{"id":688977,"date":"2026-05-23T17:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T17:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/688977\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T17:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T17:37:12","slug":"the-enhanced-games-explained-inside-the-1-2-billion-bet-on-doping-in-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/688977\/","title":{"rendered":"The Enhanced Games Explained: Inside the $1.2 Billion Bet on Doping in Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A controversial new sporting event that allows athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs while competing will host its first event this weekend in Las Vegas. With more than $15 million in prize money on the line, several athletes are expected to break world records across swimming, sprinting, and weightlifting.<\/p>\n

Founded by German billionaire biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, the Enhanced Games are based on the idea that athletes should be allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs under medical supervision to maximize human performance and push the boundaries of what the human body can achieve.<\/p>\n

Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan, the Winklevoss twins, Saudi prince Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, and Donald Trump Jr.\u2019s 1789 Capital have all invested in the business. In addition to spending $625,000 per month on stipends for the event\u2019s 40+ athletes, the Enhanced Games spent about $20 million building a 2,500-seat arena for its inaugural event this weekend. That includes $6.6 million to build a 50-meter temporary pool and another $2 million for a six-lane track around it.<\/p>\n

What you\u2019ll read online is that this is a dangerous event that is also guaranteed to lose money. Regulatory bodies like WADA, USADA, and the IOC have called it everything from a \u201cclown show\u201d to \u201cdangerous\u201d and \u201cirresponsible.\u201d And given that the organization is projected to lose tens of millions of dollars on this weekend\u2019s event alone \u2014 the media rights and all 2,500 tickets were given out for free \u2014 many industry insiders and sports fans are already calling it a disaster.<\/p>\n

But this is the wrong way to look at it. The Enhanced Games didn\u2019t go public at a billion-dollar valuation before the first event because investors thought it would be the next Olympics. The Enhanced Games achieved that valuation because investors are betting it can be a DTC peptide\/telehealth business that uses a steroid-friendly, Olympics-style event as its top-of-funnel marketing engine.<\/p>\n

This is easily one of the most interesting stories in sports business this year, and something that all of your friends will be talking about once the weekend is over.<\/p>\n

So for today\u2019s newsletter, we\u2019re going to dive deep into the business behind the Enhanced Games. We\u2019ll start by discussing the details of this weekend\u2019s event, including how much the athletes are being paid and what substances they are taking. But then I want to get into the good stuff, including how the Enhanced Group secured a billion-dollar valuation before hosting a single event, and why the organization doesn\u2019t care about making money off tickets and media rights.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A controversial new sporting event that allows athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs while competing will host its first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-688977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}