Energy drinks are moving into Britain’s new fitness arena

CELSIUS has signed a partnership with ATHX Games as hybrid fitness develops from a specialist pursuit into an increasingly valuable part of Britain’s sporting economy

The modern fitness competition looks rather different from the traditional athletics meeting.

Competitors lift, run and endure their way through events designed to test several disciplines at once. The participants are not necessarily professional athletes. Increasingly, they are ordinary gym members who train seriously enough to want something to train for.

That growing audience has attracted the attention of CELSIUS.

The functional energy drink company has become the Official Energy Drink Partner of ATHX Games, the British hybrid fitness competition that says it expects more than 40,000 participants across its events in 2026.

The partnership began at ATHX Birmingham on August 22 and 23 and will continue across the organisation’s British calendar, including Liverpool this October, followed by events in London, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool during 2027.

For CELSIUS, the agreement provides something considerably more useful than conventional sports sponsorship: direct access to a large community of consumers for whom fitness is part of everyday life.

At selected competitions, the company will operate branded areas and offer product sampling, using ATHX to develop its LIVE.FIT.GO. platform in Britain.

It is another indication of how commercially important participatory fitness has become.

Running has long commanded an enormous amateur audience, but the rise of hybrid competitions has created a different proposition. Strength training, endurance and competitive sport are being combined into events in which recreational athletes can measure themselves against a defined standard.

ATHX was founded in Britain in 2023 and says competitor numbers have grown threefold over the past three years.

Its format is deliberately structured around accessibility as well as difficulty. Competitions run for approximately two and a half hours, incorporating periods of rest while testing strength, endurance and mental resilience.

That breadth is important to the commercial proposition. Rather than building a competition solely around elite performance, ATHX is attempting to create an event in which experienced athletes and first time competitors can participate within the same wider community.

It is precisely the sort of environment consumer fitness brands increasingly want to occupy.

Julien Scheubel, Head of Brand for Europe at CELSIUS, said the partnership reflected the two organisations’ shared emphasis on making fitness more welcoming and relevant to everyday participants.

“CELSIUS is built for people who are motivated to keep moving and make every day count,” he said. “We are excited to become the Official Energy Drink Partner of ATHX, a brand that shares the belief in the power of community.”

The deal also comes as CELSIUS seeks to associate itself more closely with fitness culture in Europe, while ATHX has ambitions beyond its domestic market.

ATHX already describes its footprint as spanning Britain, Europe and the United States, while CELSIUS says it intends to expand alongside the competition as ATHX develops internationally.

That gives the partnership a significance beyond cans being handed to competitors at the end of an event.

The battle among sports and energy drink businesses is increasingly about ownership of communities. Mass advertising can build recognition, but participation offers brands the chance to become embedded in the rituals surrounding exercise itself.

For ATHX, meanwhile, partnerships with international consumer brands provide another measure of how quickly hybrid fitness is maturing as a commercial sporting category.

Its next British competition takes place at Exhibition Centre Liverpool on October 3 and 4. London follows at Excel in January 2027, before Glasgow in June, Birmingham in August and a return to Liverpool in October.

The competitors will be measuring strength and endurance.

The brands surrounding them will be measuring something else: just how large this new fitness economy can become.