TrainingPeaks Raises Prices Slightly, MyWhoosh Sets $1,000,000 Esports Race Prize Purse

Two quick Tuesday sports tech items for ya today, both involving money. One costing you slightly more money, but the other allowing you to make more money…assuming you can pedal hard enough.

TrainingPeaks Premium Price Increase:

TrainingPeaks has announced a modest 5% price increase, for annually subscribed users, taking effect from March 15th. The change increases the price from $119/year USD to $124.99/year USD. As with previous, TrainingPeaks charges in USD the same rate across all geographic regions, so the price increase is the same for all users.  Existing sales tax and VAT remains the same as they previously did.  This pricing change only impacts annual renewals and new annual renewals, it does not change the monthly price.

Having watched numerous companies change their pricing in recent months, TrainingPeaks appears to have done this properly. The most important bit? They actually sent out an e-mail to users yesterday, notifying them of the change (more than a month before the change takes effect). Here’s a copy of that letter:

E-Mail Title: Upcoming change to your annual Premium subscription price

 

Hi [Username],

 

Thank you for using Training Peaks Premium. We want to let you know about an upcoming price change to your subscription.

 

Starting March 15, 2023, the price for annual Premium subscriptions will increase from $119/year to $124.99/year.

 

Our teams have been hard at work bringing you great new Premium features and integrations to help you reach your goals stronger, healthier, and faster. This update will help us continue delivering even more to your TrainingPeaks Premium experience.

 

For more information about this change, visit our FAQs.

 

Thank you for trusting TrainingPeaks to help you achieve your next Peak Performance!

It’s been funny to see how many people forwarded this letter to me yesterday, all with some added commentary along the lines of “Here’s how you do price changes right”, referencing the proper communications here compared to Strava’s fiasco.

And I agree. Beyond that, they also sent out an embargoed note to the media ahead of time with clear details on the price change, and their willingness to answer any questions. They even have an entire FAQ about the price change with more details. Further, the first time paid/premium subscribers opens the TrainingPeaks app since the price change was announced, a pop-over screen explaining the change showed up. The same thing also occurs on the website. Legend is they also hired messenger pigeons, which should arrive in the coming days to your house.

So, just to recap, Training Peaks:

• Increased prices by about 5% for annual subscribers
• E-mailed all subscribers of the change immediately at announcement
• Gave more than a month’s notice before it takes effect
• Included a detailed FAQ web page with more answers/clarifications
• Displayed a pop-over on subscriber’s smartphone apps with the details
• Displayed a pop-over on their web-based training log with the details (in case you didn’t see it on the app)
• Informed the media under embargo ahead of time
• May or may not have sent messenger pigeons

As always, no consumer wants or likes a price change – but, I appreciate TrainingPeaks doing it right here. I’ve been a longtime TrainingPeaks user (as is my wife), albeit in our cases we’re both ‘under’ plans from coaches (meaning, the coach pays for the account).

MyWhoosh Prize Purse:

MyWhoosh, a cycling esports platform that aims to compete with Zwift, has announced a $1 Million (USD) prize purse for an event series they’ll be hosting next month. The platform claims this is the biggest pot ever offered for a cycling esports series, and I believe that to be the case as well. The race is an 8-day/7 stage race event, covering multiple routes and with multiple categories.

The company says that riders that apply to the race series “will be selected based on the performance data they submit”, and then “split into categories according to their level of ability”. The platform also says that “the final selection will consist of 120 of the best and most competitive riders who have followed the MyWhoosh verification protocol to ensure fair racing.”

MyWhoosh has their verification protocol published here (FAQ here), which more or less seems like a slightly tweaked version of what Zwift does for the variant they created in concert with the UCI.

The company has a boatload of payout categories for the race, broken out as follows, with prize money split equally for men and women:

– Top 10 Individual Winners
– Top 5 Team Winners
– Top 1 Youth Winner (Under 23)
– Top 1 Masters Category Winner (Above 50)
– Top 1 Sprint Winner
– Top 1 King/Queen of the Mountain Winner

Which, breaks out into much more detail as follows:

Category 1

Overall –

• Individual classification:
  • 1^st – $10,000
  • 2^nd – $8,000
  • 3^rd – $6,000
  • 4^th – $4,000
  • 5^th – $2,000
  • 6^th – $1,000
  • 7^th – $1,000
  • 8^th – $1,000
  • 9^th – $1,000
  • 10^th – $1,000
• Teams Classification
  • 1^st – $42,000
  • 2^nd – $35,000
  • 3^rd – $25,000
  • 4^th – $20,000
  • 5^th – $10,000
• Sprint Winner – $5,000
• KOM/QOM Winner – $5,000
• Youth Winner – $5,000
• Masters Winner – $5,000

Daily:

• Stage Winner – $1,000
• Sprint Winner – $500
• KOM/QOM Winner – $500

Category 2

Overall –

• Individual classification:
  • 1^st – $7,500
  • 2^nd – $6,000
  • 3^rd – $4,500
  • 4^th – $3,000
  • 5^th – $1,500
  • 6^th – $750
  • 7^th – $750
  • 8^th – $750
  • 9^th – $750
  • 10^th – $750
• Teams Classification
  • 1^st – £31,500
  • 2^nd – $26,250
  • 3^rd – $18,750
  • 4^th – $15,000
  • 5^th – $7,500
• Sprint Winner – $3,750
• KOM/QOM Winner – $3,750
• Youth Winner – $3,750
• Masters Winner – $3,750

Daily:

• Stage Winner – $750
• Sprint Winner – $375
• KOM/QOM Winner – $375

Category 3

Overall –

• Individual classification:
  • 1^st – $5,000
  • 2^nd – $4,000
  • 3^rd – $3,000
  • 4^th – $2,000
  • 5^th – $1,000
  • 6^th – $500
  • 7^th – $500
  • 8^th – $500
  • 9^th – $500
  • 10^th – $500
• Teams Classification
  • 1^st – £21,000
  • 2^nd – $17,500
  • 3^rd – $12,500
  • 4^th – $10,000
  • 5^th – $5,000
• Sprint Winner – $2,500
• KOM/QOM Winner – $2,500
• Youth Winner – $2,500
• Masters Winner – $2,500

Daily:

• Stage Winner – $500
• Sprint Winner – $250
• KOM/QOM Winner – $250

Category 4

Overall –

• Individual classification:
  • 1^st – $2,500
  • 2^nd – $2,000
  • 3^rd – $1,500
  • 4^th – $1,000
  • 5^th – $500
  • 6^th – $250
  • 7^th – $250
  • 8^th – $250
  • 9^th – $250
  • 10^th – $250
• Teams Classification
  • 1^st – £10,500
  • 2^nd – $8,750
  • 3^rd – $6,250
  • 4^th – $5,000
  • 5^th – $2,500
• Sprint Winner – $1,250
• KOM/QOM Winner – $1,250
• Youth Winner – $1,250
• Masters Winner – $1,250

Daily:

• Stage Winner – $250
• Sprint Winner – $125
• KOM/QOM Winner – $125

The listed routes all favor the letter ‘A’, with this being the complete list:

· Arabia
· Australia, Small Hills
· Alula, Medium Mountains
· Arabia, Hard Mountains
· Arabia, Extreme Mountains
· Alula, Flat Time Trial
· Arabia, Flat

The company says that “each stage will feature a new course, with men racing for approximately 70km and women for approximately 50km. No two days will be the same, with racers taking on routes in Tour of Al’Ula, Tour of Arabia, Australia, and Tour of Colombia. Each road stage will have a variety of sprint and climb segments, all ranging in distance, and day four will consist of a time trial.”

Sign-ups begin on February 27th, and then racing begins March 30th, running till April 6th. They’ve got a full landing page here with details.

Of course, the obvious should be pointed out: The announcement timing on this is super clever. Later this week the UCI will hold their 2023 UCI Esports World Championship on Zwift. It’ll be interesting to see if Zwift and MyWhoosh will fight it out next year for rights to hold the event. Remember, the UCI in theory lets platforms compete for this, and is (also theoretically) platform agnostic. And while I kid about the ‘in theory’ part, the individual overseeing much of the UCI’s Esports push came from founding VirtuGo – so he actually does know a bit about things other than Zwift, and my previous discussions with him indicated that they are indeed aiming to ensure that the race platform should be irrelevant to the World Championship title itself. Either way, with Zwift backed by the princes of Silicon Valley, and MyWhoosh backed by modern-day princes of the UAE, there’s plenty of money to be thrown at the UCI.

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With that, thanks for reading!

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