As far as the “Hawaiian” vacations you referenced, the masters team which was about 25 to 30 people tops , got 600 dollars a year for travel expenses if they aged grouped out at 80%. The rest of the team got 300 dollars a year each, as Mike Tyson would say chump change. That would pay for for one hell of an Hawaiian vacation.
As far as the “Hawaiian” vacations you referenced, the masters team which was about 25 to 30 people tops , got 600 dollars a year for travel expenses if they aged grouped out at 80%. The rest of the team got 300 dollars a year each, as Mike Tyson would say chump change. That would pay for for one hell of an Hawaiian vacation.
Why would the ATC pay even $1 for masters runners to travel?
The ATC has supported competitive local masters almost since its inception - it was after all started by many of the same - it’s a limited budget and run differently than the elite arrangement. They do it for many of the same reasons any non-profit funds any outreach program, it’s part of their core purpose & provides local visibility. ROI from a monetary sense is irrelevant.
I would be fine if the ATC did not have an elite team or a master's team. The ATC has about 30,000 members paying let's say 35.00 each for a total of 1,050,000.00 dollars annually in yearly dues (let's call it 1 million due to families getting a discount etc.)
When they just had the competitive team (Open + Masters) maybe 40 individuals were reimbursed 600.00 per year or a total of 24,000.00 (less than 2.5% of membership dues) in return, the competitive team members were asked to volunteer at 2 ATC events per year and wear ATC singlets during races as well as ATC shirts during the awards ceremony to promote the club. The masters' team won several national championships and individual championships. The ROI with the master's team could be questioned but I do see the value of having a team as the cost is minimal (no hired personnel to run the team / you coached yourself and filled out your own reimbursement and submitted it)
The elite team costs a good bit. They brought on 2 full time coaches, strength and cond. coach, performance coach and a few more staff related personnel. They built a very nice state of the art training center (weights etc.) and are paying runners to run while compensating them for travel/meals etc. I have no idea what that is costing the club, but I would venture to guess north of 400K a year or more than 40% of the revenue from yearly memberships. I 100% do not see the ROI with the elite team. Virtually nobody knows who these runners are as distance running is just not a mainstream popular sport in the USA with TV contracts etc.
It will be interesting to see the future of the elite team in Atlanta as I did not think it was a good idea when they formed the team and I still see it that way. With that being said, having the team or not does not affect me as I am no longer a ATC member.
Seems like they're having a hard time selling out the Peachtree Road Race and having to let people go as a result of it. Used to be that you had to register early and non-members enter a lottery just to get a bib. The Board needs to clean house and bring in a new leadership team.
Not having live music, cheerleaders, and juggling clowns every half mile is hurting Peachtree. They also lack clearly marked selfie stops, a “You Go Girl!” pre-race Pilates session, and a breakfast buffet at the five mile mark to fuel your finish. Plus, they really need to move the race date to a Fall weekend because July is too hot and people have better plans for the holiday than getting sweaty.
ATC has failed to adapt to the needs of today’s runner.
As far as the “Hawaiian” vacations you referenced, the masters team which was about 25 to 30 people tops , got 600 dollars a year for travel expenses if they aged grouped out at 80%. The rest of the team got 300 dollars a year each, as Mike Tyson would say chump change. That would pay for for one hell of an Hawaiian vacation.
I'm not trying to hate on the masters team, I'm just saying there was some conflict there in terms of the changes that coincided with the arrival of the elite team. In my personal opinion, they've gone about the elite team all wrong. Focusing on short middle distance athletes is a losing battle in the modern distance running landscape. Atlanta is primarily a road race city, and the marathoners on the team were quite well known. I think Atlanta should move more towards the BAA model of having mid-distance runners that run the USATF road circuit competitively across multiple events. If you bring in a core of 5k-10k runners and have consistent top 10 finishes at multiple USATF road circuit championships, you'll not only get more attention in the local community, but also more hotels and travel paid for, than say having a runner in the final at the USATF Indoor/Outdoor championships. Again, it's my opinion, but a top 10 finish at the 15k national champs probably gets just as much or more engagement from a sponsorship perspective than a top 6 finish at USATF Outdoor Nationals Championship on the track, even though one is arguably much more impressive than the other.
Agreed. If you recruit 800/1500 meter runners out of college at the age of 22-23, statistically they'll be in decline at those distances in a very short time. You recruit 5000/10000 they'll continue to improve over a longer period and gradually move up in distance to 13.1/26.2 where most men peak in their late 20s/early 30's and women even later. That's how you build a program. They were moving in that direction initially and developed some good runners that now run for Hanson's and the BAA, then reversed direction adding a bunch of 800 meter runners that are expensive to fly around the country to elite track meets. Kenah failed here.
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