Triathlons races in which competitors swim, cycle, and run are becoming ever more popular with local businesses.
With five triathlons on the calendar over the next couple of months, more than 20 companies will field teams or sponsor the events in an effort to promote a healthy lifestyle and raise money for local charities.
Kaiser Permanente, the title sponsor for the L.A. Triathlon held on Sept. 9, had more than 400 participants including employees, doctors and health plan members competing, nearly 20 percent of the overall entrants.
That group included Dr. Benjamin Chu, president of Kaiser Southern California, who oversees the organization’s hospitals and health plan, and Dr. Jeffrey Weisz, executive medical director, Southern California Permanente Group, who oversees the physician group. The two executives competed on teams that went head-to-head in the cycling portion.
“They have a friendly competition,” said Kaiser spokesman Calvin Naito. “The loser will have to take the stairs to their seventh floor offices for a month.”
The number of corporate teams involved in the L.A. Triathlon doubled this year, according to Jack Caress, president of Pacific Sports LLC, which owns the L.A. Triathlon. Sponsorship revenues have tripled over the past two years.
“Avid triathletes who were mid-level managers 10 years ago are now the decision makers at their companies,” said Caress.
Drs. Chu and Weisz didn’t have to worry about competition from Michael Johnson, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Herbalife Inc., who won the race last year in his age division. He had a prior commitment and skipped the L.A. event, but will compete at the Nautica Malibu Triathlon on Sept. 16.
Before joining Herbalife in 2002, Johnson headed the Buena Vista Home Entertainment division for Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. It was there that he conceived the idea of having studios put together teams to compete in triathlons.
“When I started at Disney, we were the only studio doing it and we set up a little entertainment industry competition with 25 people,” said Johnson.
Now, Disney has a group of 315 employees, ranging from Chief Executive Bob Iger to grips on television sets, who will participate in the entertainment industry challenge.
Many of the studios enter teams including Dreamworks Animation SKG, Warner Bros. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. NBC Universal will join the competition this year for the first time.
Johnson’s Herbalife team will be competing in a separate corporate challenge with teams entered by Amgen Inc. and Glendale-based Nestle USA, among others.
For the companies, the events are seen as a way to build camaraderie among employees, but also as a way to reduce medical costs.
“We’ve had employees lose 50 pounds while training for the event. Some employees have also quit smoking,” said Nabil Kazi, director of corporate alliances and organizer of team Disney.
Participating, however, does not come cheap. Nabil says that it could cost employees up to $2,000 to purchase the necessary equipment and pay the registration fee, an out-of-pocket expense. To support the team, the company arranges practice groups and provides a group dinner before race day. Disney employees are also expected to raise $125, the minimum donation toward for the fundraising portion of the event, which will be donated to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles this year.
Fantasy Football
With football season upon us, many online providers are looking for ways to enhance their content for the wildly popular fantasy competition. Many of those suppliers have turned to Los Angeles-based sports statistics forecaster Accuscore, which has recently added two more clients. It signed agreements to license its content to AOL and Los Angeles-based Helio.
Founded in 2004, the company has quickly become one of the leaders in providing game and individual player statistical forecasts. The company uses software that runs 10,000 game simulations to predict the outcome of NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and NCAA Division 1 college football and basketball games. It has a higher rate of correct predictions than most human “experts,” which has contributed to its popularity among content providers. Accuscore licenses the results of its computer generated game simulations to ESPN, Yahoo, CBS SportsLine, AOL, Head2Head, Athlon and AT & T; Wireless, among others.
“We started to power the Harmon Forecast for CBS Sports two years ago when it was correct for 35 percent to 45 percent of games,” said Jason Manasse, Accuscore co-founder and president. “It started hitting more than 50 percent of the time and has seen a resurgence.”
In addition to providing statistical forecasts, the company has hired a group of seven writers to analyze the data and provide analysis. The content is available through Accuscore’s Web site directly and can be licensed as well. AOL was the first company to license the statistics and written content.
Staff reporter David Nusbaum can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 236, or at
[email protected]
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