Encouraging people to use performance-enhancing drugs to break world records — the core idea behind the Enhanced Games, aka the “Steroid Olympics” — already gave me pause. Now its billionaire backers say they’ll offer testosterone to ordinary folks, not just athletes, as part of their plan to take their events-slash-telemedicine company public via a special-purpose acquisition company. That makes me even warier.

The $1.2 billion enterprise value ascribed to Enhanced Ltd. by A Paradise Acquisition Corp. seems pretty pumped up for a risky concept that’s generated minimal revenue. SPACs themselves are a financial tool with notoriously misaligned financial incentives, inflated projections and a track record of impoverishing retail investors. So perhaps it’s just as well the listing probably won’t raise much cash.

To recap: Instead of toiling away for years for fleeting and poorly compensated Olympic glory, Enhanced Games athletes can take testosterone, anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing compounds to win a share of $25 million in potential prize money.

Comprising track & field, swimming and weightlifting competitions, the inaugural annual event is due to take place in May in Las Vegas.

Incentivizing competitors to pharmaceutically push their bodies to the limit for our enjoyment feels unethical. If someone is harmed, the legal and reputational damage to Enhanced could be significant, as the long list of risk factors disclosed in its SPAC documents makes clear. A less grave peril for investors is that doped athletes deliver “underwhelming or inconsistent” performances, making the event a snooze.

Nonetheless, by applying Formula 1’s data-driven engineering approach — except to the human body rather than racing cars — and adding a dash of Red Bull GmbH’s event-driven marketing, Enhanced thinks it can generate more than $350 million of yearly revenue by 2028.

Rather than undermining fair play, as Enhanced’s many sports-world critics contend, the organizers claim they’re empowering athletes, who’ll be medically supervised and transparent about doping. “All enhancement protocols will be based on substances already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration,” a spokesperson told me, adding that athletes will need to pass a medical screening to ensure they enter the competition “healthy and safe.”

Still, I worry about the message this sends young viewers. More than 60% of Enhanced’s social-media audience is aged 18 to 34 and almost all male. Steroid abuse is rife among this group. Now even more may decide it’s worth risking their cardiovascular, cognitive, reproductive and psychological health to get ripped. And unlike Enhanced’s athletes, most rely on “bro science” and lack access to medical supervision. Enhanced does “not endorse the indiscriminate use of restricted substances,” a statement on its website says.

The startup seems to have mainlined a blend of Silicon Valley’s libertarian, longevity and self-optimization obsessions and MAGA’s transactional and anti-establishment credentials. Until now it’s been bankrolled by a who’s who of cashed up libertarians: Executive Chairman Christian Angermayer, who’s also chairman of psychedelic-drug company Atai Beckley NV and founder of Enhanced’s biggest shareholder, Apeiron Investment Group; venture capitalist Peter Thiel; and the Winklevoss twins. Donald Trump Jnr is also involved via venture firm 1789 Capital, where he’s a partner.

Filling out the athlete roster won’t be easy after swimming body World Aquatics threatened to ban anyone endorsing or participating in the Enhanced Games, even if they do so “naturally.” (Doped and non-doped athletes will compete with each other.) Only about a dozen participants have been confirmed publicly, including British swimmer Ben Proud, who won silver at the Paris Olympics and track athlete Fred Kerley, a two-time Olympics medalist over 100 meters.

Enhanced’s legal efforts to lift this roadblock have been unsuccessful, yet the spokesperson told me more competitors will be announced soon and 50 or so are expected to take part in May.

The organizers aren’t only relying on creating a sporting spectacle. The bulk of future revenues is expected to come from selling over-the-counter supplements and prescription hormones to US consumers. (1)

I chug protein shakes and creatine as much as the next gym bunny. But I can’t help thinking Enhanced’s dual role as “Steroid Olympics” organizer and provider of testosterone-replacement therapy isn’t ideal. And I’m not alone.

To be clear, I support TRT for those with a clinical deficiency. Nor am I surprised Enhanced wants a piece of this booming market. Annual US testosterone prescriptions have increased by about 50% since 2019 to 11 million. Septuagenarian Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is among those who’ve sought a boost, though his was part of what he called an “anti-aging protocol.” Digital-health platform Hims & Hers Health Inc., which has a $9 billion market value, has also started offering treatments for low testosterone alongside erectile disfunction and weight-loss drugs.

The point of TRT is to return men with a hormone deficiency to a normal baseline, not pack on muscle. But less reputable telehealth providers have exploited ambiguity about which symptoms merit treatment, leading to overprescribing and excessive dosing, a topic I wrote about at length here. Social media influencers are now inspiring men in their twenties to get TRT, even though it could harm fertility and create a lifelong need.

Enhanced told me it will focus on treating low testosterone with the aim of bringing customers to a “healthy, normal physiological range.” It won’t “prescribe ‘supraphysiological’ doses associated with non-medical steroid abuse” or offer prescriptions to those younger than 21. And it will “actively communicate and address risks, including fertility.”

That’s reassuring, but the way the SPAC transaction is structured isn’t. The valuation hasn’t been validated by external investors via a so-called PIPE (private investment in public equity) financing. Instead, in return for contributing to a $40 million private placement, some existing owners will be allowed to sell shares worth four times the value of their new investment at closing, rather than these being locked up.

Furthermore, A Paradise’s sponsor, Hong Kong investor Claudius Tsang, is entitled to sell his shares to Angermayer’s Apeiron investment firm in return for up to $9 million, meaning this serial SPAC founder has even less skin in the game than is customary in such deals. Sponsors receive shares almost for free so they can make money even if the stock falls. Tsang told me via email that he’s “committed to creating value for our shareholders.”

It wouldn’t be a surprise if these flaws caused SPAC shareholders (often hedge funds) to ask for their money back rather than fund the transaction — a process known as redemption. Redemptions have averaged 88% in the almost 40 blank-check firm transactions that have closed in 2025, according to data from SPAC Research, and their stock prices have on average declined almost 60%.

Enhanced could therefore end up with a deflating share price and just $40 million to fund its controversial business plan, setting back its ambitions to make us superhuman. Fans of sporting fair play won’t shed many tears.

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(1) Enhanced will rely on an existing telemedicine provider rather than delivering most of these clinical services itself.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Chris Bryant is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies in Europe. Previously, he was a reporter for the Financial Times.

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