Supertri Lands Warner Bros. Discovery Broadcast Deal; Will Stream on HBO Max
Triathlon media rights appear to be at an all-time interest high.
Supertri has announced a landmark agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that will see all of Supertri’s League events streamed and broadcasted across a portfolio of WBD’s properties. The deal includes, for the first time in the United States, streaming on WBD’s flagship on-demand platform, HBO Max.
In addition to streaming on HBO Max, Supertri events will be broadcast live in Europe, with Eurosport handling coverage in continental Europe, and TNT Sports providing coverage in the United Kingdom. On-demand will be handled by the aforementioned HBO Max, and in locations where HBO Max has not launched, discovery+.
The first race that will be broadcast via the new agreement will take place later this month in Toronto, Canada, as the Supertri League season kicks off on July 26. Other events covered in Chicago, Ill., Jersey, United Kingdom, and Toulouse, France.
Supertri League features the team-format and stadium-style courses that have been a hallmark of the short-course format. Athletes like Olympic gold medalists Cassandre Beaugrand and Alex Yee are expected to participate, as are names like Jonny Brownlee and Georgia Taylor-Brown. Last year’s team championship went to Crown Racing, managed by two-time IRONMAN World Champion Chris McCormack.
In a statement announcing the deal, Michael D’hulst, Supertri CEO and Co-Founder, said:,“Supertri has enjoyed a fantastic relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery and together we have brought so many new fans to our sport. Supertri is expanding rapidly in the USA and is riding a wave of momentum for short course triathlon into the LA Olympics in 2028 through both elite racing and mass participation events, and the ability to reach more people than ever before via HBO Max is extremely exciting.”
Trojan Paillot, SVP Sports Rights Acquisitions and Syndications at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, said: “Following our first year covering Supertri across Europe, we engaged millions of fans on our channels and platforms who enjoyed the thrilling competition. We are therefore delighted to expand our partnership with Supertri to help the sport reach even more around the world. This enables us to continue telling the stories of triathlon and its superstar athletes between Olympic cycles, and as we head towards LA28 where we will once again be the Home of the Olympics in Europe and only broadcaster to showcase every triathlon event live.”
Supertri joins the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO)’s T100 series on WBD platforms. The PTO received a Series B funding round in 2022 from a series of firms, which includes WBD. The moves also come as WBD itself will soon split into two separate companies. With that split, streaming platforms like HBO Max and Discovery+ will be paired together with the studio and production business. Traditional broadcast media channels, meanwhile, will be packaged into the separate company. That split is expected to take place in 2026.
Meanwhile, IRONMAN continues to rack up views across its mix of digital streaming platforms. In North America, IRONMAN Pro Series events are broadcast and available on-demand for Outside+ members on Outside Watch. Outside of North America, most races are available either on IRONMAN’s website or on their YouTube channel.
Image: Supertri
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Media RightssupertriWarner Bros DiscoveryNotable Replies
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Pay to watch is a killer of the sport. T100 and IM are doing it right with targeted ads, for free
If I had to hazard a guess, given that T100 is already on HBO Max, that you’d see it move to those services going forward.
At some point this stuff has to start paying for itself.
Great! So I can’t watch Supertri anymore!
But now I can!
Was actually going to do a thread for this year, but F em! I think I’ve seen every single SuperTri race since it started and attended 3 of their events, shame they’ll lose more fans like me than pick up with this im guessing.
I agree with you
Pay for triathlon live, so that’s where I want it to be
Anything else is a no- go
There are only so many subscriptions one can have
I’ll try YouTube and hope
Just want to be able to watch it on playback
If I had a hunch, it’d be that TriathlonLive will wind up rolling over to HBO Max subs versus it continuing in its current form.
If it were more viable I’d have thought that the T100 races would have wound up there instead.
Don’t you use Outside or HBO Max if they are basically paying you to broadcast the event, in their eyes either improving their inventory or converting you over to a full time subsciber (Outside TV).
Triathlon Live essentially makes the host city of WTCS cover the majority of the broadcasting money, so essentially unless your going to get money from HBO Max, I would think Live would stay the same Live it’s been now for what almost 2 decades now?
T100 is on Max? Also, remember PTO built their own streaming platform and the abandoned it.
Sure is.
When are they going to geoblock youtube?