As obstacle and fitness racing surge into the mainstream, Rob Camilleri has doubled down, backing them to grow inversely to his belly.
Rob Camilleri was “probably two souvlakis away from a heart attack”. He’d stacked on weight after giving up smoking, been diagnosed Type 2 diabetic four years later, and was close to 150kg by 2016.
“You go to a doctor and they’re just always giving you another tablet, then pat you on the back, ‘Go do some exercise’,” Camilleri tells Forbes Australia.
“So I went and sat down and, as I would do in the structured credit world, I pulled it all apart to figure out what was wrong,” Camilleri says.
Camilleri is managing partner with investment management firm Realm Investment House which he’d co-founded in 2012. They were building fast to the point where they now have about 50 employees in three offices. “We’ve just opened our UK office and we’re starting to build out a New Zealand office.”
But back in 2016, he was dealing with his life of “too many pies, not enough fingers”, the then 43-year-old needed to figure out his body. “Why do I need to take these nine tablets and one needle every day?”
The journey he embarked on that day as a personal health reset ended with him buying the Australia licence for the obstacle course events Spartan Race and Tough Mudder, just before Hyrox came down under with its stadium-based fitness race and spiced up the scene some more.
Camilleri has found himself in one of the fastest-growing segments in global fitness. With millions of Australians expressing interest in obstacle course races.
The turnaround
But back in 2016, the 146 kg structured-credit guy decided he’d structure some energy debt. “Long story short … I went on a 21-day fast where I just drank water,” he says.
Somewhere around day five he started to feel amazing, stopped taking his diabetes meds. “I had so much energy … I’d wake up in the morning and just want to go for a run.”
After the fast, he kept going and lost 44kg. Got himself down to 102kg.
“Then I started training,” Camilleri says.
Some guys at the gym told him about Spartan Races – a global series of obstacle course races ranging from short stadium sprints to 50km ultra-marathons – so he decided to have a crack.
“I’m petrified. I don’t even know what it is and how hard it’s going to be. There’s about 25 obstacles … a mix of climbing over things, rope climbs, sandbag carries, crawls. I think there was even a swim on that one. It was only a 7km.
In 2018, he rushed back from a race overseas because his father was in a coma, dying. “I had to switch the machine off. So that was pretty tough. And I made a decision: ‘Every month on the anniversary of his passing, I’m just going to go and find something that’s outdoors and community-based and just go do an event.’ Whether it was a Spartan Race or a True Grit [founded in 2012 by ex-Australian special forces members] or a Tough Mudder, I just did stuff.
“I started to win competitions and break some records in Australia. I did about 100 races, and I got to know people globally, even Joe De Sena, the founder of Spartan Race.”
Spartan Race and Tough Mudder were locked in a battle for the obstacle-course market. Tough Mudder lost, going into receivership in December 2019 selling its assets to Spartan Race for $700,000 in February 2020 as COVID-19 was set to provide an insurmountable obstacle.
The opportunity
In 2022, Camilleri got a call from the Spartan leadership asking if he’d consider buying the Australian licence.
There were six brands on offer. “There was Spartan, Tough Mudder, Endurance, Spartan Trails, Spartan Kids, Highlander [a guided trekking event] and Deka.
Many of us might not have noticed, but obstacle course racing has become a thing since Spartan and Tough Mudder were both founded in 2010. The global market was estimated at US$2.1 billion in 2024 by Market Intelo, and forecast to double over the next decade.
“I’m going to be the King of Moomba and I’m not too sure what the Sydney version of that is, but they’re going to be carrying me down the street on a big float.”
Nielsen data from Australia claims that 6.4 million Australians are interested in it, more than A League soccer, Super Rugby and Super Netball, trending towards higher socio-economic groups.
“The previous licensee hadn’t been really interested in growing the brands. So I said, ‘If I’m going to do it, I want to roll out all the brands. I’ll put a significant investment in place to bring Tough Mudder back to Australia, bring Deka to Australia, bring Highlander to Australia.
“Tough Mudder’s a phenomenal brand. Everybody’s done Tough Mudder. It’s crazy … In the US, the Tough Mudder guys spent an enormous amount of money on brand, almost to the point that it drove the business into the ground. But they created this marvellous brand recognition. Victoria still holds the world record for 25,000 people for the most people at a Tough Mudder in a weekend.”
When Camilleri took over the licence in 2023, he worked on getting Spartan races closer to the cities, and less of a destination “racecation”.
“I’m a big believer in business that you’ve got to make it easy for your client to buy your service. So bringing Spartan Race into the city has definitely been part of the strategic turnaround.”
He also owned the gym-based exercise-station event, Deka. And in 2024, the German-founded fitness race Hyrox came to Australia with its similarly formatted eight-exercise stations interspersed with eight 1km runs, all identical in 80 cities, once a year. Hyrox predicts more than 1.3 million competitors globally this year. It got 62,000 competitors at its four Australian events, in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
But Camilleri seems unfazed by this elephant in the gym competing with his Deka franchise. “Their business models are different to ours. They’re all centred around one big event in each capital city and they’ve done that extremely well.”
With Deka, the gyms organise their own 10-station fitness comps and take a cut of the ticketing.
“The Deka Fit program is all about building gym affiliations where I want to be the most loved guy in Australia … if I can put $20,000 in every gym’s pocket by allowing them to run Deka Strongs and Deka Mile, I’m going to be the King of Moomba and I’m not too sure what the Sydney version of that is, but they’re going to be carrying me down the street on a big float.”
Camilleri was also part of the Maverick Sports Partners consortium that bought A-League soccer team, the Newcastle Jets, in June 2024.
“All of that is very, very complementary because they’re all interconnected in some way. We take a water sponsor for Spartan and I can introduce them to Newcastle Jets, I can take a trucking sponsor from Newcastle Jets and give him a services agreement out of Spartan.
“That interconnectivity across all of those brands becomes the scale benefit that I can leverage.”
Camilleri says they’ve put close to 55,000 people through their various events in the past year, generating revenue of $4.5 million.
The next Spartan Race is in Ipswich in outer Brisbane in May, coupled with the Obstacle Course Race Community World Championship. Followed by Tough Mudder’s return to Brisbane in June.
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