Competitor Group, Inc. (CGI) is a privately held, for-profit,

sports marketing Sports marketing as a concept has established itself as a branch of marketing over the past few decades; however, a generally accepted definition does not exist. Academicians Kaser and Oelkers (2005, p. 9) define sports marketing as 'using spor ...

and

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company based in Mira Mesa, San Diego, California. The company owns and operates over 40 large scale running, cycling, and

triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of Swimming (sport), swimming, Cycle sport, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the ...

events; of which includes the Rock 'n' Roll Running Series.

History

Competitor Group was formed by Falconhead Capital at the end of 2007 when the firm acquired Elite Racing, an operator of running events in the United States, as well as La Jolla Holding Group, LLC (''Triathlete'' magazine) and Competitor Publishing. In 2008, Falconhead Capital acquired Inside Communications, Inc., owners of ''

VeloNews ''VeloNews'' was an American cycling magazine headquartered in Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a ...

'', ''Inside Triathlon'', adding them to the CGI business portfolio. With the acquisition of Elite Racing, CGI rapidly expanded its event production with the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series. In addition to the races already produced under Elite Racing, CGI has purchased under-performing

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

and half-marathon races as well as starting new races around the United States, sometimes receiving large tax breaks in the process. In January 2014, Competitor Group announced that it would cease publication of ''Inside Triathlon''. Originally called ''Triathlon Today'', the magazine was first owned by Inside Communication in 1993, a competitor to La Jolla Holding Group's ''Triathlete'' magazine. With both magazine now under one ownership the emphasis of CGI was placed on ''Triathlete''. Later, in July 2014, CGI announced their desire to focus on the running portion of their product portfolio. As a result, they were exploring opportunities to sell their ''Velo'', VeloPress and TriRock brands, but planned to retain ''Triathlete'' magazine. CGI was bought by a

private equity firm A private equity firm or private equity company (often described as a financial sponsor) is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of a Startup company, startup or of an existin ...

, Calera Capital in 2012 and then sold to the Chinese conglomerate

Wanda Group Wanda Group (), or the Dalian Wanda Group (), is a Chinese multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in Dalian, Liaoning, and headquartered in Beijing. The conglomerate's core businesses are a priva ...

in 2017; which owned the

World Triathlon Corporation The World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) is a sports event promotion company owned by conglomerate Advance Publications, that produces the Ironman Triathlon, Ironman 70.3, the 5150 series of triathlon races, and other sports events. History In D ...

(WTC), operators of the Ironman Triathlon brand. With the acquisition, CGI was placed under the sphere of WTC's Ironman Group. In October 2017, WTC subsequently sold CGI publications ''Triathlete'', ''VeloNews'' and '' Women's Running'' to the Pocket Outdoor Media division of Pocket Ventures (a company later renamed to

Outside Outside or Outsides may refer to: * Wilderness Books and magazines * ''Outside'', a book by Marguerite Duras * ''Outside'' (magazine), an outdoors magazine Film, theatre and TV * Outside TV (formerly RSN Television), a television network * '' ...

), which owned ''

SpaceNews ''SpaceNews'' is a print and digital publication that covers business and political news in the space and satellite industry. ''SpaceNews'' provides news, commentary and analysis to an audience of government officials, politicians and executives ...

''. At that same time its ''Competitor'' magazine ceased publication due to its failing viability. In early 2020, Wanda Group sold CGI, as part of its ownership of WTC, to the privately held

Advance Publications Advance Publications, Inc. is a privately held American media company owned by the families of Donald Newhouse and Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., the sons of company founder Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. It owns publishing-related companies inc ...

Events and products

Running

* Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series * Carlsbad 5000 *Muddy Buddy series *NFL Run Series

Cycling

*Singletrack.com *Veloswap – industry consumer show

Triathlon

*TriRock Series *Endurance Live – industry consumer show

Other

*Race It: Online event registration platform

References

{{reflist, 2 Sports holding companies of the United States Privately held companies based in California