People do some pretty crazy things in the gym. But none feels quite as crazy as competing in a Hyrox race.<\/p>\n
Some fitness enthusiasts might already be familiar with the format: Competitors run one kilometer, then complete a workout station including sled pushes and pulls, burpee broad jumps, and wall balls. Then they run another kilometer, then complete another workout station, for a total of eight repetitions in the race.<\/p>\n
Sound hard? It\u2019s actually designed to be achievable for people of all fitness levels, according to Enno Eller, global sales director at Hyrox\u2014the course just might take some competitors longer than others to complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a sport for everybody, and every body, and every body composition,\u201d Eller told Marketing Brew. \u201cPeople used to go to the gym saying, \u2018Fitness is my sport,\u2019 but they never really had a chance to compete\u2026Our sport became very famous and is so accessible because it\u2019s basically relying on the seven basic movements of the body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hyrox got its start in Germany in 2017 and started spreading out around Europe in subsequent years, Eller said, but it didn\u2019t truly find a toehold in the US until around this year, after being named to the Time100 Most Influential Companies of 2024. The organization, he said, forecasts that about 1.5 million participants will compete during the 2025\u201326 season, which will cap off with the World Championships in June.<\/p>\n
The fitness industry, both physical and mental, is booming, and consumers are increasingly participating in amateur sporting events, whether that\u2019s Hyrox or lacing up their running shoes to compete in marathons or even Ironmans. Amid the growth, brand marketers are looking for ways to cash in, and some are turning to Hyrox as the next frontier in fitness marketing.<\/p>\n
Heavyweights<\/h2>\n
Hyrox has already inked several major global sports brand sponsors, including Puma and Red Bull, with the latter releasing a docuseries about Hyrox earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Eller said it wasn\u2019t always easy selling Hyrox sponsorships in the early days of the competition, but that\u2019s changed; by the time he joined the sales team last year, there was significant interest among endemic fitness brands. Hyrox\u2019s current sponsor lineup includes MyProtein, fitness app Centr, and exercise equipment company Concept2.<\/p>\n
This year, Eller and his team have emphasized signing non-endemic brands from sectors like insurance and auto. Some of this season\u2019s race title sponsors worldwide include AirAsia, health insurance company Cigna, Chinese automaker BYD, and financial services company USAA.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterest is growing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have insurance, we have banks that we signed for the next season, so for them, it\u2019s more and more interesting to work with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eller is hoping to get more travel brands on board next, as well as a credit card company, which he considers to be something of a badge of honor: \u201cYou\u2019re a true sport if you have a car partner, or if you have a credit card partner,\u201d he said. At least one CPG marketer, Clif Bar\u2019s director of partnerships and activation, expressed interest in Hyrox as a new way to target runners.<\/p>\n
Gym community<\/h2>\n
For sponsors, a big selling point of Hyrox is the supportive community surrounding the competition. Laura Propp, director of advocacy at USAA, said attending a Hyrox race in person sealed the deal for the company to sponsor the Dallas event that took place last month.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOne of our partners and I went up to the World Championships in Chicago this past June, and we were like, \u2018Yeah, this is it,\u2019\u201d Propp said. \u201cYou could feel everyone there is all about community. They\u2019re about cheering one another on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hyrox community tends to be valuable to brands for other reasons, too: The average participant is around 33, spends about four and a half hours onsite at Hyrox events, and shells out hundreds of dollars every year on purchases tied to their health, Eller said. There\u2019s a generally even gender split across Hyrox events, and adaptive athletes also compete in Hyrox events. To build brand love early, the organization recently rolled out a program called Youngstars meant for young athletes ages eight to 15.<\/p>\n
But Hyrox\u2019s sponsorship pitch isn\u2019t based purely on psychographics. \u201cThey had the metrics and the data to prove that they\u2019ve continued to grow,\u201d Propp said. At Hyrox Dallas, where about 17,000 athletes were expected to compete, more than 6,000 came through USAA\u2019s dedicated space, she said.<\/p>\n
Eller said that most Hyrox events, some of which serve more than 40,000 athletes over the course of eight or nine days, sell out in minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a Taylor Swift concert,\u201d Propp said. \u201cWe could see that these were really sought-after events that people wanted to participate in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social-worthy<\/h2>\n
As with almost any sport, there\u2019s not only an appetite for participating in Hyrox events, but for watching them, too. Hyrox\u2019s four biggest competitions, called majors, are livestreamed on YouTube, and each tends to get more than 100,000 views, Eller said. And while the sport may not be fully ready for prime time TV, it is already primed for social, which could serve as another perk for sponsors.<\/p>\n
In addition to tracking engagement with its in-person activation at the Dallas event, Propp said the team at USAA was looking to drive brand awareness on social. The company posted several collab posts with Hyrox, and altogether, its Hyrox social content surpassed its engagement rate benchmarks by almost 40%, according to USAA.<\/p>\n
Even though Hyrox isn\u2019t yet fully mainstream in the US, Propp said she liked the momentum behind the sport, and that it represented \u201csomething different\u201d for USAA\u2019s sports sponsorship portfolio, which includes a longstanding relationship with the NFL. If concerns do come up with sponsors, Eller said his team is honest about what Hyrox can and can\u2019t offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to have your brand plastered somewhere, and you want to be seen on [TV] , then that\u2019s totally fine,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a different approach. But if you want to truly connect to a global community that nobody else can give you access to, then probably working with us is your best option if you don\u2019t want to do traditional sponsorships.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n