Zwift’s virtual cycling Director of Racing, Sean Parry, sent out an email recently acknowledging what many competitive Zwifties feared – the company’s committment to racing is waning and they are cancelling the Elite Zwift World Series.

Dear Elite Racers and teams,

We know you will be starting to make plans for your next indoor season and therefore we must inform you that Zwift will not be hosting an Elite Zwift World Series this fall.

We understand many of you will be disappointed to receive this news about the series, so please know that this was a hard, but necessary decision for us to make.

For many years Zwift has invested substantially in broadcast production, broadcast distribution partnerships (e.g. GCN), prize money, performance verification and independent governance for elite level regular season racing events like Zwift World Series. Regrettably, the current level of audience interest and viewership for these events makes continuing to support this investment unsustainable.

At this time, the Zwift World Series is the only impacted series but we are considering multiple options for elite racing on Zwift going forward, including partnership.

Regardless, there’s a lot to be excited about this season – with a thriving racing scene, 2025/6 promises to be our biggest community racing season on Zwift yet. You’ll be able to take part in a whole host of new community racing events, each with top racing score categories and there are a number of exciting product developments in the pipeline that will take your racing experience to the next level – stay tuned for further details.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

Best Wishes,
Sean Parry, 
Zwift Director of Racing

The announcement is not surprising given Zwift’s recent challenges: multiple rounds of staff layoffs, unpopular price increases, losing the UCI World Championships and racers to MyWhoosh, and trying to compete with Peloton for fitness/leisure subscribers.

While Parry’s announcement indicated community races are sticking around, many competitors view these events as the Wild West of virtual racing – few rules, no officiating, wonky results and little performance verification. In these “races” a professional is likely to be trounced by a 50 year-old 100kg rider pushing 500 watts at 52rpms up Alp d’Zwift (a virtual replica of Alp d’Huez) on a spin bike, all while averaging a pleasant 104 heart rate.

As one reader of Zwift Insider commented, “The top-tier racers bailed on Zwift long time ago, and why? Because the hardware-addicts running it were too busy snoozing and couldn’t be bothered to throw a single cent into making racing actually decent.”

Another offered a more positive view, “While I am sure the top elite racers on zwift will be disappointed in the news, I feel this is a move in the right direction for zwift. This means more time, money and resources can be refocused back into enhancing the core experience instead of focusing on something that only an extremely small percentage of people will actually participate in.”

Photo Credit: Zwift

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