that reflected glory—you’re missing the joke.

3. I’m a believer in a rising tide raising all boats, rather than zero sum thinking. Those that are into zero sum games, that’s cool.

My thesis isn’t that the pros are more important than age groupers, nor does it ignore the importance of age groupers. Quite the opposite. My thesis is that Ironman is a big, lumbering, tone deaf company that is holding back the sport by enjoying near monopoly status. Competition and alternatives are a GOOD thing for any industry.

If you build it, they will come.

This is the shit that kills.

Anyone that says they won’t be taking a serious look at Ironman alternatives post-pandemic (whether that be PTO, Challenge, local events, or whatever) after the way Ironman has gone about its business in the last year is too far gone.

Ironman has some vulnerabilities and clearly sees PTO as a threat rather than a partner. Maybe then PTO and pro triathletes should find a way to give Ironman its Denny Green moment:



(and if they do, don’t worry guys, Ironman will still gladly take your money and mine)

Because since the beginning, and still now the now Moritz Triathlon Company (That's the money provider, not the athletes, therefore not a union). Has acted like a jerk continuously berating Ironman in public. For what reason I don't know. But then at the same time, the Athlete Co-President will gladly take Ironman's money to be an Athlete ambassador. Like lol wtf.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Citation for these "public beratings"? In all of the podcasts and interviews I've listened to and read, I feel they have been pretty measured and thoughtful regarding their relationship with Ironman (or lack thereof). I'm primarily thinking of Sam Renouf's interviews when I say that.

Scroll through the Collins Cup twitter feed.

There was the "offer" to purchase WTC from Wanda. Then there was the "you can't do this without us" stuff after Advanced purchased WTC. The PTO's adversarial tactics are well known.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

What I was conveying was the sentiments of some of the "age groupers are the center of the tri universe" sentiments. Age groupers are not getting to race in general, so if they can't race they have almost no interest in what pros are doing and even resentful that pros can. I have friends who have raced in Kona multiple times and could probably not even name the winners of Challenge Miami. If they can't race, they have tuned out of pros racing. They only have interest in pros racing when they can race. I am personally tuning into pro racing and enjoying it. IM NZ was awesome. 70.3 Dubai was great. Challenge Miami was interesting. Superleague London was a blast.

But most age groupers are not thinking like fairly hard core triathlon followers on ST.

The pros really need the platform of racing and they need age groupers to actually race themselves, for age grouper fans to care about pros. Its not like couch potatoes who watch football or soccer are following pro triathon. It is only age groupers and if age groupers cannot race, they lose interest in pro racing at which point pros become even more irrelevant. A sport cannot be professional without fan interest.

I retired from Ironman in 2019. I'm not angry just a past consumer. But I am confused about all these PTO events you refer to. PTO has not put on any events; they've simply contributed prize money. They made a one time splash at Daytona by funding "the PTO Championship at Challenge Daytona". I.e., it was not a World Championship, it was not a "major" and it was not even a PTO race event. Age groupers signed up for Challenge Daytona because it was one of the few races available in 2020, and it was on the speedway (the same attraction at Challenge Miami). There may have been a few people that went because of the pro's but by and large the pro's are not the attraction. If you think age groupers are signing up for Ironman and Challenge races to bask in the reflected glory of pros who finish in a different zip code you simply don't understand the long course triathlon market.


Your thesis is null and void. Ironman did not achieve near monopoly status by being tone deaf. And when you say they are holding back the sport, I think that's your version of the sport which is overly focused on professional athletes. However, we agree that competition is good. So let PTO start their own series and let's see how it goes.

Ironman and Challenge did, and they do.

Yep, the guys I have trained with (all 6ft apart!) over the pandemic have never even brought up Super League or the Daytona race or any other pro race. There is mildly strong connection (at best) to the pro field only when amateurs are actually racing with them, but it declines massively in this current situation. I don't think it is narcissistic but rather the shared experience meant Sanders running himself into the ground at Kona was very relatable to many amateurs in their races that year. Take away the ability to share the experience and this sport (pro) kind of dies.

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