World Triathlon Corporation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
World Triathlon Corporation
legal form Corporation
founding December 1989
Seat United StatesUnited States Tampa ( Florida )
management Andrew L. Messick, CEO
Blair LaHaye, CCO
Christopher Stadler, CMO
Branch Organization of endurance sports events ( triathlon , cycling , running ), licensing of trademarks , merchandising , media production
Website ironman.com

The World Triathlon Corporation ( WTC ) is a commercial company based in Tampa ( Florida ), which as the world leader endurance sports events in particular under the brand Ironman organized and licensed and marketed.

Corporate structure

In the course of the takeover of the WTC by Providence in 2008, the WTC became a 100% subsidiary of the World Endurance Holding founded for this purpose . The CEO of the WTC has been the American Andrew Messick since 2011 . In August 2015, the WTC stated its expected turnover for 2015 at US $ 183 million, with an average growth rate of 21% over the last four years. The WTC is represented by subsidiaries in the various markets, so Ironman Germany GmbH in Liederbach bundles the European activities of the WTC. In 2014, the WTC distributed a dividend of US $ 220 million to its owners, but took out a loan of US $ 240 million.

In total, the WTC itself or its license partners are currently organizing 219 endurance sports events under its various brands, 42 of them in Europe. (As of September 2015)

The protected trademarks represent a unique selling point of the WTC . For example, in 1981 - a few years before independent sports associations were founded that could have ensured a balance between the individual organizers - the United States Patent and Trademark Office used the term " Iron Man World Triathlon Championship " Registered as a" registered trade mark ".

Business models

Licensing of sporting events

Triathlon events have been held as qualifying competitions by independent organizers under license from the owner of the rights to the “Ironman” brand for the Ironman Hawaii since 1983, initially in the USA, and from 1985 also outside the USA . After Providence took over the WTC in 2008, the individual license partners were successively bought up by the WTC. Currently, the only competitions that remain in Europe and are organized by independent organizers as license partners of the WTC are the Ironman Lanzarote and the Ironman 70.3 Lanzarote . Numerous competitions in South America are also organized by independent organizers, who only pay fees to use the WTC trademarks: ( Ironman Brasil , Ironman Brasil Fortaleza , Ironman 70.3 Brasil), which are organized by Latin Sports , Ironman 70.3 Buenos Aires through Eventlive , the Ironman 70.3 Cartagena through Colombia Tri Events and the Ironman 70.3 Miami through Miami Tri Events .

Part of the license agreements is a declaration of confidentiality regarding the contract details. In principle, however, the WTC secured a say in the contracts on event details such as B. start mode (mass start or start groups), participant limit and event date. The license agreements were i. d. Usually concluded over a period of five years. The contracting parties also agreed not to disclose the amount of license fees, but the organizer of Ironman Europe announced that the savings for license fees after the expiry of the contract with the WTC 2001 will be passed on to the participants of Event 1, which will then be held under the name Challenge Roth : 1 to pass on. The entry fee at Ironman Europe in 2001 was 460 DM (235 €) and was reduced to 195 € for participation in the Challenge Roth 2002, the participation fee at Ironman Germany in Frankfurt as a new WTC licensee in Germany was also 500 DM (255 €) in 2002. The number of qualification places awarded at the event for the Ironman Hawaii, which is also relevant for the amount of license fees, was the same at Ironman Europe 2001 and Ironman Germany 2002 (120).

Organization of sporting events

The first and initially only event organized by the WTC or its predecessor “Hawaiian Triathlon Corporation” was the Ironman Hawaii from 1981 onwards. After the WTC was sold to Providence in 2008, Providence changed its strategy of no longer licensing qualification races but organizing them itself. At the beginning of 2009, the WTC took over its previous licensee North American Sports (NA Sports) and thus the rights to seven triathlon competitions on the North American mainland. In the same year, the WTC also took over numerous other previous license partners, such as B. the company Xdream as the organizer of the Ironman Germany , the Ironman Regensburg and the Ironman 70.3 Germany , the company Triangle as the organizer of the Ironman Austria , the Ironman South Africa , the Ironman France and the Ironman 70.3 Austria and the company BK Sportpromotion as the organizer of the Ironman Switzerland and the Ironman 70.3 Switzerland .

Examples of other organizer companies that were bought up by the WTC were

After the ITU World Championship Series 2015 had already been organized by the WTC in 2015 with the ITU World Triathlon Gold Coast , with the takeover of the Largardère division in 2016, six out of nine of the races of the ITU World Championship Series 2016 will be held by Dalian Wanda or organized by the WTC.

Lottery and Passport Club

A lottery was launched as early as 1983 when - in addition to a sporting qualification - another opportunity to acquire a starting place at the Ironman Hawaii was launched. In 1990 the “Passport Club” was launched as a way to increase the chances of winning the lottery. The majority of the Hawaii starting places awarded via the lottery were reserved for Americans.

In May 2015, the public prosecutor announced that the WTC had committed itself to paying a fine of US $ 2.76 million. The sum corresponded to the income generated from a lottery since October 2012. The practice that no starting places were allocated, but only the right to acquire one for an additional participation fee, was assessed by the responsible public prosecutor as illegal. The WTC then announced that it would no longer offer the lottery from 2016.

Media production

From 1980 to 1990 there were contracts with the American television company ABC , each of which brought a 45-minute summary of Ironman Hawaii in its program Wide World of Sports . ABC initially paid US $ 5,000 for their rights, and from 1983 this increased to US $ 100,000. In 1991 a contract was signed with NBC and the contribution was extended to 90 minutes. ESPN later took over the broadcast rights.

In 2000, the WTC began producing a report as live streaming via its internet platform ironmanlive.com.

In 2010 the WTC announced the launch of “Lava Magazine”. The magazine appears nine times a year, the name is based on the landscape at the Ironman Hawaii. The magazine received the 2011 Maggie Award from the Western Publishing Association for a photo of Craig Alexander.

Merchandising

The manufacturer Timex has been selling sports watches with the Ironman brand since 1986 .

The first license partner to sell its products with the Ironman logo was Timex since 1986. At times Timex had sixty different versions of watches in its range, even the US President wore such a watch, of which between 500,000 and a million copies were sold annually and which is now on display in the National Museum of American History.

Fifteen different sunglasses from the Foster Grant range adorned the M-Dot logo. Twinlab made Ironman energy bars in at least six different flavors. Wherever you looked in a sports shop, the Ironman logo caught your eye. Blue Seventy , a New Zealand manufacturer of neoprene suits, signed an exclusive contract with the WTC in 1993 and since then has been selling its wetsuits under the Ironman logo until the mid-2000s .

Brands

Ironman

The finishing shute at Ironman Melbourne.jpg

With its trademarks "Ironman" and "Ironman 70.3", the World Triathlon Corporation, part of the Chinese Wanda Group, is the global market leader among triathlon organizers

The WTC owns the rights to the Ironman , Ironman Triathlon World Championship trademarks and other associated word and figurative marks. The original rights to the name Iron Man have been owned by Marvel Comics since the 1960s . The most famous race of the WTC and the origin of the Ironman brand is the Ironman Hawaii .

Ironman 70.3

The WTC organizes or licenses triathlon competitions over half the Ironman distance under this name (1.9 km swimming, 90 km cycling and 21.1 km running). Since 2006 it has held an annual competition under the brand name Ironman 70.3 World Championship .

IronKids

Since 2010, the WTC in the United States has also run a racing series for children and young people aged 6 to 15.

In 2011, 25 IronKids races were held between April and September. On September 17th, the top five from all races in the series started at the Hy-Vee IronKids US Championship in West Des Moines ( Iowa ). The partner and sponsor of this series is Hy-Vee, an American retail company.

5150 Triathlon Series

Since 2011 the WTC has also been organizing a racing series over the Olympic distance (1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling, 10 km running) under the name 5150 Triathlon Series .

Company history

In 1981 Valerie Silk and Hank Grundman, owners of two fitness studios under the name Nautilus, founded the Hawaiian Triathlon Corporation and registered the rights to the “ Iron Man World Triathlon Championship ” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office . Under this name, Valerie Silk organized the Ironman Hawaii. In December 1989 Valerie Silk sold the Hawaiian Triathlon Corporation including the trademark rights and the Ironman Hawaii to Dr. James Pitzer Gills, owner of an eye clinic in Florida and who participated in the Ironman Hawaii for the first time in 1982. Up to this point in time, Silk had built up a network of twenty-one qualification competitions in the USA alone, plus there were five license partners outside the USA, the lottery and partners such as B. Timex, who paid to use the logo. Out of 3,500 volunteers each supported the Ironman Hawaii. Silk received around US $ 3 million as purchase price from Gills, 49% of which went to a silent partner who had entered the company in 1983 with US $ 145,000 so that Valerie Silk could pay off her ex-husband. 50% of the rest went to the IRS . Gills had insisted on indemnification for a handful of ongoing lawsuits, including a. due to Use of the M-Dot logo with Mistral and Gordon Haller , the premiere winner of the Ironman Hawaii, who in turn asserted rights to the event and tried to prevent the sale. With what was left after the trials were over, Silk fell victim to the junk-bond era in the United States and ended up left empty-handed.

Gills renamed the company World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) and, supported by Lew Friedland, expanded the brand's business in the years to come. Every year new qualifiers were added around the globe, the Ironman logo was emblazoned on items of clothing, sunglasses, scales and much more. In 1992 David Yates became CEO of the WTC, emotional disputes between the commercial WTC and the umbrella organization International Triathlon, founded in 1989 as a non-profit organization Union (ITU) began. In most states, state funding for competitive sports is primarily paid for Olympic sports.At this point in time, triathlon was only a candidate for inclusion in the Olympic competition program, and the ITU feared that the WTC for the Ironman Hawaii would not have agreed with the associations use the term Ironman Triathlon World Championship to worsen their chances because the IOC gives the impression of a lack of organization within the young sport. ITU President Les McDonald proposed to draw up a contract according to which the Ironman Hawaii should also officially be considered the world championship for the next ten years, in order to enable all organizers to apply to host world championships within their triathlon competitions - Yates rejected any Codetermination from: "We were there first".

Compromise in the simmering conflict with the ITU: the WTC officially named Ironman Hawaii 1997 with the name Ironman World Championship - even if its CEO David Yates expressed his lack of understanding why it made the official approval by the American triathlon federation USAT easier, if of all things the word No triathlon . Yates went to the Tampa District Court for clarification . On May 15, 1998, the WTC, USAT and ITU reached a settlement : the WTC was entitled to use its registered trademark Ironman Triathlon World Championship , without the WTC claiming to do so in the sense of a world championship regulated by a sporting umbrella organization consider. In return, the ITU undertook to allow drafting only in elite and junior races, but not in competitions with ratings in the age groups. Lew Friedland replaced David Yates as CEO of the WTC.

In 2003, 40,000 people worldwide took part in competitions who paid royalties for the M-Dot logo to Gills' World Triathlon Corporation for an average of US $ 375 in entry fee. The original competition had developed into a lifestyle: wherever you looked in a sports shop, the Ironman logo caught your eye. Lew Friedland left the World Triathlon Corporation as CEO, Jim Gills asked seven candidates to draw up a business plan for the further development of his company WTC. Ben Fertic, an IT consultant and successful participant in the Ironman Hawaii 1996, won over with his concept and became the new CEO .

The conflict with the ITU broke out again: in the 1990s, the WTC had drawn the athletes to their side with the argument that the ITU was ruining the sport of triathlon by releasing drafting, and now it wanted to relax the drafting rule itself, to allow more athletes to participate in their races. It announced its own set of rules different from that of the USAT. Previously, every participant in the Ironman Hawaii with a distance of less than ten meters from the athlete in front had to expect a time penalty, now a distance of 7 m should be allowed. The ITU then decided - also because of the lack of recognition of the anti-doping regulations of the WADA at Ironman Hawaii - at a congress in Gamagōri not to approve any more triathlon events of the WTC worldwide. Nevertheless, the WTC retained the reduction of the drafting rule from 10 m to 7 m introduced in 2004 at the Ironman Hawaii in 2005.

After an agreement was reached in March with the umbrella organization "USA Triathlon" regarding permits, the WTC turned to the International Court of Justice about the ITU sanctions to clarify whether they are referring to their trademarks that were registered before the ITU was founded Ironman Frankfurt can now name the “Ironman European Championship” and the triathlon in Clearwater “Ironman 70.3 World Championship”. In April 2006 the CAS lifted the sanctions of the ITU with reference to the contracts that had existed since 1998, in which the ITU granted the WTC the right to use its trademarks, without the WTC thereby claiming World or European Championships in the sense of one of to organize a regulated competition for a sporting umbrella organization. The Drafting rule, reduced to 7 m, was retained by the WTC in 2006 and in the following years, although it itself determined that even a participant driving 10 m from the athlete in front still has to generate around 10-15 watts less power. Until 2014, the drafting rule at Ironman Hawaii was reduced to 7 m, it wasn't until 2015 that the WTC raised the minimum distance to 10 m again.

In 2008, 88,000 people worldwide took part in competitions with the M-Dot logo. The 40% increase in entry fees over the five years did not bother: races were often fully booked within minutes. The WTC stated that the average annual income of its participants was around US $ 160,000. The lottery, through which 200 starting places were awarded, had over 8,000 participants in 2007, a handful of starting places that were auctioned in a charity campaign on eBay, each fetched more than US $ 40,000. In addition to the Ironman races, Ironman 70.3, a new format over half of the classic Hawaii distance with 27 events in 2007, has already been placed worldwide.

In 2008 Jim Gills sold the World Triathlon Corporation to the Providence investment company . The purchase price is US $ 50–80 million. The new strategy is no longer to license qualification races, but to organize them yourself; many of the previous licensees were bought up by the WTC. Andrew Messick , previously President of AEG sports , has been the new Managing Director of the WTC since May 2011 .

In August 2015 it was announced that negotiations about the sale of the organizer to the Chinese Wanda Group were ongoing. On August 26, the sale of the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 brands to the Wanda Group for $ 650 million was officially confirmed.

In March 2020, the US media company Advance Publications bought the WTC for 730 million US dollars, thereby securing the rights to the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 brands .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Exclusive Interview With Ironman CEO - Andrew Messick (March 25, 2014)
  2. ^ Bloomberg: Company Overview of World Triathlon Corporation
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  4. ↑ Moody's assigns B2 corporate family rating to World Triathlon Corporation. In: Moody’s . June 17, 2014, accessed on January 31, 2019 (access for a fee).
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  82. ^ WTC Names Andrew Messick Chief Executive Officer
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  87. ↑ a b IRONMADE IN CHINA! IRONMAN sold to Chinese investor (August 27, 2015)
  88. ↑ Advance Buys Ironman from Wanda (March 26, 2020)