Originally published at: USA Triathlon Launches Revamped Elevate 2028 Strategic Plan - Slowtwitch News
USA Triathlon has unveiled a revised strategic plan through the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, calling the revamped plan “Elevate 2028: Focus Forward.”
Calling 2025 the “midpoint of our journey,” the revised plan features heavy focuses across the entirety of USA Triathlon stakeholders — athletes, coaches, clubs, and race directors.
Victoria Brumfield, USA Triathlon Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement, “Elevate 2028: Focus Forward is more than a strategic plan — it’s our commitment to serving the athletes, race directors, coaches, clubs, and entire multisport community that make our sport thrive.”
According to USA Triathlon’s documentation on the plan, success of the plan will be measured by the following five factors after the 2028 Games:
- The multisport industry is “thriving with more businesses succeeding in the sport.”
- Accessibility to triathlon is increased, with the sport “ready to support more athletes participating at all levels.”
- The elite development pipeline is “robust,” with the Olympic and Paralympic Team “prepared to achieve historic success at LA2028 and beyond.”
- The multisport community is “continuously inspired by athlete stories.”
- USA Triathlon is viewed as “the most valued partner in multisport.”
How USA Triathlon looks to achieve those outcomes is multi pronged.
Growing the Multisport Industry
USAT is emphasizing the need for businesses to be successful — especially those that produce races and help athletes reach those events. Two of their keys to that growth stem from data use. Firstly, the plan calls to “leverage data to generate and deliver insights that enable more effective decision-making.” The second is perhaps more actionable, which is utilizing data for the purposes of developing customized marketing plans which can create cross-functional opportunities between race directors, coaches, and clubs.
There is also an enhanced focus on training opportunities. USA Triathlon currently offers certifications for coaches, race directors, and officials. The stated goal of these certifications is to “ensure USA Triathlon-affiliated multisport constituents are recognized as highly credible and competent, and that their certification is widely sought after.” As a former certified coach, I can at least attest to the quality of the Level I certification course itself. However, the continuing education courses have long felt like an afterthought. To that end, Elevate 2028 makes a commitment to “improve certification value to more clearly deliver against the core needs of Race Directors and Coaches.”
Expanding Multisport Participation
Ultimately, having more triathletes has to be the end goal of USAT. Given that the bulk of income generated by the organization comes from annual memberships, getting more people into the sport is mission critical. It’s baked into the tagline for this section of the plan: “We help athletes start racing, race more, and race better.”
When athletes are polled, there are traditionally three large barriers to entry to triathlon: cost, time, and lack of existing connection to events. Under Elevate 2028, USAT has committed to addressing all three of these issues. On cost, USAT states that they will launch initiatives to increase the affordability of races and the sport as a whole. There is also an emphasis on increasing programming that encourages athletes to race more frequently. With regard to the other two primary barriers to entry, USAT commits to expand the definition of multisport to even more formats, and to help address racing deserts. For example, I currently live in one — there is a single USAT-certified triathlon held within a 60 minute drive from my house annually, despite there being a relatively healthy running and cycling event scene.
There is also commitment to developing deeper relationships between individuals and clubs, as well as better create pathways for athletes to become coaches, club founders, or race directors. This makes a lot of sense, given that many of these existing constituents look at potential succession planning.
Elite Development and Performance Remains a Core Tenant
USAT has sometimes conflicting needs between its age group and Elite stakeholders. With a home Olympic Games on the radar, Elite development pathways and performance at the 2028 Olympic Games remains a key component of the strategic plan.
That said, Elevate 2028 puts a stronger emphasis on starting the Elite development pipeline at earlier ages, which should also wind up benefitting growth in the age group ranks down the road. Specifically, the plan calls for expansion in youth programming through a combination of development and fundraising support. Similarly, USAT looks to expand high school and collegiate club triathlon, while also continuing to pursue NCAA championship status for women’s triathlon.
With regard to performance at the pinnacle of the sport, USAT commits to “deliver world-class resources, services, training opportunities, and event access that empower our elite athletes to continuously push their limits.” This should not come as much of a surprise, given how much of the annual budget that USAT has traditionally spent on Elite sport.
“Looking at program services, there are two areas that drive the bulk of spending. The most spending occurs in the “high performance” bucket, representing a total of $4.2 million. According to the Form 990, spending in this area represents support for “Olympic and Paralympic athletes, as well as approximately 450 elite athletes across the country, from youth and junior to Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, to continue to pursue their athletic goals.” The financial statement breaks this down further, including: $1.8 million for travel; $877,000 for salaries; $499,000 for professional fees; and $492,000 in a bucket of “other event/athlete.”
A Brand Split on the Horizon?
The Elevate 2028 plan notes that USA Triathlon is a key storyteller within our sport. I would tend to agree with that; when there’s strong storytelling from USAT, the sport feels healthier. But, for example, when there was a lack of capitalization on Gwen Jorgensen’s gold medal in Rio (followed by her subsequent move into running), it felt like USAT didn’t have the resources or bench strength to broadcast that story.
The plan is full of some typical marketing-speak regarding “strengthening the brand” and “grow exposure to build awareness.” But nestled within the document is perhaps a key nugget of information: Elite athletes are going to be under their own sub-brand in the future. What that particular sub-brand may be is yet to be seen. However, Elevate 2028 commits to dedicating significant marketing resources to build that sub-brand and to “position our elite athletes as the aspirational focus of the sport.”
It’s a bold strategy. Along with the alignment on storytelling around a home Games, it has a lot of strong potential. The devil, as always, will be in the details.
Transforming the Way USA Triathlon Works
For those that have followed our coverage regarding USA Triathlon’s finances, it should not come as a surprise that the revised strategic plan speaks heavily on seeking to achieve operational excellence. That really comes down to two key areas: having key talent in key positions, and improving overall financial performance of the organization.
On the former, USAT has been making many moves across the organization to hire key talent and giving them opportunities to grow. Brumfield, of course, was an internal hire into the CEO role, having served as Chief of Staff under Rocky Harris. There have also been key hires in high performance and in partnership development. It would appear that investment is starting to pay off, given the number of partnerships announced over the last six weeks.
With regard to financial performance, the plan is less clear. There’s language on creating “operational efficiencies,” which is frequently code for either digitizing existing functions, or the classic “doing more with less.” (To be clear, there is nothing here suggesting that USAT is following the latter of those statements.) But the other key tenant is on “building long-term organizational stability” with finances. That, ultimately, has to be the guiding principle of the organization.
