The Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon costs how much!!

They have to pay the Winner and the police force and the city

Those are called Club Races, dummy. Join a club and you can do this every week. Cost: Free.

You got that right! I've raced maybe 25 times this year. One or two 'events' and then a bunch of Club races, local races, a bunch of All Comers Track Meets ($5 unlimited events). Can't wait for the USATF XC series to start this Fall, great competition (no fat ladies or little kids, just serious runners) and about $20 a race. I try to avoid big-money Events, like those being talked about on this thread, but if the timing/location/availability is right I don't think twice and I pay up.

To the guy who asks what I want from a race: I want an accurate course, accurate timing and some fellow runners close to my ability to compete with. Don't give a shit about Tshirts, post-race food (though it is nice if they have it), finishers certificates, medals (not even AG awards). Just give me an accurate time and placing.

gettin over it in time wrote:

And the extreme majority is what keeps the money going so that Nike, Asics, Brooks, etc ... can put money into sponsoring athletes .. so believe it or not ... while the extreme minority of 'serious' runners out there like to ridicule those who are not serious, slow, run RnR races, etc ... they are the ones enabling the US to have as much of a return to the world stage as the US is having.

False. Sponsoring elites is part of an overall marketing message, it is about branding the logo as representing performance. That it's a successful marketing strategy is why they continue to do it and even expand it.

towhee wrote:

It does seem questionable. We had R&R in Seattle in June 27,000 entrants, so at $100 a pop that would be $2.7 million. Plus presumably money coming in from sponsors...BTW only about 4098 finishers, IIRC, and only 38 runners sub 3 hrs.

Overall these numbers do not seem to make sense to me, but then what do I know?

Your numbers are off, or at least incomplete. You are close on their marathon finisher numbers, but what you forgot to factor in when comparing the ~4100 to the ~27,000 is the Half Marathon finishers. I believe I saw they had 15,000+ Half Marathon finishers. Normal attrition from entrants to finishers for major marathon/halfs is about 20%.

RNR San Diego sucks too wrote:

Try registering for one of the RNR series and then get injured close to race day. FYI, plan on eating your registration fee.

And how is this different from any other race around? 25+ years of racing, I've had a few where I signed up in advance and then something came up or I got injured. I can't ever recall getting a refund from a race, other than a couple races that got canceled. I have had a few races give me a deferral into another race they were putting on or into next year's race, but those have been in the minority (and greatly appreciated when a race comes through that way).

d2xccoach wrote:

towhee wrote:

It does seem questionable. We had R&R in Seattle in June 27,000 entrants, so at $100 a pop that would be $2.7 million. Plus presumably money coming in from sponsors...BTW only about 4098 finishers, IIRC, and only 38 runners sub 3 hrs.

Overall these numbers do not seem to make sense to me, but then what do I know?

Your numbers are off, or at least incomplete. You are close on their marathon finisher numbers, but what you forgot to factor in when comparing the ~4100 to the ~27,000 is the Half Marathon finishers. I believe I saw they had 15,000+ Half Marathon finishers. Normal attrition from entrants to finishers for major marathon/halfs is about 20%.

His numbers seem correct to me (at least after reading this). I am guessing a lot of the unused 10K bibs were for maybe charities because people weren't motivated to pay $500 or so to run for charity x.

The recession over?? What koolaid pitcher are you drinking from? Wait, don't answer, I know: Ben Bernanke's cool aid.

d2xccoach wrote:

RNR San Diego sucks too wrote:

Try registering for one of the RNR series and then get injured close to race day. FYI, plan on eating your registration fee.

And how is this different from any other race around? 25+ years of racing, I've had a few where I signed up in advance and then something came up or I got injured. I can't ever recall getting a refund from a race, other than a couple races that got canceled. I have had a few races give me a deferral into another race they were putting on or into next year's race, but those have been in the minority (and greatly appreciated when a race comes through that way).

thanks jackhole. next time try excerpting my entire message. i never asked for a refund. i asked for and would have appreciated a deferral. if i buy tickets to a concert and then can't go, i can always sell them and get my money back. it's assenine that races won't allow this. i'm not trying to scalp the bib number, just sell it to someone who maybe couldn't get in. and before you quote the race website, yes it clearly states this policy in their rules. guess what. it still f-ing sucks. and so do you.

d2x may be correct that my numbers were off. I went back and looked at both their website and the news story and neither is really clear, but it looks like most likely I was wrong. It clears up a mystery because I wondered why there would be 27,000 entrants and 4000 finishers. If I pay $100 to run a race I'm going to prepare & do my dammedest to finish.

Look how many more women than men finishers. The Competitor Group has figured out how to make money on this sport. What they probably do is look at a letsrun thread for advice and do the exact opposite.

RNR San Diego sucks too wrote:i never asked for a refund. i asked for and would have appreciated a deferral. if i buy tickets to a concert and then can't go, i can always sell them and get my money back. it's assenine that races won't allow this. i'm not trying to scalp the bib number, just sell it to someone who maybe couldn't get in. and before you quote the race website, yes it clearly states this policy in their rules.

Concert tickets vs a race entry is not apples to apples. The difference is one is participatory and one is not. Plus a lot of concerts now are requiring the purchaser to pick up the tickets and show ID in person, in order to discourage scalping.

I'm curious as to why you feel you should be able to re-sell a bib number to someone else. I've been doing road races since 1983 and can't ever remember a race that allowed this. So why do you feel this long-standing standard industry practice is "assenine"(sic).

Not saying I don't agree with you, just wondering what your reasons are that you feel a race should make new policies to suit your desires.

Concert tickets vs a race entry is not apples to apples. The difference is one is participatory and one is not. Plus a lot of concerts now are requiring the purchaser to pick up the tickets and show ID in person, in order to discourage scalping.

I'm curious as to why you feel you should be able to re-sell a bib number to someone else. I've been doing road races since 1983 and can't ever remember a race that allowed this. So why do you feel this long-standing standard industry practice is "assenine"(sic).

Not saying I don't agree with you, just wondering what your reasons are that you feel a race should make new policies to suit your desires.[/quote]

first of all, i don't think something being "long standing" and "standard industry" are good reasons not to question it. slavery was both. and that wasn't working out so well for some people.

second, i'm sure i'm not the only one who has had this problem with race registrations. so it's not just "my" desires. as if i'm making some outlandishly ridiculous request to suit only myself and that race organizers would have to bend over backwards to accommodate me. maybe you have money to burn and don't mind eating a big race fee here and there. maybe because you don't have to pay your slaves. i don't know.

try to follow me here and see if you can keep up. if i spend $100 on a race and then can't participate, it's reasonable that i (or anyone) would want an option to recoup my race registration fee. $100 is too much? fine, how about $75 of it? maybe the race organizers keep $25 for their trouble but allow me to put my bib number back into a pool that they (or active.com) controls. and if someone else wants to buy my registration, they do so at full price and i get $75 back. the race made an easy $25 for doing absolutely nothing. and active.com got another $10 processing fee for taking 2 seconds to trade out information. everyone wins.

not sure why you can't equate concert tickets and race registration, but one being 'participatory' and the other not is a pretty weak argument. i can only assume that you participate pretty hard at the barbara streisand shows in your 1983 running shorts.

thanks for the comments, i have no more time to educate you.

I concur and hope that you organize your road race so consumers may have more choices.

Playing Dirty wrote:

Look how many more women than men finishers. The Competitor Group has figured out how to make money on this sport. What they probably do is look at a letsrun thread for advice and do the exact opposite.

You are so right. The Competitor Group is backed by private equity money (Falconhead Capital) and is hoping to bring in $100 million a year in a few years.

See

They will keep charging more and more as long as people keep paying it. That's how the world works. You can choose not to run their races and literally vote with your feet.

The other concern Competitor has is that marathons often use a lot of free labor (volunteers) and get a lot of funds from the cities where they put on the races. That article above says Tukwila (a suburb of Seattle I believe) gave the race $450,000 cash and $150,000 in services. Competitor needs Seattle more than Seattle needs Competitor (there are only so many places they can put on races), but Competitor is smart to get the local municipalities within Seattle to compete for its business. Clearly, the city knows Competitor is a for profit group and still decided to fund the race (thinking it will bring in more long-term) but a lot of the volunteers may not.

(See this RW thread I just found googling this issue:

the 2nd poster says "I tried to see what info I could find on the competitor group and there is not much out there leading me to believe it is a private company - somewhat small - and operates almost like a not for profit "

which is complete nonsense.

So that is an area of concern Competitor has.

However there are a ton of for-profit events that rely on volunteers to increase their profits. Sure more money might go to charity if people got paid for an extra 2 hours of work and gave the money to charity, but people often have a lot of extra time on their hands and want to be involved with big events especially when some of the money goes to charity so they give their time. There should probably be a whole different thread on for-profit races and volunteers. But don't think it is unusual.

The NFL and the SuperBowl operate the exact same way. Thousands of Volunteers.

Professional sports in the US make billions on subsidies from local municipalities despite studies showing if you don't account for civic pride the subsidies do not pay for themselves long-term. No doubt there are some instances where they do.

I'm living in Ft Worth and everyone in the MetroPlex is wishing the new Cowboys stadium had been built in their town. No matter how much it cost. The stadium is truly stunning.

There is civic pride associated with marathons as well, but overall I think a lot less people care about their local marathon than their local NFL franchise.

Economic impact studies are notoriously inaccurate. City managers should know this and take any numbers given to them with a grain of salt and try and put a value on things. The economic impact manager of Tukwala says in that article above "Speck said the marathon folks told him the word "Tukwila" will appear on 100 million pieces of literature, including brochures, magazines and other promotional material."

A few comments 1) they say they are doing something and actually doing it are 2 different things. He should sign a contract outlining what he's getting in return for the city dollars.

2) I wouldn't assign much value to the name Tukwila or wala (see I can't even remember the proper name) being on a brochure somewhere. He should put a monetary value on it. I bet when he does it won't be that high.

If done properly Competitor, the city, and charities can all benefit. Competitor has to be leery of crossing a line and the bigger and bigger they get the more scrutiny they will get. They are aware of this.

well put wejo. many of us hark on how evil rnr/competitor is, but they aren't really trying to impress us. they are going for the fun, hobby jogger crowd, and are anchoring it generally with 1 or 0 big names who sometimes run and sometimes just sign autographs at the convention. i am doing my first rnr event this fall (va beach) as a tune up for chicago. now i could give a $hit about reo speedwagon and & pat benatar, but people seem to dig that crap. we are in the era of the half-marathon being such a social thing, it's almost comical. hats off to rnr for making money on it, but personally, it makes me a little sick.

The biggest problem I have with a $145 race is price inflation. Sure we can protest the fees by not running the race, but then other race directors see them charging outrageous fees and think they can do the same.

"Our race is only $75 ... half the price of RNR half!!" $75 for a race is still BS unless it's a marathon.

If I'm paying $145 for a race, I want a pair of shoes instead of a t-shirt.