Why Hyrox co-founder is ready to take fitness racing to prime time

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If you haven’t heard of Hyrox racing, you likely will by the time the 2028 Olympics land in Los Angeles.

“The production is getting better, and we are investing more money into this,” Hyrox co-founder and CEO Christian Toetzke told Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi on a new episode of Opening Bid Unfiltered (video above or listen below). “You will see a dramatic shift in the next 12 months.”

Hyrox, co-founded by Toetzke and field hockey player Moritz Fürste in 2017, currently streams on YouTube. It’s a form of indoor fitness racing, where participants run one kilometer and then complete one functional workout, repeated eight times. Exercises include sled push and pull, rowing, burpee broad jumps, and sandbag lunges.

Toetzke’s inspiration for the company first came from his frequent trips to the gym

“Basically, 270 million people are members in a gym locally,” he noted. But the gym business hosted “no competitions. Zero,” he said. “People can’t benchmark themselves.”

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In its early stages, Hyrox hosted nine events in Germany that drew a crowd of 7,000 participants, according to Toetzke. Since then, they’ve seen about 1.5 million people pay US $110 each to participate in an event.

Despite the enthusiasm and rise in popularity, the growth of Hyrox will have its limits. “We have a very, very clear vision,” Toetzke said. “We will grow to 150 events in the 150 biggest metropolitan areas of the world, and then we will not grow further.”

Toetzke said the company wants to host only in tier one cities and prefers to make the event more premium than to endlessly expand. He envisions a world where Hyrox events give “a mix of the New York City Marathon, the US Open, and a little bit of Coachella.”

So far, Hyrox has inked partnerships with brands like Puma and boasts an Instagram following of over 660,000. The enthusiasm was further proven when COVID-19 shut down indoor events. “We had to stop for two years almost,” he said. “And then we restarted in 2021 in the UK, and it exploded [there.] We were selling out this event as a very, very young product.”

Grace Williams is a writer for Yahoo Finance.

Each week, Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi fields insight-filled conversations and chats with the biggest names in business and markets on Opening Bid Unfiltered. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service.

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