• Get Started
    • Get Started on Zwift
    • Zwift Course Maps
    • How to Race on Zwift (Setup, Strategy, and More)
    • Links Every Zwifter Must Have
    • More “Get Started” Posts
  • Tips & Tricks
    • Kit Unlock Codes
    • Training & Nutrition
    • Racing
    • Zwift Hacks
  • Reference
    • How Zwift Works
    • Course Calendar
    • Smart Trainer Index
      • Top Wheel-On Trainers
      • Top Direct-Drive <$900
      • Top Direct-Drive >$900
      • Exhaustive Trainer List
    • Achievements & Unlocks
    • Frames & Wheels
    • Routes & Maps
      • Master List of Routes
      • Downloadable Watopia Map
      • Rebel Routes
    • Speed Tests
  • News
    • Events
    • Game Updates
  • Shop
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Get Started
    • Get Started on Zwift
    • Zwift Course Maps
    • How to Race on Zwift (Setup, Strategy, and More)
    • Links Every Zwifter Must Have
    • More “Get Started” Posts
  • Tips & Tricks
    • Kit Unlock Codes
    • Training & Nutrition
    • Racing
    • Zwift Hacks
  • Reference
    • How Zwift Works
    • Course Calendar
    • Smart Trainer Index
      • Top Wheel-On Trainers
      • Top Direct-Drive <$900
      • Top Direct-Drive >$900
      • Exhaustive Trainer List
    • Achievements & Unlocks
    • Frames & Wheels
    • Routes & Maps
      • Master List of Routes
      • Downloadable Watopia Map
      • Rebel Routes
    • Speed Tests
  • News
    • Events
    • Game Updates
  • Shop
More
    Sign in
    Welcome! Log into your account
    Forgot your password? Get help
    Privacy Policy
    Password recovery
    Recover your password
    A password will be e-mailed to you.
    FeaturedReferenceHow Zwift Works

    Zwift Racing League: Overview & Teams

    Joe Kiernan
    By Joe Kiernan
    May 27, 2022
    15

    Zwift has grown significantly in popularity throughout the pandemic as the world’s largest indoor cycling platform and community.  The competitive side of Zwift – where racers compete against each other in real-time events – is an important aspect of the platform, with ~20-30% of the user base competing in races (see this look at racing demographics).

    Within this racing landscape, there are a number of event organizers, but none more popular than WTRL who, among other events, host the official Zwift Racing League (ZRL) (see here for an overview of the most popular events).

    The 2021/22 Season 3 of the ZRL recently concluded, featuring 1,400+ teams competing from across the globe every week.  This puts the ZRL miles ahead of any other competitive gaming/esports league and approaching the size of some of the largest amateur sports leagues in the world.  A truly impressive feat for Martin and his small team that hosts the events every week.  

    So what has made this league so incredibly successful?

    Team Structure & Communities

    Over 60% of teams are part of larger regional and “mega” organizations that each recruit and coordinate 5+ individual teams of 5-10 racers; over 10 distinct organizations fielded 20+ teams last season across hundreds of riders each. DIRT (or “Dads Inside Riding Trainers”), the largest of these, fielded almost 80 teams, though much of the heavy lifting is done by regional sub-teams within the DIRT umbrella.

    These organizations have been absolutely critical to the success of the ZRL.  Larger organizations allow new riders to quickly find teams within specific timezones/categories, and fielding multiple teams allows significant flexibility for individual riders who might need to back out or become available to race at the last minute. They also provide a sense of community for the riders that keeps them coming back season after season.

    These organizations are relatively well-distributed across regions and categories.  For a view of which organizations compete where (and who has been most successful) see the below image (or high-resolution PDF).

    Top “Mega” Organizations by number of teams in ZRL 2021/22 Season 3:

    1DIRT79
    2Herd58
    3SISU38
    4COALITION36
    5WTRL28
    6CRYO-GEN27
    7TFC23
    8ATP22
    8SZ22
    8NL22
    8Wahoo22

    Interested in joining any of these organizations/teams?  See this guide or head over to WTRL to see a list of teams currently recruiting once signups begin for the next season.

    Convenience and Legitimacy

    While the communities have been critical to the functioning of the ZRL, the inherent convenience for individuals of the whole setup likely accounts for much of its explosive growth.  Races are at the same time every week across 18(!) different start time options, require racers to show up no more than a minute or two before the start time, and last less than an hour.  In no other arena can such a massive athletic competition take up so little of an athlete’s time.  

    Lastly, ZRL enjoys a significant boost from the legitimacy bestowed upon it by Zwift.  As the official racing league of the platform, it is the defacto battleground for teams despite a multitude of other community-hosted leagues.  The live-streamed Zwift Premier League, hosted by Zwift and open to the top teams from the ZRL, also adds to its status as the top league.

    Conclusion

    The ZRL is an impressive organizational feat that attracts tens of thousands of riders who show up every season to compete.  Just as Zwift is on the forefront of defining a new virtual-world paradigm, the ZRL is pushing the boundaries of what organized sports could look like in the next decade.  

    Much has been made of the recent acquisition of competitor RGT’s acquisition by Wahoo and the launch of more “competition-focused” Zwift competitors.  But for those platforms to replace Zwift as the top competitive league, they have a steep and long hill to climb to replicate the above foundation of community, convenience, and legitimacy that ZRL has built.  It is a climb that has nothing to do with physics or software, but is every bit as important to their future success.

    Your Thoughts

    Share below!

    Related Posts

    Facebook
    Twitter
    Pinterest
    ReddIt
      Joe Kiernan
      Joe Kiernan
      Joe enjoys the outdoors, exercising, and computers. When not riding around in Zwift, making spreadsheets about riding around in Zwift, or planning his next series of Zwift rides and races, Joe works in e-commerce tech or heads to the playground with his wife and two kids.

      15 COMMENTS

      Subscribe
      Log in using
      Notify of
      guest
      Log in using
      guest
      15 Comments
      oldest
      newest most voted
      Inline Feedbacks
      View all comments
      B. Key
      B. Key
      28 days ago

      To move forward, ZRL needs to incorporate split category racing. There’s a lot of good potential to do this in timezones with too many divisions.

      2
      Reply
      Paul Himes
      Paul Himes
      28 days ago
      Reply to  B. Key

      What I would prefer to see would be for Zwift to fully support TTT races with a conveyor belt similar to iTT races. 2 races out of every season (1/3 the most recent season) have people fumbling with stopwatches, people leaving at the wrong time (another team left at the same time my team was scheduled to leave last season leading to utter chaos for the first 1 km until we just said, “screw our pacing plan” and hammered for a while to drop them), people gaming the exit timing, and all the other chaos. Make TTT races a legitimate-seeming… Read more »

      11
      Reply
      Gordon
      Gordon
      28 days ago
      Reply to  Paul Himes

      I hear a proper TTT mode is in development.

      3
      Reply
      Ben Finesilver
      Ben Finesilver
      28 days ago
      Reply to  Paul Himes

      Not happening. No conveyer belt. Keep the stopwatches. That’s what makes it a special team effort.

      -10
      Reply
      Karsten Neus
      Karsten Neus
      28 days ago

      I’m missing quite a few Team NL teams in these stats…

      0
      Reply
      Joe Kiernan
      Joe Kiernan
      28 days ago
      Reply to  Karsten Neus

      This is the list of NL teams I found in the WTRL results (admittedly just looking for the word NL, ha) Happy to update if you let me know which ones are missing! They might be missing from the graphic if NL isnt in the top orgs within the region / cat Team NL A ELITE Team NL A2 Team NL A3 Team NL B1 Team NL B2 Team NL B3 Team NL B4 Team NL B5 ‘the Dutch Lions’ Team NL B6 Team NL B7 Team NL B8 Team NL C Elite Team NL C2 Team NL C4 Team… Read more »

      Last edited 28 days ago by Joe Kiernan
      0
      Reply
      Bas de Vries
      Bas de Vries
      28 days ago
      Reply to  Joe Kiernan

      Could you perhaps change the name ‘NL’ into ‘Team NL’ in the article? We sure take some pride in our growth and having our name show up in the list of Top “Mega” Organizations on Zwift Insider sure is a reward in itself for us!

      I’m not asking you to put work into editing the PDF, just the article 🙂 .

      0
      Reply
      Robert MacDowell
      Robert MacDowell(@rmacdowell1)
      28 days ago

      I love ZRL. But this article is clearly a sales pitch in disguise from Zwift HQ. Zwift is obviously for sale and this article is trying to justify Zwift’s asking price.

      Last edited 28 days ago by Bobby Mac
      0
      Reply
      Ben Finesilver
      Ben Finesilver
      28 days ago
      Reply to  Robert MacDowell

      I read it thinking very little development will happen and by emphasizing the draw of the community, they won’t lose so many subscribers. Zwift is in all reality shrinking from Covid lockdown peaks. Not enough money reinvested.

      0
      Reply
      Tomas
      Tomas
      28 days ago
      Reply to  Robert MacDowell

      Interesting and while I don’t think it’s a ZHQ sales pitch I don’t think your wrong about Zwift being up for sale. If I was an owner this is when I would want to make my exit. Numbers are good, brand is on top with a lot of partnerships throughout the cycling and triathlon worlds. Competition has made a move but is still far behind so evaluation is still high. question is who would be a potential buyer. I could actually see a player wanting to consolidate Peloton and Zwift into the same offer. That would require a serious sized… Read more »

      0
      Reply
      Jonas
      Jonas
      28 days ago

      I wish there wasn’t such an overwhelming emphasis on sprint points. It’s almost to the point where finishing positions are irrelevant if you can’t score points in the intermediate sprints. Extremely lopsided.

      6
      Reply
      Nate
      Nate
      27 days ago
      Reply to  Jonas

      Agreed

      1
      Reply
      Tomas
      Tomas
      28 days ago

      ZRL is really an amazing accomplishment by WTRL. Especially given how little technical support Zwift gives to the event.

      No native support for in game registering as team to an event, no support for TTT or Points races. Neither is there any support for elimination races which could be a great addition.

      If a competitor would release these features and work hard at attracting the mega teams then ZRL might very quickly become the WRL.

      I think it’s super important that Zwift focus on taking care of their gem.

      0
      Reply
      eracing Vaisanen
      eracing Vaisanen(@juho-vm-vaisanen)
      28 days ago

      I guess Sisu didn’t have 38 teams with 260 riders in ZP…
      According to their own webpage they had 24 teams 🙂
      There were teams who had word Sisu included like SisuWear which are different from Sisu…

      0
      Reply
      Joe Kiernan
      Joe Kiernan
      28 days ago
      Reply to  eracing Vaisanen

      Good call, you are correct in that I just assumed any team name that had Sisu in it was part of the Sisu org. Can definitely update

      0
      Reply
      wpdiscuz   wpDiscuz

      Free Zwift Trial

      Create Account

      Newest Featured Posts

      Top 5 Zwift Videos: Sprint Tips, Free Child Accounts, and Other Platforms

      How Zwift Works

      Browser Extensions for Zwifters: ZwiftMap for Strava

      Routes & Maps

      Zwift Chartgeist, Volume 1

      How Zwift Works

      Support This Site

      Contribute a post, shop through us, make a donation, advertise on this site. See how you can support Zwift Insider!

      This community-driven site is maintained by Eric Schlange and a team of Zwift enthusiasts. Zwift Insider is independent of Zwift corporate (www.zwift.com), although Zwift does provide funding to help defray site costs.

      This site contains affiliate links to Amazon, Wahoo, and other brands. Zwift Insider makes a small commission on purchases made from these links, so please shop through them to support our efforts.

      Terms of Use/DMCA Copyright Policy

      Privacy Policy

      [email protected]

      Latest articles

      Top 5 Zwift Videos: Sprint Tips, Free Child Accounts, and Other Platforms

      Browser Extensions for Zwifters: ZwiftMap for Strava

      Zwift Chartgeist, Volume 1

      Popular Categories

      • Racing868
      • News695
      • Training & Nutrition563
      • Interviews430
      • Events374
      • Routes & Maps288
      15
      0
      Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
      ()
      x
      | Reply
      Comment Author Info
      :wpds_smile::wpds_grin::wpds_wink::wpds_mrgreen::wpds_neutral::wpds_twisted::wpds_arrow::wpds_shock::wpds_unamused::wpds_cool::wpds_evil::wpds_oops::wpds_razz::wpds_roll::wpds_cry::wpds_eek::wpds_lol::wpds_mad::wpds_sad::wpds_exclamation::wpds_question::wpds_idea::wpds_hmm::wpds_beg::wpds_whew::wpds_chuckle::wpds_silly::wpds_envy::wpds_shutmouth:
      You are going to send email to

      Move Comment


    • Related Posts