Looking for Clues: Doc's 5000th Tweet

Part 1 of Taking Back Triathlon!

Hi to all my twitter followers.  First of all, I’d like to thank all of you that has taken the time to first connect to my twitter, but also have the discipline and ability to sift through my tweets that if understood do make good sense in the big picture of the 140 characters.

I am hoping that my, shall we say, riddle type style has gotten rid of most of the flakes as those here we have a big job and one that going to take enormous discipline to the cause. I was going to wait till I had 10, 000 followers before this note, but sitting here watching the WTC wheels fall off we can no longer wait and watch the merry-go-round just keep spinning further and further away from what I believe are the true roots or DNA of what should be our sport according to me.

The moves of the last 2 years make the critical time now to save what our sport should be about, who it should service, and how to take it forward into the big time as a main stream sport. If we can’t do it, if we can’t take the sport back, and point it into a sustainable direction for the future, then I personally can’t continue to watch it be decimated as is happening at the present moment.

This is not a rant at WTC or an attack in any way on their employees, far from it. But it is the total confusion of identity that makes these strange times everybody involved is locked into gridlock, because WTC is not a sport but a business entity owned by an equity company. No matter if a couple of tri guys are in the equity firm, the bottom line is it was bought to turn a profit.

Nobody told the employees 25 years ago they would be working at turning their hobby, their passion, their love, into a money-milking machine for a profit-driven entity. I personally have had a meeting with Andrew Messick, and while his knowledge  of triathlon  is miniscule compared to mine, he seems a good man.  However, his brief basically makes sure that whatever is in his heart for the benefit of triathlon must take a backseat to what is in the best interest of his employers. If he doesn’t, then he is out the door so the usual corporate cover; good men do bad things, in the name of the company. What is true to me is most if not all the people that work in triathlon are in love with the sport and would like to see what is best for it; thus, I don’t want this to be seen as an attack, far from it, I hope these very people work their arse off to help me see this proposal I put to you 5000 followers.  I want to see within 3 years WTC owned and run as a non-profit organization.

Triathlon has had a few periods in time, where the sport could have been taken back by its participants, but those opportunities were missed and now we get to a critical time as people timing and opportunity can be capitalized on with hard work and preparation, not luck but planning.

Imagine if we, 5000 strong, talked to 1 person and got them to join this twitter movement, then 10,000 could encourage 2 people each to join and in turn they could get 2 more people to join. In today’s society of social networking imagine if we could get all the people who have done a triathlon to join us and say let’s work together to bring to take the sport out of  the corporate world.

Impossible problem most say, but for me I can only see solutions. Am i the only one that can see solutions? I may not be a businessman, but I am a superior strategist in the hardest field that of the no spin zone of sport.

Our time is here. But we must all unite under one roof and make it happen. We must stop the apathy because we think it is impossible, having our sport bought by an equity company, makes it possible to see it for what it is as a business entity.  WTC is a business owned by an equity company (people please forget it as a sport for a moment) to make this business work the company needs its customers to pay up and you people all pay up very well. Now while I advocate revolution, it is not against Ironman, it’s not against WTC at all, it’s just another reverse take over of a business by its workers or its constituents in a clear everyday business transaction, nothing sinister about that, no bashing nobody.  We gather our thoughts, we gather our skill factors within our group, we organize our funds, and we go to the equity company and make them an honorable offer to  sell their WTC business before they lose too much money.

Equity companies work on acquiring possible growth companies and squeeze them real hard then sell them on at maximum possible profit. They deliver no value, and as we all can see in our sport, they are doing exactly that for ironman. We have an opportunity; it could be the last one.

When one then says, but Ironman will continue to grow believe me if your sitting watching the live Kona telecast brought to you by ear buds and $19.95 sunglasses don’t be hoodwinked that says it all corporately. Sitting in the board rooms of major companies with not disrespect to ear buds, but in teamTBB business, I can say categorically the big companies would love to throw big dollars at our sport, but  people I have been there and been educated the hard way. The infrastructure of our sport is so amateurish that they are scared shitless to let their brand anywhere near the "f ***.....mess " and I am quoting a CEO of a company that throws $50 million at formula one. We had 2 deals done on one occasion; we had a group of athletes in the boardroom to meet greet and consummate a major deal. Only to have it  flipped, because "Alex, we had a branding and marketing guys try to look at activation on the WTC events. Alex, they came back and said it was not worth our effort for the small amount we paying your team." That small amount was $1 million.  They said "we can’t find how we can make it work positively for our brand unless we took their whole marketing department over. They have no idea about look and feel. Ssorry but we are not going on with it. "

This too is not a rant, but an illustration of what happens when you have tunnel vision and turn the sport inward by cutting prize money, making decisions on penny pinching, to make the bottom line look a little better. I can tell you no big guys will ever come back under the present regime, there is no value in it for them. Once the equity firm work out that they bought a lemon with no corporate growth business in their terms. They will sell and if it makes them look good that they sell back to the participants of their sport. It is a good face saving solution. WTC is built on sand, it is built on the back of its participants it has no real brick and mortar assets.  It is built on the premise of a sport that is a good thing, and we should now be grown up enough to organize ourselves to take it back and build it to be a vehicle for great things as it was always intended.

People, we are the last of the untainted sports.  Triathlon in its participant’s hands can be a vehicle for tremendous good in a sporting world that has gone completely mad.

The fact that the lack of vision of past administrations, and the wrong direction of the present one has been a total blessing in disguise.

We need to seize the opportunity with both hands. But first you need to know, what I see about triathlon, and what it can do, how it can be the sport that leads the world in bringing all sports, at least back the honorable pursuits of what sports were developed to promote.

This is Part 1 of My 5000th Tweet. Please tune in for part 2 coming later this week.

Cheers,

The Doc

Trainer of champions

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