The Company Behind the 'Steroid Olympics' Wants To Make Enhanced Pro Athletes Mainstream—and Amateurs, Too
The Enhanced Games are letting athletes take performance enhancing drugs—and they want their events to be big as the Super Bowl.
Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! It's a great week to grate some cheese thanks to the new food pyramid.
Today's edition is a really interesting conversation with Max Martin, CEO of Enhanced. His firm is launching the Enhanced Games in May, which will feature athletes who have been using performance-enhancing substances going up against each other (and world records), in swimming, track & field, and weightlifting. I enjoyed our interview and hope you will too—read on for more information after the break.
Don't miss sports coverage from Jason Russell and Reason.
Locker Room Links
- The PGA Tour is letting LIV Golf defector Brooks Koepka back in—with some severe financial restrictions, and not for every tournament. (Their criteria would, kind of arbitrarily, not let Phil Mickelson back in.)
- Tom Brady joined a GLP-1 company as "chief wellness officer."
- With the transfer portal open, several college football teams are pitching recruits on their state not having income tax.
- The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday morning in cases about laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban transgender girls from playing in girls' sports.
- After a local journalist gave Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen huge praise in a press conference following the Jags' playoff loss, sports journalists debated whether the act was unprofessional or not. Pat McAfee ranted that a large percentage of sports journalists are "political journalists by nature who've preyed on sports because they saw it as an easier path to 'make it.'"
- How the NFL's playoff teams are handling a record wave of flu.
- In England, a bunch of semi-pros took down the defending champions of the nationwide, single-elimination FA Cup.
- NASCAR is ditching the manufactured drama of its playoff format for a points-focused "Chase" format.
- Elsewhere in Reason: Trump's second term so far has been "a libertarian nightmare."
- If only!
Wild to see so many authoritarian regimes on the brink of collapse right now.
Venezuela
Iran
Cuba
The SECTruly unprecedented times.
— Brigham's Burner (@FiredUpCoug) January 9, 2026
Athletes, Enhanced
On May 24, the Enhanced Games are set to be a sporting event unlike anything the world has ever seen. It won't be the first time athletes using performance-enhancing substances will be facing off against each other and against natural athletes. That often did, and likely still does, happen in the shadows of the world's premier sporting events. Plus, there were times when steroids and doping weren't banned, but they weren't explicitly allowed either (baseball in the 1990s).
The Enhanced Games are taking athletic enhancement to the next level. Performance-enhancing substances are transparently allowed and provided (if desired). A full-service medical team is working with all the athletes. The business casts itself as the smart version of enhancement, not meatheads juicing themselves up as much as possible (sorry, Jose Canseco). They plan to have about 50 athletes total in Las Vegas in May for their competitions in swimming, track & field, and weightlifting—though the athletes announced so far are not household names, unless your household is really obsessed with those sports. But the lineup includes former Olympians and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, one of the greatest weightlifters of all time (and an actor, too).
The performance-enhancing substances aren't just for the athletes, though. Enhanced wants to enhance you, too.
Putting on a great show with pro athletes is just part of the Enhanced business plan. The even larger part, they hope, will be a telehealth service where anyone can get tailored prescriptions for enhancing substances like testosterone replacement therapy and enclomiphene (after a biomarker test and a clinical consult).
I spoke with Enhanced CEO Max Martin last week. After making millions as the co-founder of a bitcoin mining company, he co-founded Enhanced and became CEO late last year. Even if you hate what Enhanced is trying to do in sports and in society, you can't deny his big ambitions or his optimism. Originally from Germany but now living in New York, he's starting to familiarize himself with American sports. Perhaps his most impressive feat is that, despite his fandom for Bayern Munich, the Knicks, and the Texas Longhorns in college football, he's still a pretty likable person.
Reason: What do you hope to accomplish with the Enhanced Games this year?
Martin: What I hope to accomplish is that we are one of the most watched sporting events of 2026 and establish ourselves as one of the events on an equal level to the Super Bowl, the Monaco Grand Prix. I believe that we will be able to showcase to people that performance enhancements are actually, very contrary to what many people think, not that dangerous. But under the right clinical and medical supervision—that's very important for us—really something that can help athletes. And also not just athletes, but average people like myself in everyday life, both for performance, but also a lot on longevity and injury prevention. That's really the main goal for the games this year—and just change the lives of many, many athletes.
When it comes to the games themselves and the competitors, do you see them competing against each other, competing against world record times, or what?
First and foremost, they're competing against each other. Even though we have the Enhanced Performance Team (which feels like a family, because the athletes really love hanging out with each other, training with each other, and working together towards breaking world records), it's still a competition, right? These are individual sports that we're doing. We don't have any relays or any team sports, so it's first and foremost the race to become first, but then everyone who is in those races is looking to try to be as fast as they can be to beat world records.
I think what we have is, let's call it two sections of athletes. There's one set of athletes that are really after breaking world records that have a shot at breaking a world record. There's another set of athletes that are maybe at a little bit later stage in their career. They are trying to beat their younger version when they were in their prime. So coming back and showcasing that, say some years into your 30s, you're able to come back with the support of performance-enhancing substances to become the best version of yourself at a point in your life where it is not typical to be at that prime.
Those are really the two sets of athletes that we have in the games: One that is actively trying to break world records (for example Kristian Gkolomeev, Ben Proud, Fred Kerley) and then on the other side athletes like Megan Romano, [who] comes out of retirement, she's really trying to beat her younger self. For us, sports is not just like putting on an incredible sporting event that is entertaining and exciting to watch, but really showcasing the benefits of enhancements to people in different situations.
Is the goal of the games to normalize these treatments so that other sports leagues might start to allow them, or is it to replace other competitions?
First and foremost, we just want to build a great sporting event, but that has merits on its own. I think of us as a new player on the map. I don't think of us as being there to replace anyone.
I think what we've been often compared to is the Olympics. But I think we are very, very different in the offering that we provide both to the athletes and fans than the Olympics are. The Olympics are one of the best sporting events in the world. I went to Paris in 2024. It was really magical. I like tennis, I watched Novak Djokovic win, and a side of my family is from Serbia, so it was very, very emotional to see him win the last thing that he had to win. The Olympics is 10,000 athletes from all over the world. Literally any sport you can think of is there. It's about bringing the world together, forgetting about all the political differences that we have, and just celebrating sports as a planet.
What we are after is showcasing with a targeted, smaller group of athletes what the human body is truly capable of. People, what our biggest asset is, is what we have in our mind, right? Science is our biggest asset that we've developed as a species. Once we let that biggest asset finally be a part of it, exploring what the body is capable of and really helping us as humans becoming the best versions of ourselves. Performance enhancements have been misunderstood in the past, have been much abused in the past. Once you take it out of the shadows and you put it out in the open, you put the right regulation around it, you can make it safe and then really explore the benefits of them.
Tell us a little bit more about what you're providing the athletes with between now and the games. You have a training camp in Abu Dhabi on January 30th. What goes on there, and what else does an athlete's timeline look like between now and the games?
We have something called the Enhanced Performance Team. We wanted to establish something like a team where the athletes get not just base compensation, but [also] access to the best coaches in the world, access to the best nutritionists. So, for example, we're just coming off a training camp in Vegas where every athlete got their individual meals cooked for them based on their individual calorie intake, protein intake, carb intake. So like, really optimizing on that. Having access to sleep doctors, even therapists, because being an elite athlete is also a very big strain on your mind. And then, also obviously the best medical care and science to support you in becoming the best that you can possibly be.
Now we're moving all the athletes to Abu Dhabi. We've created an incredible setup for the athletes there. They're going to be based at a hotel called Erth, which is like a five-star luxury resort with an Olympic track, an Olympic pool. We are creating our own weightlifting space there. So really, the athletes are short of nothing and can truly just focus on preparing for the games.
What do you hope this all looks like 10 years from now? Is the plan to do it annually?
The plan is to do it annually. For the next few years, we're going to be in Vegas. We really love Vegas as a city. But then what I hope we'll be establishing is another version of the game six months later, somewhere potentially in the Middle East as well, so that we'll have the games twice a year. What we want to do is like meets per sport. We're going to have a track meet, a swim meet, and a weightlifting meet, so that also for our athletes, we create more opportunities to compete throughout the year.
One thing I wanted to mention before is about other sporting leagues. I really hope that we can lead by example because what we are doing is we're not just allowing legal—obviously—performance enhancing substances in sport, but really what we're changing is the medical care on the athletes. So every athlete that goes into competition at the Enhanced Games needs to pass rigorous medical screenings in the lead-up to the games. In those medical screenings, what we're looking at is whether an athlete is healthy and safe to compete.
So, for example, even if we see that an athlete has a flu that makes it unsafe to compete, that athlete will not be allowed to compete. That is then really where the layer that we've introduced to be making sure that the athletes, even though a substance is legal—for example, adrenaline is a legal substance—that the athlete is not abusing adrenaline to put themselves and their health at risk. The athletes always stay with their freedom of choice of working together with a doctor within the legal boundaries of what they can take and can not take, but then making sure that every athlete goes into competition both healthy and safe to compete.
I hope this is a paradigm shift that we can instigate from this punitive drug testing to a system that is really focused on athletes' health and safety to compete.
That's interesting because I think something critics might say is this makes sports less about athletic skill and more about tolerance for how many enhanced drugs they can put in their bodies.
I think that there's always an interesting point [they make] that once you start taking drugs, skill is not required anymore, genetic blessings are not required anymore.
You still have to have dedicated your entire lifetime to it. You still have to be one of the most talented people ever to do it. What we're chasing is world records. You can give me all the drugs in the world, it's not going to happen. And also for the athletes, right, even though we're really focused on making sure the athletes stay within a healthy range, there is no incentive for an athlete to go beyond that anyway.
Just think about a bodybuilder, put them on a 100-meter track, have them run against a high school kid, who's going to run quicker? Obviously the high school kid, right?
And so, there's also a point where too much enhancement is actually harmful to their performance. It might still be healthy and great to do it, but as an athlete, you're optimizing for performance. That is also mirrored in the protocols that the athletes are taking. Think about the skill that you need to win the 100-meter race vs. a marathon. Two very different skillsets required, therefore also two very different protocols that are optimizing for exactly what the athlete specifically needs to shine in the event that they're doing.
When you say enhancements, that means a wide range of treatments. Tell us about the lower ends of those kinds of things, and also the more involved higher ends.
It's a variety of different categories of substances that athletes can take from hormonal therapies, steroids, metabolic regulators, peptides, stimulants. There's a big selection of categories of substances that can be drawn from. But what is really, really the point of that is very, very individualized on an athlete. One layer is what we just discussed, the event that the athlete is doing. And then the second layer, maybe even the more important layer, is who the athlete is as an individual. Based on you and your body composition, some substances would be helpful, others not so much.
Let's talk about the telehealth side. That's really interesting from a business perspective. But I think some people who are sports fans might see that and say, "Oh, so the Enhanced Games are just a way of advertising these treatments. It's not really about sports." What do you say to that?
Definitely, that is not true. Sports is for us the foundation of who we are as an organization. That's what we started out to do. What we have learned with the work that we've been doing already is that it generates a lot of interest in the market. You see this everywhere. You have peptides everywhere, you have longevity gurus everywhere. People have started, if you look at our demographics—young people drinking less, people starting to take care of their health earlier on in their life, and not just once they turn 67 and they're going through retirement. People are now at a point where we have the luxury of being able to take care of our health much earlier and much better.
It's very similar to what Formula 1 is doing. In Formula 1, the best athletes in the world [are] working with the best engineers in a regulated environment, it's very similar to us. We have the best athletes in the world working with the best doctors and scientists in a very regulated environment. What the engineers do when they develop the power unit for the Formula 1 car, that's the forefront of scientific innovation and technology. That engine is never going to get mass-produced. But what the engineers learn in developing that engine, in some form of a derivative, is going to trickle down into the development of the real car engine a few years down the line. So a lot of technologies that we have in modern cars come from motor racing. That's really how we see it.
A protocol that helps an athlete break the world record is way too complicated for an average dude like myself, but it generates a ton of interest. People are getting excited because they are seeing all of those benefits from enhancements, and so they are keen to explore for themselves as well. We see ourselves in a position to become the stewards of the enhancement industry because we're going to be publishing everything that we do with the athletes, all the learnings that we have with the athletes, and that's continuously going to improve our product offering for people, which is what we've seen people are extremely interested in.
We actually did research last year where we learned that two-thirds of people that would see people participate healthily and safely in the Enhanced Games as Enhanced athletes would consider getting enhanced themselves. The vast majority, also two-thirds of those people, would like to work with the same company the athletes are working with. That's what we're trying to do, not just offer something extraordinary to athletes, but then extend that offering that we have for athletes to the broader public. So our mission as a company is to give everyone in the world the opportunity to live enhanced.
At Reason, we're always interested and worried about regulations and bans. Are you worried at all about any kind of government or regulatory crackdown that says either this event is illegal, or these kinds of treatments should be illegal?
Look, I don't think it should be [illegal]. We're seeing a lot of lobbying by many global big organizations like the World Anti-Doping Agency, who's constantly calling out the U.S. government to stop us. Which is completely ridiculous because we are operating within what the law is. We are against some sort of private institution taking a high stance on the law. The law is the law. If we have a problem with the law, we should change the law. But for now, we have the law and within what is regulated, what is [Food and Drug Administration] approved, what can be prescribed to you by a doctor. I think as an individual, you should be able to do [it] because it's in the boundaries of the law.
And so, why should there be a private, mostly Swiss foundation that sits on top of that, that is governed by mostly elderly, white, overweight men that decides on what young athletes can put into their bodies or not? Let's call it the best "athletes," for example, in the corporate world. If you look at some of the big executives that we have here in America, everyone is enhanced. If you look at the best "athletes" in the media world, which are actors and celebrities, everyone is enhanced. Why should athletes not have the opportunity to enhance themselves as well, which helps not just their performance, but also their recovery, and the lifetime of their careers?
Think about a guy like LeBron [James] who's going to retire in the next few years, maybe, yeah? He's at the peak of his media value right now. So if we can extend his career by another five years, he's going to benefit from it because he can do, for longer, what he loves. The fans are going to benefit from it because they're going to see their favorite player play for longer. And the commercial partners are going to benefit from it because they can work with him [longer]. Everybody wins.
This is really what we're after, to say like, "Hey, if something is legal, we should be able to do and allow that." What we're doing is crystal clear on the legal front. Unless there is a forceful operation against a company that's operating within what's legal, which I don't expect in this beautifully free country in America, I'm not too worried about it. But yes, there's obviously a few players that don't like that much what we are doing and are trying to lobby against that, but it's not holding us back.
What is the role of nonenhanced athletes in your games? Is that going to be a factor?
Absolutely. Absolutely. We are speaking to a number of athletes and we have some athletes. So when you join the Enhanced Performance Team, you do not need to enhance; it is not an expectation of you to do that.
There's a lot of research that shows that, and the number that I always quote, 43 percent of Olympians actually admit to using banned substances, while only 1 percent get caught. So this means cheating is happening everywhere. And how do people get away with cheating? By taking newly developed drugs that are not well researched. And they take additional drugs on top of that: masking agents to hide what they're taking in the first place.
Cheating is facilitated by putting your health at risk, and that's completely unnecessary. This is why we're saying, let's take it out of the shadows. Let's not be naive and pretend it's not happening. Let's take it out of the shadows, put it in a regulated environment, and make sure that the people who choose to do it can do it safely. The athletes on the performance team don't have to do it, but we're giving them the optionality if they want to do it, to do it under the highest medical and clinical standards.
But yes, we're definitely going to have and want to have natural athletes in the games as well to see the competition between enhanced and nonenhanced. I think that's going to be something that the fans are really excited about watching.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.
Replay of the Week
Perhaps the best hockey assist you'll ever see.
This view of Abbey Murphy's assist to Bella Fanale yesterday is ridiculous. The guts to try this at full speed, and skill to pull it off…she's a fun player to watch. pic.twitter.com/9UcKBdAyAg
— Ian Kennedy (@IanKennedyCK) January 11, 2026
That's all for this week. Enjoy watching the real big game of the weekend, the Rochester Knighthawks against the Toronto Rock in the National Lacrosse League.
