The PTO 2020 Championship at CHALLENGEDAYTONA® served up a thrilling finale to a challenging year for professional triathletes as over 100 of the world’s best triathletes, the strongest field in triathlon history ever assembled, battled it out over a 100-kilometer course at CHALLENGEDAYTONA® on Dec 6th 2020. The world-famous Daytona International Speedway® delivered an electrifying race with the 2km swim taking place in Lake Lloyd at the center of the speedway, an 80km bike and an 18km run. With a $1.15 million prize purse on offer, the largest the sport has ever seen, the nail-biting racing was broadcast live to a global audience with NASCAR Productions applying their Emmy Award-winning skills to the TV broadcast using re-imagined graphics, wireless cameras, helmet cams and spectacular drone footage. Canada’s Paula Findlay won a thrilling battle in the women’s race and Gustav Iden from Norway triumphed in the men’s race with both bagging an equal pay check of $100,000.
The fast and furious race action was broadcast live to a global audience in over 150 countries around the world, following broadcast deals secured by IMG. Live coverage of the event was shown on Peacock, NBC Universal’s streaming service in addition to a PTO web-based live stream and among the countries who broadcast the 48-minute highlights show in Dec and through to January were USA (NBC and NBCSN), Australia (Fox Sports Australia), the Balkans (Sportklub), Canada (TSN), China (Tencent), France (L’Equipe), India (Eurosport), Italy (Sportitalia), Latin America and the Caribbean (DirecTV), Pan Asia, including Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam (Fox Sports Asia), South Africa (Supersport), Spain (RTVE), Turkey (Ssport) and UK (BT Sport).
The NBC/NBCSN coverage alone produced 600k average viewers, with 1.1M unique views and had a household reach of 88.91% of all households in the United States with a total digital consumption of 260,000 hours proving that there is an appetite for an entertaining TV broadcast of the sport. The PTO livestream saw a total of about 100,000 registered users with an average watch time of 32 minutes showing that we have an extremely engaged fan base. International broadcast viewership figures will be available at a later date.
More than 30 print, digital and broadcast outlets from around the world including The New York Times, Washington Post, ESPN and CBC and L’Equipe covered the event. The race delivered over 24K mentions across various earned media channels – a reach of over 450 million – equating to a media value of $4.2 million.
The race weekend generated over 5K social mentions with 1.4K unique participants yielding nearly 25M social impressions and Daytona International Speedway elevated the social conversation across its official Facebook and Twitter channels, yielding an additional 35k impressions and engagements.
William Christy, CEO of CHALLENGENORTHAMERICA® said: “The PTO 2020 Championship at CHALLENGEDAYTONA® and partners, NASCAR® Productions and Daytona International Speedway® presented the strongest field of triathletes ever assembled. Our team delivered this race and successfully brought the sport to life in a new way to entice viewers and celebrate the champion triathletes. We believe we delivered on the highest level of entertainment expectations set by the top broadcasters around the world and the viewing figures support this. You’ve never seen anything quite like the tremendous mental and physical stamina it takes to compete on this course and the judging by the viewing figures the world is clearly is in agreement.”
ABOUT CHALLENGENORTHAMERICA®
CHALLENGENORTHAMERICA is led by athletes to enhance race experience for athletes and their families. Our mission is to advance the sport with family-friendly, professionally managed and family inspired races for all ages and all race abilities. CHALLENGENORTHAMERICA® is extending the legacy of CHALLENGEFAMILY to the North American triathlon market. With the experience of almost 40 full and middle distances in 26 different countries, CHALLENGENORTHAMERICA® has founded new hallmark events to include CHALLENGEDAYTONA® at iconic Daytona International Speedway®, home of “The Great American Race®”—the DAYTONA 500®. In addition, the new “bucket-list” family-friendly event of 2021 CHALLENGEMIAMI® at Homestead-Miami Speedway® March 12th to 14th 2021.
ABOUT CHALLENGEDAYTONA®
Are you ready to swim, bike, and run at the “World Center of Racing®”? From December 3rd– 5th, 2021, Daytona International Speedway will welcome triathletes and triathlon fans from around the world to CHALLENGEDAYTONA®. Named “Best New Race” 2018 by Triathlete Magazine, the entire festival of events will take place at the approximately 500-acre motorsports complex, home of “The Great American Race”—the DAYTONA 500. www.challenge-daytona.com
Challenge Daytona announces succesful broadcast figures at the PTO 2020 Championship
