2020 IRONMAN Now Facebook Watch Schedule Announced with 19 Featured Events

Facebook Watch enters third year as exclusive digital home of live race coverage. he IRONMAN Group, a Wanda Sports Group company (Nasdaq: WSG), today announced it will continue live event coverage on Facebook Watch via the IRONMAN Now® Facebook Page for the third straight year, featuring 19 events from around the world in 2020. As the number of events receiving Facebook Watch live coverage has increased each year, so too have the fans tuning in. Over the past two years, more than 5.3 million people have watched at least one minute of an IRONMAN live event broadcast on Facebook.

Available globally to fans on Facebook, the 19 events covered this season will come from 12 different countries and four continents with coverage debuting on March 7 from the Nutri-Grain IRONMAN® New Zealand in Taupo. The storylines are rich with intrigue throughout the year as four regional championships will be featured including the IRONMAN African Championship in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa; the IRONMAN North America Championship in St. George, Utah; The Cairns Airport IRONMAN Asia-Pacific Championship in Cairns, Australia; and the Mainova IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt, Germany.

Back by popular demand will be the return of IRONMAN Austria- Kärnten, IRONMAN Italy Emilia-Romagna and the ever-challenging IRONMAN Wales.

Making their inaugural appearance on Facebook Watch will be the first edition of the Certified Piedmontese IRONMAN Tulsa, and IRONMAN Switzerland’s first stop in Thun, while Subaru IRONMAN Canada makes its long-awaited return to Penticton, British Columbia. Long-standing host cities Panama City Beach, Florida, USA and Santa Rosa, California, USA will join one of the oldest and most popular events on the global circuit, Nutri-Grain IRONMAN New Zealand, as each also makes their debut on IRONMAN Now.

IRONMAN will produce its live coverage for a connected audience, incorporating unique viewer interaction through Facebook Watch Parties, real-time polls, fan discussion, and user generated content from spectators along the course.

The Vega IRONMAN World Championship, which takes place annually in Kailua-Kona, Hawai`i, will again receive robust week-long programming, culminating in nearly a full-day of live race coverage on October 10. Last year’s Vega IRONMAN World Championship included more than 20 hours of comprehensive live race day coverage, including everything from the early morning body marking to the final hour finish line celebration.

The extensive 2020 coverage concludes where it began in Taupo, New Zealand with the 2020 IRONMAN®70.3® World Championship taking place on Nov. 28-29. Nearly 6,000 of the best triathletes in the world will converge around The Great Lake Taupõ District for what will become the largest event in the series’ history.

The fully produced live event coverage will be hosted by past champions of IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 events, including Dede Griesbauer, Matt Lieto, and Michael Lovato, as well as IRONMAN World Champions and Hall of Famers Paula Newby Fraser and Greg Welch.

Live race coverage of the following events as well as a range of on-demand programming will be available on Facebook Watch globally via the IRONMAN Now Facebook Page – www.facebook.com/IRONMANnow. The full 2020 schedule can be found below.

2020 IRONMAN Now Facebook Watch Schedule

• March 7 Nutri-Grain IRONMAN New Zealand Taupo, New Zealand
• March 29 IRONMAN African Championship Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa
• May 2 IRONMAN North American Championship St. George, Utah, USA
• May 31 Certified Piedmontese IRONMAN Tulsa Tulsa, Okla., USA
• June 7 Cairns Airport IRONMAN Asia-Pacific Championship Cairns, Australia
• June 21 IRONMAN Hamburg Hamburg, Germany
• June 28 Mainova IRONMAN European Championship Frankfurt, Germany
• July 5 IRONMAN Austria-Kärnten Klagenfurt, Austria
• July 12 IRONMAN Switzerland Thun, Switzerland
• July 25 IRONMAN Santa Rosa Santa Rosa, Calif., USA
• August 15 IRONMAN Kalmar Kalmar, Sweden
• August 23 Subaru IRONMAN Mont-Tremblant Mont-Tremblant, Québec, Canada
• August 30 Subaru IRONMAN Canada Penticton, British Columbia, Canada
• September 6 IRONMAN Wales Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, United Kingdom
• September 19 IRONMAN Italy Emilia-Romagna Cervia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
• September 26 IRONMAN Portugal – Cascais Cascais, Portugal
• October 10 Vega IRONMAN World Championship Kailua-Kona, Hawai`i, USA
• November 7 Visit Panama City Beach IRONMAN Florida Panama City Beach, Florida, USA
• November 28-29 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship Taupo, New Zealand

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.