WHOOP joins UAE Team Emirates-XRG

WHOOP has signed a two-year agreement to become the official health and performance wearable of UAE Team Emirates-XRG through 2027. The deal gives riders and staff access to WHOOP’s tools around strain, recovery, sleep and live physiological monitoring, and both sides have also made clear that selected data will be used to bring fans closer to race moments and training insights. UAE Team Emirates-XRG is one of the most visible teams in world cycling and home to Tadej Pogačar, which gives the partnership an international stage rather than simply a regional one. The team has framed the deal around elite performance, while WHOOP has presented it as part of a wider push to deepen its presence in professional sport.

Wearables may no longer be new in elite sport, but the way performance data moves into content, sponsorship and fan engagement is becoming more important with each new partnership. Recovery, readiness and in-race metrics can now feed broadcast, social content and commercial storytelling in a way that gives teams and brands more to work with than visibility alone. That makes this a useful example of how performance technology is increasingly expected to do two jobs at once: support the athlete environment internally while also creating outward-facing value for fans, partners and media. In this case, a Middle East-based team at the top of world cycling is helping show how those two layers can sit together.