Donnerstag, 20. Februar 2020

Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) Announces $2M Annual Bonus Programme, with Collins Cup whopping $4M purse

The Professional Triathletes Organisation today announced that it has adopted a $2,000,000 Annual Bonus Programme pursuant to which athletes will be paid based on their PTO World Rankings at the end of 2020. The bonus amounts range from $100,000 for the PTO World No. 1 male and female athletes, to $10,000 for the PTO World No. 20 male and female athletes. In addition, male and female athletes ranked at the end of the year between 21-50 shall each be paid $5,000 and those ranked between 51-100 shall be paid $2,000.

Rachel Joyce, Co-President of the PTO commented, “We are very pleased to be able to adopt an annual bonus programme that rewards athletes for outstanding performances throughout the year. The triathlon season is a long one and just because an athlete might have an off race in a large event, doesn’t mean that their year’s performance should go unrewarded.”

The PTO World Rankings is a first-of-its-kind ranking technology to measure the greatest non-drafting professional triathletes. It is a worldwide benchmark of consistent excellence in triathlon. In addition to being the basis for the PTO Annual Bonus Programme, it is used to determine automatic qualification spots for The Collins Cup.

Tim O’Donnell, Co-President of the PTO, stated, “The adoption of the PTO Annual Bonus Plan, together with the $2,000,000 payments at The Collins Cup, means that so far in 2020 the PTO will be paying 200 professional triathletes $4,000,000. We believe that this demonstrates the value and benefits of professionals being unified in our own organization and we hope that this is just the beginning of the many ways the PTO can bring not only a voice but meaningful contributions to our sport.”



Editor‘s note:

Together with the $2,000,000 prize purse from inaugural Collins Cup a new dimension in sport of triathlon is opened with contributions from PTO‘s support network around Billionaire Mike Moritz, who likely want to build a platform from the NBA, NFL, NHL league’s blueprint in the U.S. with various shareholders from different group of interests.

Dienstag, 18. Februar 2020

Wanda Sports considering $1 billion sale of Ironman triathlon, Bloomberg reports

Wanda Sports Group Co., part of Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin’s conglomerate, is considering selling the global Ironman triathlon business it bought in 2015 for est. USD 650 million. Wanda Sports Group Co. is working with an adviser and has held discussions with some private-equity buyers that expressed interest in the business according to unnamed sources. The company holds also other sports assets outside China like Infront Sports & Media AG and many more.
A deal could come after Wanda Sports declined to enter talks last year with The Professional Triathletes Organization, which was interested in acquiring the Ironman business. The organization said at the time that excessive leverage has hampered Wanda Sports’s ability to invest in Ironman operations. 
Wanda Sports shares have dropped about 63% in New York trading since their July 2019 debut, paring the company’s market value to about $409 million. With total debt at about $968 million, the company has an enterprise value of about $1.2 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Read more on Bloomberg.