
IRONMAN Group Goes Virtual; Facebook Watch at Center of Strategy By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Wednesday, March 25, 2020 - 3:23 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
For Matthieu Van Veen, The IRONMAN Group, chief revenue officer, and his team the challenge was simple: how can they use social media platforms to give IRONMAN triathlon fans a chance to get closer than ever to the sport they love. As a mass-participation sport IRONMAN found its core fans and athletes were underserved by the traditional media market where live coverage of a 10-hour event was simply not an option.
Enter Facebook Watch and its ability to give IRONMAN a platform that engages its community in a whole new way and also provides a great outlet for coverage of complete IRONMAN events.
Matthieu Van Veen of the IRONMAN Group says Facebook Watch allows triathletes and fans to consume more content than ever.
We have 280,000 competitors and a big community that was starved for content, says Van Veen. That helped lead us to the initial conversation with Facebook as it is a platform that brings people together.
But now, with the world in a health crisis, IRONMAN has needed to postpone and even cancel some of its upcoming events and the team at IRONMAN has decided to go virtual, with a virtual racing series set to debut on Facebook Watch on April 4.
(l-to-r) Matthieu Van Veen of IRONMAN Group, Devi Mahadevia of Facebook, and Ken Kerschbaumer of SVG discussed how IRONMAN Group makes the most of Facebook Watch at Sportel Americas.
We believe that under extraordinary circumstances such as these, athletes should be able to maintain the structure and continuity that training and competition provides, says Andrew Messick, President & CEO for The IRONMAN Group. The IRONMAN Virtual Club is an innovative digital platform that enables our athletes to continue training with purpose, remain connected to our community and provides an opportunity to compete through the IRONMAN VR Series.
Athletes will compete in traditional age-group categories and for select virtual races. They will also have the opportunity to earn qualifying slots to the 2020 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship, set to be held in Taupo, New Zealand, in November of this year.
The format and distances may vary each race weekend. The IRONMAN Virtual Club platform will utilize connected devices and be compatible with most wearable technology and app trackers.
Devi Mahadevia of Facebook says the IRONMAN community is a natural fit for Facebook Watch.
Devi Mahadevia, Facebook, director of emerging and digital sports partnerships, says that there are more than 40,000 fitness-related groups on Facebook and that the communities on Facebook are built by the athletes.
When you marry those groups with the right content the magic happens, she says. When the groups share content, they become the marketing channel and drive where the content goes.
The IRONMAN season consists of full-distance triathlon events and the IRONMAN production team uses seven cameras (four on motorbikes, two located at the transition areas, and then a drone) and a bonded-cellular backpack to send the signals back to Boulder, CO, where the announcers are located.
What interested us in Facebook as the ability to be non-traditional and engage people when they are watching the content, says Van Veen. With a 10-hour window how do you keep people watching? And how could we make things like polls or the ability to ask a question seamless to the user?
While the races are going on the IRONMAN team gets to see viewers from around the globe join as they wake up. The good morning from the U.S.! or Good morning from Japan! messages hit the chat board and the engagement climbs. More than a million people watch over an hour of IRONMAN content in one sitting a year, so the engagement is there. And then the questions start coming into the announce team.
They ask questions that really matter about things like nutrition strategy and our announcers can react to the questions which means greater engagement, says Van Veen.
Adds Mahadevia: The question tool brings viewers into the broadcast and they get more involved. IRONMAN has gotten 5,000 responses from the audience using these tools.
The platform also lets IRONMAN know more about what the viewers are doing while they are watching the races. Triathletes not competing in the competition on Facebook Watch will tune in during their own marathon or triathlon training sessions and even the sponsors can get involved during the broadcasts.
Our sponsors can be broadcasters as we give them the ability to put the content into their Facebook page so that people can watch it in other groups, says Van Veen. The more the better.
During the races the IRONMAN team also created edited clips for things like first out of the water and tagging partners on a minute-to-minute basis. And the athletes also respond to the chat trends. Heather Jackson, a U.S. triathlete, once held a banana in her hand while riding for miles and the chat feed lit up with viewers cracking jokes and wondering what was going on. The production crew responded by creating Banana split times and at the next race Jackson herself embraced it with complete banana racing kit and bike.
It shows the power of being relevant to this community, adds Van Veen.
In the past two years more than five million people have watched at least one minute of IRONMAN content on Facebook Watch. Much of that is due to the groups, where authentic social relationships are the glue, and also by sponsors and even the tourism boards for locations where the races are held.
The tourism boards can showcase their destinations and it is a meaningful platform to promote destination events, says Van Veen. They aren't just targeting eyeballs but our community which helps decide th
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Montr al, Quebec, June 11, 2026 Kiloview, a leading provider of AV-over-IP and NDI -based video transmission solutions, today announced a distribution partner...
17/06/2026
Changsha, China, June 15, 2026 Kiloview officially announced the launch of U4 IP Video Dock, a compact IP video decoder and output dock designed to bring prof...
17/06/2026
Calibr-Skaggs awarded $5.1M by NIH to develop long-acting hepatitis B virus therapy A new program aims to replace a daily HBV drug with once-monthly or even qua...
16/06/2026
Thomson's highly regarded expert-led online learning courses are now easier to access on the go via our new App.
Available now on Google Play Store, the J...
16/06/2026
Neumann.Berlin has released firmware version 2.0 for the MT 48 audio interface, adding plugin compatibility, expanded Dante networking options, broadcast encode...
16/06/2026
TVNewsCheck has announced that nominations are now open for its 2027 Women in Technology Awards, to be presented at NAB Show 2027 on Tuesday, April 6 in the Med...
16/06/2026
Clear-Com has announced Avalon, a 1RU IP intercom platform for broadcast, live events, and production environments. Designed for IP-only workflows, Avalon suppo...
16/06/2026
SNS has published a guide to remote video editing workflows using its EVO shared storage platform and companion tools, covering use cases ranging from home edit...
16/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced that the Richmond Flying Squirrels, a Minor League Baseball affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, have deployed five Grass Valley LD...
16/06/2026
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) has announced the launch of the Official IPMX Training Series, a free online program covering the design, configurati...
16/06/2026
Swerve TV has announced distribution agreements with Fubo, Plex, Amazon Fire TV,...
16/06/2026
ATP and TikTok have announced an expansion of their global content partnership, extending the ATP's TikTok hub powered by TikTok GamePlan to cover all nine ...
16/06/2026
Network's LA facility serves as the heart of a sprawling operation built to ...
16/06/2026
At Pico, the network's media-management team is supporting a flood of HBS fe...
16/06/2026
The NHL will no longer air on CBC after the pulic broadcasters and national rights-holder Rogers Sportsnet were unable to come to agreement.
After a successfu...
16/06/2026
As live sports broadcasters continue to seek new ways to make complex action mor...
16/06/2026
Built with the 2026 FIFA World Cup in mind, these small but mighty IP-based tran...
16/06/2026
Boasts individual synths for each band
UVI's latest synth takes an interesting approach to synthesis, offering a trio of synth engines that each operate...
16/06/2026
New intelligent auto-fader plug-in unveiled
PSPaudioware's latest release offers automatic level adjustment and provides more detailed control than many...
16/06/2026
New performance-focused library announced
Crystal Pads is the latest addition to The Crow Hill Company's ever-growing product range, and according to th...
16/06/2026
Developed in partnership with Sequential
In recent years, GForce Software have branched into official emulations of classic hardware synths, delivering a ha...
16/06/2026
Designed specifically for live performance monitoring
beyerdynamic's latest announcement sees the company introduce an affordable in-ear monitoring syst...
16/06/2026
Official emulation celebrates iconic synth's 40th anniversary
Cherry Audio have just introduced Ensoniq ESQ-1, an official recreation of the 1986 polyph...
16/06/2026
Australians place growing trust in SBS News
16 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has been recognised as one of Australia's most trusted news providers, ran...
16/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz achieves highest number of GCF validated 3GPP NR NTN test cases ...
16/06/2026
Bydgoszcz to Become a Local Centre of Excellence for Advanced Rail Technologies....
16/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/06/2026
87 Percent of Creators Who Use Creative AI Say It Is Growing Their Business and ...
16/06/2026
Historic Zhuque-3 Reusable Rocket Test Mission Captured with URSA Cine Immersive
Brie Clayton June 16, 2026
0 Comments
Apple Immersive Video puts view...
16/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/06/2026
Rise WIB, the award-winning advocacy group championing gender diversity and career progression across the broadcast and media technology industry, today announc...
16/06/2026
Limecraft today announced the availability of Limecraft 2026.4, the fourth of eight planned platform releases this year. The update introduces Team-Based Access...
16/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/06/2026
Free Program Supports IPMX Education from Foundational Concepts Through System and Network Design
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) today announced t...
16/06/2026
Share your views on Screen Australia and the future of the industry 15 June 2026
Your feedback matters.
Following the instrumental insights provided in 2025,...
16/06/2026
Enterprises are moving agentic AI from proof of concept to production - and the next generation of AI factories are built for the era of agents.
At HPE Discove...
16/06/2026
AI runs at the speed of light. More and more, that light is made in Texas.
Cohe...
16/06/2026
Techtel Supports T-Motion RCCP-2A Controller Upgrade for Major Australian Broadc...
16/06/2026
Tuesday 16 June 2026
Record audiences tune in for opening weekend of ICC Women&...
16/06/2026
Every breakthrough AI model starts the same way: with a training run. The infrastructure running those training jobs shapes everything: how fast teams can itera...
15/06/2026
One of the more exciting internal video production divisions within a college at...
15/06/2026
The deal valued at $22 Billion is expected to close in the first half of 2027...