Data Insight on HYROX's Change of Ownership: Projected Revenue of 270 Million Euros in 2026, Infront Monetizes 360 Million Euros

The popular fitness race brand HYROX officially changed hands on September 9.

Infront Sports, once the controlling shareholder, has sold all its majority stake in HYROX to a consortium led by L Catterton, completely exiting the business. In addition to L Catterton, the consortium also includes HYROX's two founders Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste, as well as WndrCo, an investment firm co-founded by Jeffrey Katzenburg. After the transaction is completed, the two founders will hold a total of 51% of the shares, with other investors as minority shareholders.

HYROX is a fitness race IP that has exploded in popularity globally in recent years, so the news of the transaction quickly became a trending hot topic in the industry.

01

Selling 60% of all shares, Infront Sports cashes out 420 million US dollars

According to reports from Bloomberg, the Financial Times and many other media outlets, the overall valuation of HYROX in this transaction is 600 million euros, which is approximately 700 million US dollars. It can be inferred that Infront Sports will cash out 360 million euros (420 million US dollars) after fully exiting this time.

This sports marketing and media company controlled by Chinese-owned Wanda first invested in this event IP in 2019, and increased its shareholding in 2022, eventually obtaining the majority stake and full control of the event from the two founders.

For the shares ultimately sold by Infront, reports from media such as Sportbusiness show that the proportion is 60%.

02

What changes will take place in its China and Asia-Pacific business?

Information aggregated from many domestic and overseas platforms shows that HYROX has different operating entities in different regional markets.

In its core European and American markets, except for Germany, Austria and Switzerland which are directly operated by the headquarters, HYROX headquarters usually directly sets up 100% owned local subsidiaries to be responsible for event operation in the market, such as the UK, Italy, France, the United States, etc. In some European markets such as Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries, the event operation rights are licensed to local partners.

In the China market, which belongs to Infront's parent company Wanda, the current mainland China business is operated by HiLian Sports Culture (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. — a company established in June 2025 — instead of Infront China directly. HiLian Sports is wholly owned by HYROX, whose legal representative is none other than HYROX founder Jorg Christian Toetzke, and Yuan Fang, the person in charge of finance, is the head of HYROX's mainland China region. In this case, HYROX's mainland China business will continue to be controlled by HiLian Sports in the following period.

▲ The second from the left is Gary Wan, Head of HYROX Asia-Pacific.

Outside the mainland China market, the Asia-Pacific business covering Hong Kong of China, Taiwan of China, Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand is led by Gary Wan, a Hong Kong sports event operator. He is the co-founder of Hybrid Group, who obtained the authorization of HYROX for 12 markets in the Asia-Pacific region in 2022, and has served as the Managing Director of HYROX Asia-Pacific since June of that year. During the cooperation period, the number of participants in HYROX Hong Kong of China grew from less than 1000 in the first edition to nearly 10000 per event in 2025. With such outstanding performance, his cooperation with HYROX has been upgraded from an authorization relationship to a joint venture to co-operate the events. In addition to HYROX, his company also operates events in Hong Kong of China including Spartan Race, Health & Yoga Festival IRIS: Your Escape, and the Hong Kong Fitness & Wellness Expo.

As the source control of HYROX changes hands, what changes will happen to the property rights and operation rights of its 12 Asia-Pacific markets is still unknown for the time being.

03

Expected revenue of 270 million euros this year, with participation fees and tickets accounting for the largest share

In 2024, HYROX's revenue was approximately 40 million euros (Source: European Business Magazine).

In 2025, HYROX's revenue is approximately 130 million to 140 million euros. An unconfirmed data obtained by Sky news shows that HYROX's revenue in FY2025 is approximately 140 million euros, and its EBITDA is approximately 30 million euros, which means the EBITDA margin is around 20%. Another media Health Club Management also gave similar data in its report in August: its revenue in 2025 will reach approximately 135 million euros (157 million US dollars, 116 million pounds), with EBITDA of around 30 million euros. In addition, in Forbes' report last December, HYROX co-founder Moritz Furste predicted that the 2025 revenue would be 130 million US dollars.

For 2026, media outlets including CNBC have all mentioned HYROX's expected revenue of 270 million US dollars.

▲ Reference for HYROX revenue data.

A revenue model calculated by the analysis firm Business Model Analyst based on public information shows that HYROX's revenue mainly comes from registration fees and ticket sales, licensed merchandise, sponsorships and gym authorizations, among which registration fees and ticket sales account for around 60%, brand commercial sponsorships (such as PUMA, Red Bull, etc.) and licensed merchandise each account for about 15%, and gym authorization fees roughly account for 10%.

04

Infront sold HYROX, then how will Wanda sell Infront?

After selling HYROX, Infront's participatory event business retains its cooperation with the Abbott World Marathon Majors series — including Sydney Marathon, Cape Town Marathon, and Shanghai Marathon which is a candidate event for the majors — as well as a number of mass events including B2Run, XLETIX, Muddy Angel Run and Megamarsch.

In addition, Infront's business also covers sports media copyright, sports sponsorship, and event signal production. Among them, Infront's subsidiary Host Broadcast Services (HBS) is the main broadcaster of FIFA World Cup, responsible for producing the public signals of events including the World Cup.

Over the past years, Wanda Group has been selling assets, among which Wanda Sports sold the World Triathlon Corporation that owns Ironman, basically exited its shares in Atletico Madrid, and stopped naming its home stadium. Infront Sports has long been put on the shelf by Wanda Sports, but it has not been sold out so far. Last October, there were rumors that domestic and foreign capitals intended to jointly acquire Infront Sports, but there has been no follow-up news up to now. This time Infront Sports transferred all its shares in the extremely popular HYROX, which undoubtedly removes a very attractive selling point for Wanda's sale of Infront Sports, and the impact is self-evident.

▲ The scale of HYROX participants has grown from 650 to 1.5 million in ten years.

05

HYROX's next step: technological transformation, consumer-level upgrade, and entry into the Olympics?

The two founders Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste hold a total of 51% of the shares and regain control of HYROX, which will facilitate the optimization and upgrading of the competition rules. After all, Moritz Fürste is an athlete by background, who represented the German men's hockey team in three Olympic Games in 2008, 2012 and 2016, winning two gold medals and one bronze medal.

At the same time, HYROX has set its sights on the Olympic Games. World Triathlon has approved the launch of this event under the name of "Hyathlon", which means it is not completely impossible for HYROX to enter the Olympics. According to the information released by HYROX, its target is the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. In the official statement on the sale released by Infront this morning, HYROX founder Christian Toetzke said that he will always focus on achieving the Olympic goal in the next few years.

Around the hybrid fitness race, HYROX has built a global community of self-disciplined, progressive people who pursue a good lifestyle and have high purchasing power. As the world's largest PE focused on consumer industry investment, L Catterton has not only invested in a variety of consumer goods projects, but also laid out in the sports and health track with assets including Peloton, ClassPass, and Pinarello (a bicycle brand). WndrCo is an investment and incubation platform that combines the characteristics of a technology holding company and a venture capital firm, and has invested in another fitness race asset XENOM, which can provide cross-border resource integration and global empowerment in technology, content, media and commercialization.

The adjustment of the shareholding structure and the introduction of new investors will bring HYROX to where, creating new imagination space for the public, which is worthy of continuous attention.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Lanxiong Sports" (ID: lanxiongsports), written by Yu Wei, and published with authorization from 36Kr.