As the year draws to a close, one of the major questions on everyone’s mind is when the PTO will finally announce their 2024 schedule.
While the return to Singapore (12-14 April) and Ibiza (28-29 September) has already been confirmed, the full calendar was promised “by the end of October,” a promise that has yet to be fulfilled.
In an in-depth interview with CEO Sam Renouf this week, we covered a wide range of topics, including the delay in unveiling their eagerly-awaited races, and Renouf didn’t shy away from addressing it head-on.
Renouf candidly admitted, “I think I may have made the first mistake. Probably the first mistake in planning things is to commit to a date. And I had said by the end of October we would have our season live.”
He continued, “There was a very straightforward delay. We know that people plan their seasons and we wanted to give the community – pros and age groupers – a bit more time, which is why we were aiming for the end of October. But we found it more difficult to deliver the combination of professional plus age group racing than we thought. We’re still very optimistic about it. We’re very encouraged by the progress. All of our venues are lined up but a few are requiring further government approvals and sorting out the specifics of road closures and timings has been a lot more difficult than we thought.”
So what can we expect at this point in terms of the calendar? Renouf’s ambition is clear: “To double our calendar from three events to at least six races in 2024, as we strongly believe that is the way to have a cohesive, season-long narrative about the PTO Tour that will ultimately take the sport to a broader global audience and create a fanbase that drives more money into the sport.”
He added, “We had a few venues where we needed to get this out earlier which is why Singapore and Ibiza were announced. But we also had some cities that if we had gone live a few months ago, we wouldn’t have been able to include them. So we’ve been getting all of our government approvals and permits lined up so that we can announce the full calendar in early 2024.”
Renouf concluded on a positive note, saying, “We are hugely excited about how things are shaping up and it’s going to be worth the wait.”