What’s interesting about Wtcs is that for years there have been “whispers” of them potentially struggling to find host cites and having to rely so much on the same cities to pay the large fee to host- Yoko, Hamburg, hell AD now has become a semi permanant fixture on Wtcs schedule.
And then Wtcs announces a what 10 city schedule and again it’s almost a $2mi (USD) investment the city has to be part of Wtcs series. So was all that done to sorta want to be part of the unification for next year? But the hosts are generally decided by summer of the previous year and finalized by fall, so how much did they all know or not know about all of this merger?
An article by a bloke called Bouler Pool
(looked for a direct link to the article, but not found)
Strap: World Triathlon “is quietly building what could become the playbook for how Olympic sports reset for a more commercial and sustainable future.” They’ve “moved from a technically driven rule-maker to something much closer to a modern rights-holder: partnering with private capital, unifying fragmented properties, expanding its “product” beyond traditional formats, and reinvesting in both development and sustainability. It’s a live case study every U.S. NGB should be watching.”
World Triathlon - Deloitte Study findings:
Governance and commercial roles were blurred and often in conflict.
The sport’s ecosystem was fragmented across multiple operators and brands.
Digital presence and broadcast product were underdeveloped.
Mass participation was under-leveraged relative to demand.
In the U.S. participation had fallen roughly 40% from its peak about 15 years ago.
I cant see this change as this is much more Ironmans problem than world tris issue and in fairness European feds do rather well in mass participation. it was world tri and continental gov bodies that were really bad at it as they did not care and treated agers as cash cows ( ironman prices for rather poor quality) and so far I can not see T100 dealing better with agers with the constant race changes.