The upgrade of the TCS Sydney Marathon to World Marathon Major (WMM) status is akin to “joining the Champions League” or becoming a Grand Slam tennis tournament, according to the Infront agency.
Sydney has been named as the seventh marathon in the WMM series from 2025 onwards. The line-up also includes the Tokyo Marathon, the Boston Marathon presented by Bank of America, the TCS London Marathon, the BMW Berlin Marathon, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and the TCS New York City Marathon.
The candidate submission was handled by the Infront agency, which has the exclusive rights to present candidate cities for evaluation thanks to a strategic partnership with WMM.
In 2022, Infront acquired a minority stake in the Sydney Marathon with the agreement also allowing Infront to help market sponsorship and media packages, while providing support throughout the WMM candidate evaluation phase.
Infront has developed similar relationships (without an ownership stakeholding) with two other candidates – the Cape Town Marathon and the Shanghai Marathon – in the hope that both will join WMM and develop much stronger commercial revenues.
Hans-Peter Zurbruegg, senior vice-president of personal and corporate fitness at Infront, told SportBusiness that the Sydney event will upgrade to comparative Champions League and Grand Slam status in a multiple ways, with the deals involving the title sponsors Tata Consulting Services (TCS) and presenting sponsor Asics, in particular, increasing levels of corporate engagement.
Although he declined to comment on the sponsorship financials, he said that the initial deal with Asics, for example, was essentially a local agreement but “as soon as we announced the candidacy, it was immediate. There was completely different level of interest and the Asics global team got involved”.
While the title and technical kit sponsorships represent the bulk of WMM race sponsorship revenue, the biggest earner for WMM races comes from the participant fees. With Syndey now in the WMM calendar, Zurbruegg said: “You’ll now see now a dramatic shift in international income from maybe 10 to 15 per cent internationals before, up to 30, 40 per cent.”
He added: “You’ll also have all these runners, basically chasing the seventh star – a programme where runners can collect all the six [WMM marathons], and now they can collect seven. This will dramatically drive up international participation, which is why as a destination, New South Wales supported us, because it creates huge economic income for the city and the region.”
And while media revenues are not key to the event financials, the anticipated rise in live media coverage important to sponsors, he said. Infront does take over the sales role from the race event holders on sponsorship or local television, but ”international media rights are now sold by Infront because these local teams in Sydney, in Cape Town don’t have [international] TV experts,” Zurbruegg said.
With Sydney now in the top-tier bracket, Infront will aim to produce the same result from its candidate relationships with the Cape Town and Shanghai Marathons. Cape Town will know whether it has fulfilled the criteria in the first year of the minimum three-year evaluation period by the end of November, with possible inclusion in 2026. Shanghai, which launched its candidacy just months ago, could be included in 2027.