The new brand, created by the ITU in partnership with its marketing partner, Upsolut Sports, will include a modified sponsorship structure of two main sponsors, Dextro Energy and Samsung, and four category sponsors including Suunto and Skins. The ITU explained that the new structure would be “much like the IOC’s (International Olympic Committee) TOP sponsorship programme”.
“This new structure not only gives our premier series a cleaner image, it also gives us greater flexibility to raise the profile of the series and increase its commercial success,” said Marisol Casado, the ITU’s president and IOC member. The 2012 ITU World Triathlon Series will kick off in April in Sydney, Australia. With eight events in eight different countries, the 2012 ITU world champions will be crowned at the grand final in Auckland, New Zealand.
The 2012 Series will also visit San Diego in the United States, Madrid in Spain, Kitzbuhel in Austria, Hamburg in Germany, Lausanne in Switzerland and Yokohama in Japan. In 2011 the Series doubled its media figures in comparison with 2010 with 917 hours of total television broadcast time reaching an audience of 207 million worldwide. Last year’s events attracted more than one million spectators and 27,500 participants.
Christian Toetzke, CEO of Upsolut Sports, said: “The popularity of the ITU World Triathlon Series gets bigger and bigger and we're sure there's still huge growth potential. Everybody who ever tried triathlon will do it again.” The ITU World Triathlon Series was launched in 2009, expanding the former single-day World Championship race.
