Good thing, bad thing or just a thing? Wonder if its been on the table for a while or if something is changing?
To our esteemed Professional Triathletes –
I am announcing today that after 12 years with The IRONMAN Group, I have decided to retire from my position of President & Chief Executive Officer later this year and will move to a Board role, following the successful recruitment and appointment of a new CEO.
Stepping down is not easy. I have had the privilege to watch many of you compete on racecourses around the world – and appreciate the relationships that I have been able to establish. I have loved watching the best athletes in the world compete, and appreciate the inspiration that you provide to our IRONMAN community.
In the immediate term, nothing will change; I will remain CEO until the new leader is appointed. I intend to stay involved to ensure a smooth transition, remain on the Board, and provide advice and help to the new CEO, once she or he is selected. I have confidence that we will find a great leader to add to an already great team that understands the importance of our athletes leading to continuity and stability of how we work with our professionals in the years to come.
I know a lot of people will be saying it’s a good thing because of some of the recent controversial decisions Ironman has made (e.g. split WC), but I’m going to reserve judgement until I see the next thing.
It’s undeniable that he has done a ton of good for the brand and for the sport. Yes, he has made tons of mistakes and I have been one of the first to criticize him on these forums for those mistakes, but he has been uncommonly dedicated and loyal to both the IM brand and to the sport of triathlon. That is undeniable. He loves the sport as is evident by the dedication, effort and plain old time spent in his position.
He spent 12 years as CEO of a mid-size company that was bounced around from owner to owner that whole time! That is very uncommon for someone that brought a resume like Andrew’s to that job. He could have done a million other things but he chose to work in triathlon. I thank him for his years of dedicated service and wish him well on his new endeavors.
I’m with you there. I know it’s the nature of the internet to focus on the negatives, be them perceived or real, but he’s absolutely done a lot of great work over the last 12 years that never gets talked about. I could list the things I’d have done differently, but I’ll leave that for someone who’s more excited to do so.
I’ve only had a few interactions with Andrew but they’ve all been positive, and what came through most was his love for the sport. I’m sure this thread will go in a lot of directions, but even with the very fair criticisms I hope that doesn’t get lost.
He spent 12 years as CEO of a mid-size company that was bounced around from owner to owner that whole time! That is very uncommon for someone that brought a resume like Andrew’s to that job. He could have done a million other things but he chose to work in triathlon. I thank him for his years of dedicated service and wish him well on his new endeavors.
My feelings are the same. Andrew Messick has done overall a great job with IRONMAN at a high level, which is what a CEO is supposed to do. It’s not been easy. This business is NOT the money-maker that people think it is. The easy number crunching leads to a false narrative that many follow. Endurance Sports Race/Event Management at this scale is INCREDIBILY hard with very thin margins. The rotating door or ownership, must not have been easy - and of course, the massive financial and economic convulsions, of the pandemic, inflicted insane and completely new and unknown challenges for anyone and everyone in the Live Events Business. As I have said here many times, try running a mid-to large sized business, and then abruptly you have your main source of revenue just turned off for a year to two years! Think about it for a second - how would you survive such an event?
i would not want to be negative on him, i m sure he did amazing thing buisness wise. But as a athlete, the product and experience have gone downhill since 2011… how much of this is on him and is vision vs the reality of the sport? no clue but i sure hope we could go back to some of the element of the past that made events so much more fun to be part of.
He certainly has taken a lot of criticism from members of this forum. I agree with previous posts about him advancing the sport and give him my thanks. I do wonder if his leaving isn’t another signal that Ironman is in trouble. I won’t be letting them hold my entry fee money for next year (email came out today for 2024 races).
— race day product is excellent (but I’m not sure how much credit he deserves for that)
— Covid era policies were very friendly
The bad:
— damaged the sport with predatory approach to rival races
— horrible quality control with almost all other aspects of organization (website, merchandise, customer service)
— has not been able to create sustainable races in most venues, including Kona.
He spent 12 years as CEO of a mid-size company that was bounced around from owner to owner that whole time! That is very uncommon for someone that brought a resume like Andrew’s to that job. He could have done a million other things but he chose to work in triathlon. I thank him for his years of dedicated service and wish him well on his new endeavors.
My feelings are the same. Andrew Messick has done overall a great job with IRONMAN at a high level, which is what a CEO is supposed to do. It’s not been easy. This business is NOT the money-maker that people think it is. The easy number crunching leads to a false narrative that many follow. Endurance Sports Race/Event Management at this scale is INCREDIBILY hard with very thin margins. The rotating door or ownership, must not have been easy - and of course, the massive financial and economic convulsions, of the pandemic, inflicted insane and completely new and unknown challenges for anyone and everyone in the Live Events Business. As I have said here many times, try running a mid-to large sized business, and then abruptly you have your main source of revenue just turned off for a year to two years! Think about it for a second - how would you survive such an event?
Typically an executive at a PE-run company doesn’t even last 5 years. Over the years that Andrew was CEO I would celebrate things like the expansion of 70.3’s or the saving of the 2021 WC by bringing it to St. George after COVID or the expansion of live coverage for events. And I would also criticize him for not being more proactive on proper communication with customers, unequal slots for women at the WC, the watering the soup on SWAG at events, etc. And then there were the really tough issues like: what to do with the WC in Kona or how do we ensure safety and still maximize the number of participants.
Through it all in the back of my mind the thought would be: My goodness, this mother f-er has a really, really tough job. But I’ll be damned, he loves what he does! And I just have to admire that. He loves the sport and is passionate about it. I have a feeling we may all miss that going forward.
A little surprised they didn’t have a succession plan for when he stepped down. He’s been there long enough for there to be discussions on a potential successor and development of internal employees to step into the role. Reading between the lines, it sounds like this was unplanned and abrupt.
He did a lot to grow the IM brand, turn their second product (70.3’s) into a success and get a lot of people involved in triathlon. There were also drawbacks from that growth on the local/regional scene that helped put triathlon in it’s current position of losing participation rates. The pandemic exacerbated that trend certainly.
This is probably one of those situations where he stayed a few years past where he should have.
Will be interesting to see what sort of changes happen at the org for races and racers.
his job is to expand the value for the owners and he did that really well.
But the execution of the split world championship- the timing, considering where we are as a sport - was pretty bad. I think that hurt the brand and hurt the value.
Easy for me to say but as a do over I’d go back to Kona, exclusively, shrink the field and double the price. Exclusivity has been lost. That is what has gone wrong.