I got the invite and googled it. I found this: https://www.breitling.com/...double-century-23936

No mention of the Launch Party. It may involve Ryf, Frodo and Macca.

I don't think I'll go. It happens to be on my wife's birthday.

Breitling vs Garmin? Not even close, unless you buy a Garmin for both arms, both legs, and 2 for the bike. :)

Breitling and IRONMAN have formed a partnership.
Garmin never had a partnership.
Timex had the watch/ ware-able category locked up for years but recently they didn't find the value and have let IM sell others into the category.

I saw that over 500 people RSVP so far; should be a real sweet event....

I don't think Breitling even has sports watches.

Isn't the type of watch that Breitling (and Tag) makes by definition a "sports watch" (long before a timex or Garmin)?

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Team Zoot

Honestly...I don't get the strategy here? I guess for IM it's money. But having a sponsor that produces an unattainable product for most of your customer base is stupider than anything I can imagine.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Of course it's for the money. Ironman continues to extend its brand into new areas = new profit centers. And at least with Breitling, you can argue that they are NOT diluting the brand. I don't see this as stupid either. The market for high-end Swiss watches is tiny to begin with and market study after market study shows that Ironman participants have a lot of disposable income. If Breitling can capture a sliver of that market by selling a watch with the Mdot logo, and IM gets a piece of the pie, how is this stupid? It makes a lot more sense to me than slapping on a Nascar logo and teaming with Walmart to sell a $2500+ wrist decoration.

For the record, I wear a Garmin 920 virtually 24/7 and will put on a low end stainless steel Seiko watch if I'm dressing up.

Huff is absolutely right. There isn't anything to lose for IM in this partnership. Their target market has disposable income, as is proven by the pricing on everything across the sport. If they can make some money in a new area (high end watches) why wouldn't they? It will be interesting to see what Breitling comes up with.

I'm also in the same boat as Huff. I'll wear my 920xt as my daily driver, but if I have to look even remotely nice (like wearing a collared shirt) I'll put on my Tag. No different than an athlete that rides their road bike all the time and only breaks the TT bike out for races.

My $.02

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No problem with it as long as IM seemed equally invested in promoting youth triathlon as "maximizing return." But IM seems laser focused on 50 y.o. affluent dudes.

i found a pretty interesting interview with the breitling CEO from about 6 months ago. worth reading. first, the race they all did was 125mi, and he did it. so, not exactly just a guy who sits in a chair all day. second, the intervewer asked what he was reading. answer? jan frodeno's book. third, his emerging markets are china and the middle east. just opened a concept store in dubai. and fourth, if you look at the 3 people who make up his triathlon squad, it was either sheer coincidence or this was under the guidance of the prince of bahrain's retinue, which would make sense if breitling wanted to extend to bahrain what it is developing in dubai (or maybe it already has that in bahrain).

i don't see any downside to any of this. HOKA just launched a $115 tri-friendly racing flat, which i just bought off its website 2 days ago so i could review it for you all. this, while nike has its $250 shoe for you. there are plenty of expensive and inexpensive options for you all. i'm about to write up a $40 race i've been doing on thursday nights, my favorite race experience this year. we had $30 timex ironman watches for a long time. i don't mind triathlon getting debited now for an association with a luxury watch company, if it also gets credited for a 35 year run with selling a very accessible watch.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

At some point, I will take the money I save by not buying a watch i don’t need and, instead, will buy another bike I don’t need

Just got another email:

That's one hell of a watch, Poon.

i usually live in zurich, which is sort of ground zero for a lot of swiss watch companies.

brietling, despite everything, have always had a slightly more 'edgy,' or 'cool' brand than many of the other heavyweight swissies. swiss air runs their ads, and for years it was dudes on motorbikes and old racing prop planes getting love letters from pinup girls.

now, brietling's putting on a big marketing push with a handful of pro sufers, including kelly slater. his signature model of the superocean retails for something like $7000 USD.

from the perspective of someone selling watches in that ballpark, there are certainly worse demographics to connect with than the rich A-types in ironman.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Maybe they plan to come out with a smart watch model similar to the Tag Heuer Connected. You can pick one of those up for the price of a Garmin Fenix 5x + sapphire and an oil change on your BMW

I live in NYC and got the invite. Just curious why I would even consider going to this? There is no information about the event except the speculation around the partnership in this thread. Do you think my wife and I could at least score some free booze and hors d'oeuvres out of it? Maybe a coupon for $100 off a $7K watch?

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Strava

Well, for those interested: here's the new Breitling Superocean Automatic 44 Ironman Limited Edition. List price is US$3,950 and limited to 300 pieces worldwide.

The fine print shows you can order and pre-purchase online and at Breitling Boutiques and also at these two IRONMAN World Championships Events: Nice, France (week of Sept 7, 2019) and Kona, Hawaii (week of Oct 12).

Watch looks really nice, but unfortunately (way) outside of my price range. That and I would get more use out of these Timex Ironman watches.
@Kid

Does it include a Kona entry?

https://robbreport.com/...ivers-watch-2860141/

I’d have bought it (collect watches) if it had the date. Don’t have a Breitling and this would have been just a fun addition.

No, but if you buy one Mike Reilly personally delivers it and loudly announces "Logella... you are a sucker!"

Love Breitling watches...don't have one but love their looks. If I were to buy one, it wouldn't be an Ironman one...Also, seems odd, it launched a week ago and they haven't even sold their max of 300

I'm sure there are plenty of "dentists" who will find this watch to be a nice way to celebrate their WC participation. Really no different than any other Mdot gear, just a lot pricier. If that's how folks want to spend their $$$...

As for Breitling, this is a good way to access this demo; though personally, since I got my Fenix my Swiss watches just sit on the nightstand (to the point that the wife has designs on getting one of them resized for her).

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

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