World Triathlon, T100 Tie-Up Brings Us Full Circle

October 10, 2024

This week’s sizable announcement between World Triathlon and the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) is a landscape shifter. The twelve-year agreement covers a wide variety of key items, with the headline one being the exclusive rights to the World Championship Long-Distance Triathlon Tour.

What it also indicates is that World Triathlon is no longer willing to cede long-course triathlon to IRONMAN or Challenge. Why there even is that split can be traced back through our sport’s history.

The History Behind the Split

IRONMAN, up until roughly 20 years ago, sat underneath the then-ITU (now World Triathlon) umbrella. The ITU was set up for one main purpose: to bring triathlon to the Olympic Games. Les McDonald was the spearhead of that effort. And he was ruthless in his pursuit of doing so. National governing bodies popped up across the world, as it was another requirement in order to become an Olympic sport. The ITU also began awarding a world championship in 1989.

It’s that series of two words that got the lawyers involved: “world championship.” The ITU took IRONMAN to court twice over the use of “world championship” to describe certain IRONMAN events. They lost. And then McDonald, together with national governing bodies, voted to toss IRONMAN, Life Time, and any other quasi-series out from underneath the ITU umbrella in 2004.

If you’re wondering why IRONMAN needs to have its own anti-doping program, or its own relationships with the various national federations it has events in, or its own rulebook: this is what it comes back to. And it can also explain why IRONMAN, occasionally, can feel like a bull stampeding in its actions: because it happened to them.

The Present Day

Between IRONMAN, World Triathlon, and PTO/T100, there are a total of nine world championships on offer in triathlon (I’m not getting into duathlon, aquathlon, etc. here).

IRONMAN 70.3
IRONMAN
World Triathlon Championship Series
Arena Games / eSports
Cross Triathlon
Winter Triathlon
Long Distance Triathlon
Triathlon Mixed Relay
T100 Long Distance Triathlon Tour World Championship

And that’s before we start to factor in other production companies or race series and their crowns; Xterra, Challenge, what have you. It’s a fractured landscape at best.

It also results in some of the challenges that the PTO, or IRONMAN, have had in trying to create some of these so called “season long” narratives for their respective series. We have seen some athletes, like Kat Matthews, who have raced eight times this season between PTO and IRONMAN branded events. We’ve seen others, like Lucy Charles-Barclay, who had committed to T100 earlier in the year and then mid-season opted to defend her IRONMAN World Championship. It’s been a lot of back and forth.

That’s not the case with World Triathlon’s Championship Series. (Their biggest problem has been event cancellation or modification, but that’s a story for another time.) The biggest names in Olympic-distance racing race each time WTCS comes together. Alex Yee, Leo Bergere, and Hayden Wilde are all in prime position to potentially take the WTCS world title later this month for men, whereas Cassandre Beaugrand, Beth Potter, and Lisa Tertsch have the inside edge for women. The narrative exists.

That’s also helped by World Triathlon’s content distribution platform. TriathlonLive provides best-in-class streaming, whether live or on-demand, for $40 annually. It’s a steal compared to Outside TV’s $90 a year service, which has proven buggy whenever high demand events are live. (To be fair, you can only get Outside TV’s premium tier with a full Outside+ membership, which comes with other benefits. You can also watch events live for free, but on-demand requires a membership.) It makes it easy for World Triathlon to create stories, and tell them cohesively, in their race formats.

So Why the Agreement?

As mentioned at the start: this is World Triathlon deciding that they’re not going to cede long-distance triathlon to IRONMAN. As WTCS stars have cycled out of Olympic distance racing and into longer events, they’ve chased the money and prestige of IRONMAN branded events. A few names from recent history: Jan Frodeno, Daniela Ryf, Gustav Iden, Lisa Norden, Kristian Blummenfelt — all former WTCS athletes who have found great success at IRONMAN racing.

Now, with the agreement between World Triathlon and T100, it appears that pipeline will instead flow more directly from Continental Cups to World Cups to WTCS and then, when the time comes, onward to T100 racing. The beneficiaries of that appear, to my eye, the athletes currently in development cycles. In theory this addresses some of the issues PTO/T100 have had with athlete start lists and getting contracted racers to their events, as the federations have more sway over nominating athletes to T100 starts.

It will also likely reduce overall operating costs for T100 branded events. Many of these races in 2024 have been stand-alone races, which creates a higher financial burden on the organization — effectively, you’re trying to play IRONMAN’s game, and when you try to play their game, you lose. Instead the release announcing the agreement talks about the potential to use existing WTCS or World Cup venues to produce T100 events. It’s a far smarter way to operate; consider, for instance, the outstanding atmosphere at the original PTO Tour event in Ibiza that coincided with Age Group Worlds. Speaking of: it would not shock me if, in the future, the Long Distance World Championship is awarded solely at the T100 Grand Final event, in an attempt to also create more buzz, more attendees, around that race.

Lastly, this should also solve for the PTO’s greatest ambition, which has been on media and broadcasting rights. There’s now a ready-made platform to distribute content over to an audience that is hungry for more triathlon race coverage. And, well, it works. Factor with World Triathlon’s existing list of more than 25 different traditional broadcast partners and it should significantly increase T100’s media footprint.

There are still plenty of questions. Namely — will this actually last the full twelve years? Or is it a pipe dream? Will we see the elimination of series contracts as a result of deepening relationships with governing bodies? Or does this potentially change endemic sponsor behavior, and where they choose to focus their dollars and athlete contracts? Or will athletes in this newer framework be more tied to federation-based sponsorship and contracts?

One thing, though, is for certain: it feels like the divide between IRONMAN and World Triathlon could be as wide as it has been since 2004. And the last time that happened, IRONMAN grew into the company we know it as today.

Photo: World Triathlon

Notable Replies

Diabolo says:

admin:

And it can also explain why IRONMAN, occasionally, can feel like a bull stampeding in its actions: because it happened to them

Good piece, but I’m not sure I fully agree with the second part of this sentence. It seems to me Ironman were as much if not more of a bully than the ITU at that time when the disputes took place.
TheStroBro says:

Ironman is a sanctioned competition under the ITU and are a member of the ITU. You could at least put that part in there.

The ITU trying to waste a ton of money to get back into long distance is odd. This isn’t really good for Triathlon. Are they struggling to keep their current events afloat with amateur athletes?

I also highly doubt that this will solve Moritz Events issues with Broadcast Revenues. If this year’s production even marginally like what I saw in Dallas, they easily spent $20M on production alone before you even get to Alex Payne’s fee.

The ITU needs to focus on the Olympics and a series that matters, they also need to stop rebranding themselves and their series every three years. No one watches Triathlon to a level that broadcast dollars will come, that’s what we’ve seen with Ironman. Also, I’ve watched plenty of races on Outside this year whilst paying a total of $0 dollars.

Remember a year ago all of the PTO races were on PTO+? They built a streaming network and abandoned it, that costs a pretty penny to get online. At least 2M when you consider the various apps that had to be developed.
Sindre says:
Interesting analysis. I am left with three questions:
1. Will the PTO ranking system still include all long distance races including Ironman and Challenge races, or will it be a ranking based on exclusively PTO and ITU races?
2. How will the tie between ITU and PTO influence the PTO long distance series entry system? Will the ITU and it’s national federations have any say in who gets to race the PTO long distance series? The current T100 format with only 20 elites in each race has an excluding entry system, focusing on attracting “the best of the best”. However, the “best of the best” long distance stars of today are typically not backed by national triathlon federations (there are exceptions).
3. Will this create two separate “long distance leagues” where the elites race either one or the other, as opposed to today where “the best” race both series?
pk says:

Where do you see ITU investing into long couse ?
Can you give an example ?
kajet says:

Good historical note in the article, but the speculation made me chuckle. As did this fragment:

it appears that pipeline will instead flow more directly from Continental Cups to World Cups to WTCS and then, when the time comes, onward to T100 racing. The beneficiaries of that appear, to my eye, the athletes currently in development cycles. In theory this addresses some of the issues PTO/T100 have had with athlete start lists and getting contracted racers to their events, as the federations have more sway over nominating athletes to T100 starts.

The federations have zero sway over T100 starts. They’re just a bureaucratic layer.
stringcheese says:

ITU is now WTC.
synthesis says:

ITU payper view is going to kill T100. People are cheap enough to deal with broken record maurateen mile repeated every 30s to watch for free
TheStroBro says:
WTC - World Triathlon Corporation is Ironman.

ITU dba World Triathlon. It’s kinda like how IAAF is dba World Athletics. Yes I’m a pedant.

@Sindre
Interesting analysis. I am left with three questions:
1. Will the PTO ranking system still include all long distance races including Ironman and Challenge races, or will it be a ranking based on exclusively PTO and ITU races?
2. How will the tie between ITU and PTO influence the PTO long distance series entry system? Will the ITU and it’s national federations have any say in who gets to race the PTO long distance series? The current T100 format with only 20 elites in each race has an excluding entry system, focusing on attracting “the best of the best”. However, the “best of the best” long distance stars of today are typically not backed by national triathlon federations (there are exceptions).
3. Will this create two separate “long distance leagues” where the elites race either one or the other, as opposed to today where “the best” race both series?
1. Who knows, a few years ago they changed their rankings system based on athlete feedback, Ruth Astle was a huge part of it, but how does someone like her fit long term? Amateur Long Course racer to Professional Long course racer.
On 2. Since they began the partnership last year, National Federations have a huge amount of say in who gets to race, so the wildcards sometimes look exceptionally odd. I’m sure this will now get worse in the short term.
1. Probably. Since less of the long course athletes who didn’t come through national development programs will be getting to start lists if this is meant to be an ITU long course graduation program. Well mid-distance because this is not “long course”.
Ajax_Bay says:
TheStroBro:
@Sindre Q: Will the PTO ranking system still include all long distance races including Ironman and Challenge races, or will it be a ranking based on exclusively PTO and ITU races?

Who knows, a few years ago they changed their rankings system based on athlete feedback, Ruth Astle was a huge part of it, but how does someone like her fit long term? Amateur Long Course racer to Professional Long course racer.

@Sindre Q: How will the tie between ITU and PTO influence the PTO long distance series entry system? Will the ITU and its national federations have any say in who gets to race the PTO long distance series?
On 2. Since they began the partnership last year, National Federations have a huge amount of say in who gets to race, so the wildcards sometimes look exceptionally odd. I’m sure this will now get worse in the short term.

@Sindre Q: Will this create two separate “long distance leagues” where the elites race either one or the other, as opposed to today where “the best” race both series?
3. Probably. Since less of the long course athletes who didn’t come through national development programs will be getting to start lists if this is meant to be an ITU long course graduation program. Well mid-distance because this is not “long course”.
1. The PTO has always said their rankings are designed to be inclusive; and they are. There is no indication that will change (NB short course races are not in scope). The scoring protocol was amended for 2023 et seq; with work led by a 5 strong athlete panel (RA one of). What do you mean “where does Astle ‘fit’?” See also Philipp and Matthews (and Marquardt and many men).
2. I expect the entry protocol for T100 Tour 2025 to remain essentially the same (see Appendix V? of the World Tri Rulz). NGBs have had negligible “say” in who gets to start T100 races. They have an admin role to include athletes (if asked) on the waitlist (then ranked by PTO Ranking and with no nationality limits) which has ended up being used to fill a few last fortnight slots opened by pull outs. The odd wildcard clearly has a ‘local’ flavour but rarely with any NGB involvement.
  Athletes do, mind, have to be in good standing with their NGB (so don’t piss 'em off, Joe)
3. I suggest the short course to long course ‘development’ is a well ridden path and this World Tri + PTO link up will have zero effect, beneficial or adverse on that. Go and reread what World Triathlon president Casado commented:
  “We will see in the near future athletes moving from the WTCS Series to the T100 Tour.” Err, yeah! And in the past, present and medium term future. No change there.
  Professional Triathletes Organisation And World Triathlon Announce 12-Year Strategic Partnership To Grow The Sport | PTO
Ajax_Bay says:

admin:

with the agreement between World Triathlon and T100, it appears that pipeline will instead flow more directly from Continental Cups to World Cups to WTCS and then, when the time comes, onward to T100 racing. The beneficiaries of that appear, to my eye, the athletes currently in development cycles. In theory this addresses some of the issues PTO/T100 have had with athlete start lists and getting contracted racers to their events, as the federations have more sway over nominating athletes to T100 starts.

Thank @rrheisler for writing the article.
I appreciate that these are some of your deductions but I think they bear scrutiny.
I see no sign (from what’s been shared) that the pathway from short course to longer (draft illegal) is likely to change.
Nor can I see how “athletes currently in development cycles” (assume meaning in short course national programmes) will have any different route (nor benefits) compared to those ‘developing’ independently.
What “issues PTO/T100 have had with athlete start lists” had you in mind? How might any better/enduring ‘partnership’ with World Tri make a beneficial difference.
You are inferring that NGBs will “have more sway over nominating athletes to T100 starts.” I suggest that deducing that from the announcement shared is shaky.
marcag says:

Not sure this belongs in here or in the T100 2025 thread

I suspect in 2025 many IM athletes will do the pro series and drop T100.
WTCS athletes will fill the void and take the T100 contracts.
My bet, the Magnus/Kat/Laura/Laidlow type athletes will not do T100.

if this happens, it will be interesting to see if T100 has as much draw without the IM star names
TheStroBro says:
1. It will be much harder for a grassroots developed athlete like an Astle or Long or Sanders because I bet you this changes a lot over time.
2. That doesn’t seem to be the case, or at least how I’ve read the startlist gives more bearing to the federations. When I think they should have exactly ZERO say.
I get it, you’re the Moritz cheerleader and I’m the Moritz cynic. Nothing about this should be liked. Triathlon should stand on its own as a product (Ironman, Challenge, Super League) without needing to built around a command economy (WTCS, World Cup, Conti Cup).

The ITU’s job is to be shepherd of the game, not to align with one private entity over another.
Lurker4 says:

ITU can really only shepherd the sport if the myriad of employees decide to take a pay cut and work for the love of the sport (ahem, not likely), they raise membership fees or dues of nation states, they get a sugar daddy investor/advertiser, or they increase participation in their own events.

It seems like they are going for the last two. They presumably hope to grow the market but likely most of their growth will just come in taking market share from existing “customers” (Challenge and Ironman and local races).

The question is how much does Ironman need WT? I assume in the USA not at all. But I assume world wide being a WT member or affiliate or whatever their arrangement is is actually very critical?
rrheisler says:

The National Federation system all flows up through World Triathlon, if you’re gonna participate in the Olympics.

That’s the primary thing they have. Hence the entire development ladder for Olympic racing – from junior racing to Conti to World Cup to WTCS and NFs using WC/WTCS to determine their Olympic team rosters.

The then-ITU booted then-WTC now IRONMAN Group, and Life Time, and pretty much anyone else who wasn’t a NF out from under their umbrella in 2005 following IRONMAN successfully winning at CAS to award the IRONMAN World Championship.

Does IM need World Triathlon? It likely depends on the language of the local national federation with regard to event sanctioning and insurance. See, for example, the fun of trying to race in the UK if you’re not a member of Brit Tri. And IM relies on the WT rulebook where they are silent; this was part of their 2017 framework agreement to “grow the sport” then. ITU & IRONMAN agree to historic partnership • World Triathlon

So…interesting times, for sure.
pk says:

rrheisler:

The National Federation system all flows up through World Triathlon, if you’re gonna participate in the Olympics.

That’s the primary thing they have. Hence the entire development ladder for Olympic racing – from junior racing to Conti to World Cup to WTCS and NFs using WC/WTCS to determine their Olympic team rosters.

The then-ITU booted then-WTC now IRONMAN Group, and Life Time, and pretty much anyone else who wasn’t a NF out from under their umbrella in 2005 following IRONMAN successfully winning at CAS to award the IRONMAN World Championship.

Does IM need World Triathlon? It likely depends on the language of the local national federation with regard to event sanctioning and insurance. See, for example, the fun of trying to race in the UK if you’re not a member of Brit Tri. And IM relies on the WT rulebook where they are silent; this was part of their 2017 framework agreement to “grow the sport” then. ITU & IRONMAN agree to historic partnership • World Triathlon

So…interesting times, for sure.

So are you now saying that you are going from there is no pto business model to there is one ? .

Unless you are suggesting PTO 100 distance could go olympic which I think we would agree is not the case It’s kind of hard to see what impact this has .