HYROX at nine: the fitness race that became a brand battleground

When HYROX held its first race in Hamburg in 2018, it drew roughly 650 participants. Eight years later, the same event format – eight one-kilometer runs alternating with eight functional workout stations – attracted between 425,000 and 550,000 athletes across more than 80 events in 30 countries during the 2024/25 season. The organization has publicly stated a target of one million annual participants by 2026.

That growth made HYROX one of the more commercially consequential developments in the sporting goods industry in recent memory. This week, it also became a competitive flashpoint.

On Feb. 26, Puma CEO Arthur Hoeld used the company’s full-year 2025 earnings call to describe HYROX as a “lighthouse” partnership – one that enhances brand credibility beyond its direct revenue contribution and that sits at the center of the brand’s Training category momentum. In the same period, Adidas moved to challenge that exclusivity with the launch of the Adizero Dropset Elite, a shoe explicitly positioned for hybrid fitness racing formats.

Two of the world’s most prominent sportswear companies are now actively competing for the same consumer, in the same race format, with dedicated footwear products. But they are not alone: the HYROX category has matured into a multi-industry commercial platform, attracting partners from Amazfit to Red Bull, from skincare brand Biotherm and cosmetics giant Maybelline to electric vehicle maker BYD.

Who will develop the next HYROX-specific product? Who will be the next brand partner? How big can the HYROX phenomenon become? And how transformative can these hybrid fitness race formats be for the sporting goods industry? This week may help to find some answers.

Puma’s earnings call: HYROX anchors new Training pillar

On Feb. 26, Puma CEO Arthur Hoeld used the company’s full-year 2025 earnings call to describe HYROX as a “lighthouse” partnership – one that enhances brand credibility beyond its direct revenue contribution.

Hoeld’s comments went beyond routine partner endorsement: he cited the partnership’s multi-dimensional commercial logic, including high participation volumes, visible product use in competitive race settings, authentic performance association and what he described as the “halo effect” – the partnership’s capacity to lift brand credibility across categories and consumer groups that extend well beyond the race itself.

On financial contribution, Hoeld was measured: Training remains a single-digit percentage of total Puma revenue, and no specific HYROX-attributed figures were disclosed. But his explicit framing – that strategic value currently outweighs immediate financial impact – shows that the brand’s calculus around the partnership is long-term and not dependent on short-cycle sales metrics. With the partnership locked in through 2030, Puma treats the HYROX association as infrastructure for category leadership rather than a promotional activation.

That strategic framing took on structural clarity with Puma’s Feb. 2 establishment of a standalone Training business unit, creating a dedicated organizational structure to manage the category independently of Running. The earnings call language made clear that HYROX is the commercial anchor around which that unit has been built.

Adidas enters the race: the Adizero Dropset Elite

Adidas does not hold a direct HYROX partnership. Until the launch of the Adizero Dropset Elite, it had not formally positioned a product within the hybrid fitness racing category. That has now changed.

The Adizero Dropset Elite marks Adidas’ calculated entry into a category that Puma – through its HYROX exclusivity and the Deviate Nitro 4 and Velocity Nitro 4 product lines – has effectively owned for two seasons.

The category has room to grow. A significant proportion of HYROX’s 550,000 annual participants do not race exclusively in Puma footwear. Community-led footwear adoption – where athletes form product preferences based on peer recommendations, social content and performance reviews rather than brand partnerships – has been one of the defining characteristics of the HYROX audience.

On’s Cloudboom Echo 3, Under Armour’s TriBase Reign 6 and Saucony’s Endorphin Pro 4 already circulate within that community as viable alternatives. Adidas now enters with greater brand scale and retail reach than any of those challengers.

Vienna, February 2026: the scale that justifies the brand investment

The competitive intensity between Puma and Adidas becomes clearer when viewed through the lens of the HYROX Open European Championships, held Feb. 6–8 in Vienna. The three-day event drew more than 10,000 competitors aged 16 to 66 from over 70 nations – numbers that rival many established endurance events on the continent.

The event’s visibility was amplified by Alexander Rončević, the Austrian world champion, competing in his hometown. Elite athletes and recreational competitors shared the same venue, the same equipment and the same race sequence simultaneously – a format that collapses the usual distance between professional performance and mass participation.

The sporting goods ecosystem beyond footwear

HYROX’s sporting goods ecosystem extends beyond footwear. Two equipment manufacturers sit at the operational core of every race: Concept2, which supplies rowing and skiing ergometers, and Centaur, which supplies sledges and weights. Concept2 recently renewed its partnership with the series.

HYROX represents a statistically small segment of the global functional fitness equipment market. Yet its open-access event format turns specialized competition gear into the standard for the million-plus hybrid athletes training in gyms worldwide. A potent commercial billboard.

Then there are the wearables: Amazfit – the brand under Zepp Health – holds official partner and timekeeper status for the series. Its smartwatches feature a dedicated HYROX Race Mode that automatically tracks performance across all eight functional stations.

The ecosystem also includes fitness studios: HYROX’s global affiliate gym network—now exceeding 5,000 locations—provides structural commercial durability that extends well beyond race-day economics. Affiliated gyms pay approximately €1,420 per year in the US or around £90 per month in the UK, with a higher-tier “Performance Centre” designation running to approximately €3,315 or more and including physical space redesign consultation.

Revenue projections for the series point to approximately €132.6 million in 2025 rising to beyond €208.4 million in 2026, spread across entry fees and merchandise (25 percent of revenue), coaching and camps (30 percent), gym licensing (20 percent), digital training subscriptions (15 percent) and commercial sponsorship (10 percent).

The Elite 15 and the professional layer

HYROX’s parallel professional circuit – the Elite 15 – awarded more than $300,000 in prize money at the 2025 World Championships in Chicago. Starting with the 2026/27 season, competing athletes will be required to hold a mandatory license at €197 per year, covering anti-doping support, priority race entry and official ranking points. Athletes who fail to meet broadcast media obligations can forfeit up to 20 percent of prize earnings.

The structure shows an attempt to transform the series from a participation platform into a commercially viable media property. Red Bull’s sustained involvement – through athlete deals, the Road to HYROX coaching programs and event media production – suggests this transition has begun.

HYROX’s commercial platform secures stability for brand partners

HYROX sits within the portfolio of Infront Sports & Media, one of the world’s leading sports marketing and media rights agencies. A few weeks ago, Infront’s parent company Wanda Group concluded a strategic review and decided not to proceed with a sale of the agency—providing commercial continuity to a series in full growth mode. For sporting goods brands with active HYROX partnerships, the outcome provides stability. Puma’s long-term agreement now operates within a secure ownership environment—which explains the emphasis Puma placed on its commitment during the latest earnings call.

HYROX becomes a brand battleground

Adidas has entered the hybrid fitness racing footwear category. Puma has made HYROX a strategic pillar at CEO level. Together, the two developments mark a shift in how the sporting goods industry treats fitness racing as a commercial opportunity. For two seasons, Puma held category exclusivity by default. That period has ended. For specialty retail, the consequences are immediate. A footwear shelf that previously featured one major brand explicitly built for HYROX now carries at least two, alongside community-endorsed alternatives. Consumer choice expands; so does the burden on retail staff to explain the distinctions.

Two-thirds of HYROX participants are aged 30 or older. Women now account for 38 percent of entries, up from 24 percent in 2020. That demographic brings established spending power and a strong tendency to make equipment decisions based on technical performance criteria – the profile that makes HYROX a commercially defensible position for any brand with the product and distribution to reach it, and that explains why Adidas, having watched Puma build that position for two seasons, has now acted.

Nine years after its founding in Hamburg, largely overlooked by mainstream media and underestimated by the industry it was disrupting, HYROX is now a mature series that brands, suppliers and retailers can no longer afford to ignore.