#43: Wanted: The next Ironman CEO

Requirements include a desire to think outside the box, a love of triathlon, and an ability to weather people screaming at you.

Jul 12, 2023

issue #43: July 12, 2023

All-sporters: I’m leaving on vacation this Saturday! Like a real vacation. To Alaska.

So next week’s newsletter will be a mix of fun non-time-sensitive bits and old links. And maybe I’ll be less grumpy when I get back.

Before I go, though, I was on two podcasts: talking about women’s tri gear with Taren at Mottiv and talking all things triathlon, endurance, growth in women’s sports with Endurance360. I’m also opening up for everyone this crazy Q&A that went out to paying subscribers with the founder of the Enhanced Games—an Olympics *with* doping. It’s worth reading just to make your head spin.

Now, the big news of the week.

- Kelly

The Messick era

Do you remember who was Ironman CEO before Andrew Messick? I had to look it up, it was Ben Fertic.

Last week, Andrew announced he would be stepping down after 12 years. (This is a good overview history of the company’s leadership changes.) He’ll see this world championship season through and stay on until someone new is hired, but then he’s done.

For all that social media has been full of angry anti-Andrew Messick screaming this week (hot internet takes have gotten worse, right?), the reality is: He put his stamp on the sport and, whatever mistakes he made, he cares about triathlon. Everyone should be concerned about who the next CEO will be, because this may not always be the case. (More on that in a moment.) One of the things I’ve learned over the years, though, is that often what people think is happening, what they complain about on Twitter, is not actually how decisions are being made at a boardroom level, it’s not what is really going on in the corporate behind-the-scenes. Have none of you seen Succession?

It felt like time for another round of Terrible Graphic Design with Kelly.

There were plenty of things Andrew Messick did during his tenure that I didn’t love, but I’m also not sure there are many CEOs where the company was more thoroughly a product of their personality. And, anyway, you can’t get everything right. He grew Ironman into a global brand and expanded it into a number of other markets and sports. Downside: I think buying up and pushing out smaller local tri races is probably biting them in the ass now. He recognized early the potential of developing markets and that the future was not going to be middle-aged white guys. Downside: We didn’t need to turn equal pro spots for women and men into a whole line-in-the-sand thing back in the day; and that’s now making it hard for people to understand that Ironman and Andrew have (genuinely, in my opinion) come around on the debate and realized what the future looks like.

A note to the internet whiners: You can not both complain that Andrew Messick made triathlon too expensive and inaccessible, and then also complain that he should just go back to an old-school tiny Kona. The factual reality—whatever you think about Andrew Messick “ruining” your sport—is that Kona was unsafely crowded at 2,500+ people/day. So if you’re saying the race should be contained to one day there, then you’re arguing that it should stay gate-kept, that the sport should not expand into new markets, that it should not grow with women, that it should be stuck in the past. The only way to make a world championship accessible as the number of races worldwide grows is to have two days of racing. If you want to argue that your “solution” to the Kona problem is to make it harder to qualify or to establish some arbitrary cut-off time, then you need to acknowledge that you don’t care about the elite 70-year-olds, that you don’t care about reaching populations that never had Ironman before, and you need to know the highest ever number of women who qualified was around 800, so it was already pretty damn hard for them.
If you’re going to rage that Ironman is “lying” to you, then at least be honest with yourself. It’s one of those two options, you can’t have both.

Honestly, I don’t understand a lot of the pointless yelling this week. I really don’t understand the people yelling that Ironman wants to make money, as if they all just unearthed some secret of how capitalism works. You understand the literal job of a CEO of a for-profit company is to make money, right? Sure, and achieve the mission and deliver experiences and protect the future health of the sport/industry eco-system, but also: make money.

And here’s the thing: Ironman is NOT making money right now, not the way it needs to be.

(**The following is completely my extrapolation, based on educated guesses.**)

I don’t know whether Andrew got “encouraged” to retire or not; I don’t know what happens at board meetings, but I do know there are lots of people who are exhausted after the last few years—I also quit my big important job running Triathlete a year ago because it wrecked me—and it’s entirely possible he just wants a break like we all just want a break. And it’s true, as he’s said in interviews, that it seems time for a new direction for Ironman, a re-adjustment and long-term new initiatives that will require a new vision and leader.

But it’s also true that when a company doesn’t make money for too long, the CEO usually goes. So here’s my concern…

You ask: Why isn’t Ironman making lots of money if it’s expanding? Well. In a general overview sense: Each individual event and business arm depends on the contract. A lot of races in China, Kazakhstan, Rwanda, new markets, are government subsidized; you don’t need huge participation numbers to make money because the revenue is not coming primarily from the athletes. But in the developed markets, the cushy contracts aren’t coming as much as they used to and the costs are going up. Again, depends on the individual city contract, but mass participation events, in a general sense, rely heavily on a subsidized business model: police/city staff costs covered, infrastructure improvements, even volunteers.

Now back up the fact that as costs have risen, participation is still down. Triathletes are just not triathlon-ing at pre-COVID rates yet—they’re still hesitant and taking other trips instead, doing other things. And, of course, Ironman had a huge amount of deferrals during the last few years, too. I’m sure they did some fancy accounting with the cash liabilities (just like the state of California). But. It all comes due eventually.

And really—and this is really really a personal opinion—I think the big problem when you try to take a niche thing and turn it into a global scale-able thing becomes the corporate overhead. As in: Why can’t you make a profitable race with 1,500 athletes? Well, you can, of course. Small race companies can. (You can also make a profitable niche magazine, if you run it lean.) But it becomes a lot harder to do, when you have way more overhead. You need more profit per each transaction or more transactions, and so you have to keep scaling. And then you have to hope that you can sell across markets—bikes to runners, bring trail runners into triathlon. The problem is: It’s tough. Niche things don’t scale well. (And, yes, I saw this also at my old company, ask me about it someday.) But some scale is necessary.

Basically, Ironman CEO is a tough job. Which brings us to…

What you need to ask is: What does the Ironman board of directors think needs to change? Because that will determine who the next CEO is and what happens now. They could think one of two things: 1. Bring in some VC douche and cut costs, jack up short-term cash flow, gut and run, or 2. (What we’re hoping for and what’s being hinted at:) Bring in a new approach, new ideas from gravel or trail running, re-connect with your core potential market, focus on 5-10 years out and build a company for the future.

And that’s why I’m going to manifest this into existence: I want Mary Wittenburg to be CEO. Or, you know, someone like her but for triathlon. The next era.

Mark your calendar

WTCS Hamburg! - This really deserves its whole own section, because there are only a handful of WTCS races and they’re always a big deal—especially as we ramp up to the Paris Test Event next month. This weekend in Hamburg features Katie Zaferes v. Gwen Jorgensen (!) in the women’s event + Taylor Spivey and Beth Potter. The Norwegians and Belgians and Australians in the men’s race + my Americans. Annnnnd, Hamburg is the sprint and relay championship, in case you didn’t know.
- WATCH: The Hamburg elite race will be a Super League style supersprint. Finals are on TriathlonLive @ 7 a.m PT/10 a.m. ET on Saturday, July 15.
This weekend also has a small field at Ecuador 70.3 and a bunch of Brits at Swansea 70.3. And, Ironman Vitoria—which you can watch on Ironman.com/live @ 11 p.m. PT on Saturday, July 15/2 a.m. ET Sunday.
The PTO U.S. Open start list was announced (at least the women’s, the men’s will come today): Mark your calendar for Aug. 4-5. Ashleigh Gentle, Paula Findlay, Taylor Knibb, Chelsea Sodaro, Holly Lawrence, Kat Matthews, Laura Philipp.
- **We’ll be on the ground and do some fun coverage in Milwaukee! Let me know what you all want to see.

Other results from the weekend

Ironman Switzerland: Yes, yes, Jan Van Berkel had his fairytale ending.
World Triathlon Para Series - Montreal: The first in the race for points towards the Paralympics. Lauren Parker topped Kendall Gretsch in the wheelchair race, setting herself up well for the the gold this time around. Grace Norman continued her winning streak in the PTS5, and the Americans swept the PTS4 women’s race.

As always: all detailed results are on our Results page.

The -ish

Things from around our sports this week that you should know about.

The big event in the U.S. this weekend was the Track & Field National Championships. Lots of good races, very little live coverage, and not a ton of seats in butts. But. Highlights were: Nikki Hiltz winning the 1500m (in an exciting race), Krissy Gear upsetting Emma Coburn for the steeplechase title, Sha’carri Richardson of course (who is also trying to organize the athletes), Nia Akins in the 800m, the very “hands on” men’s 800m, Ryan Crouser’s ongoing throwing heavy stuff dominance, etc etc etc. The thing about a national championship meet is there are so many stories happening in every race, there are people coming back from their own personal hell to win, there are upstarts holding on to the last Worlds team spot, every single race has a half-dozen narratives. Track should be exciting; if it’s not, you’re doing it wrong. (Twitter/Instagram/Runner’s World/Tiktok/Youtube/Orange County Register)
Oh, the Tour de France is also happening. (Outside)
Speaking of, if you’re a pro cyclist looking for a place to stay for altitude training in Tenerife, these two can help. (Velo)
Former pro triathlete Ashley Paulson broke the Badwater course record this weekend by two hours—though it should be noted this year’s course had to be re-routed due to flooding, ultimately making it the same distance but obviously different and there was a section where athletes were transported to the new route by car. It should also be noted Ashley previously served a six-month ban for ostarine back in 2015. And last year, her first Badwater course record came under suspicion and prompted a whole internet “investigation”—a phenomenon I always am deeply ehhhhhh about—but there was no evidence she cheated, so I dunno, it is what it is, chill out, and think what you want. (Runner’s World/Badwater/Marathon Investigations)
A man also swam 51 hours straight back and forth and back and forth to Catalina Island. Personally, if I was going to swim that long, I’d swim to somewhere. (Newsweek)
“The thing about lying down is that it’s not very helpful in moving forward…” This Slate piece on 24-hour races that go in circles may have the most accurate description of the desire to lay down v. move forward. (Slate)
Ironman announced its N. American 2024 schedule—and it is seriously light on fulls before August. I’ve asked for more details and been assured that, don’t worry, Lake Placid is coming back in July and the lack of Hawaii 70.3 on the calendar was an oversight. There should be some more announcements coming soon… (Ironman)
Lionel Sanders’ latest declaration is that he is done with Ironman for now. So, how soon before you think we see him on the start line of one? (Youtube)
Kristian Blummenfelt and Leo Bergere will be racing Super League this year—which I guess definitely probably means Kristian won’t be doing any more long-course races this year? (Super League Triathlon)
In the various fights for points and prize money, the often overlooked (except by smart European pros) Challenge Family bonus rankings are halfway done for the year. (Challenge)
What do professional trail and ultraunners earn? (UltraRunning Magazine)
Race Ranger is raising a seed funding round. (Instagram)
Yes, the new On Cloudboom Echo is out (if you somehow missed it on Instagram). And, yes, yes, that means it wasn’t really for retail before when it supposedly had to be to comply with World Athletics shoe rules, blah blah, lost interest… (Instagram)
Here’s a fun infographic of the most expensive sports for kids. (Triathlon wasn’t a data point.) (Tableau Public)
Meet the new leadership of Otillo. (TriLifeFitness)
And a fun Tour de France Femmes video series to get you pumped. (Le Tour)
Personally, though, the thing I’m most excited about right now—even though it has some balls—is the Women’s World Cup. Get pumped. It’ll be Megan Rapinoe’s last big tournament, the rest of the world has really (really) finally caught up to the U.S. so the most dominant team in history could lose this year, and the saga of women’s ACL injuries casts a shadow over it all (like we’ve said before). (FOX Sports/The Athletic/Sports Illustrated/Wall Street Journal)