Grandmas Marathon registrants go home DEVASTATED!!

can't post as HRE now wrote:

Why? Essentially I am asking race directors what happens with entry fees and why? If I ever directed a race I might know that and would not need to ask. A comment like yours doesn't make it easy to think that everything at least some race directors do with entry fees is on the up and up. Assuming you are a race director and know how this stuff works why not explain it?

RDs have posted about this all over the place. It's in the letter Grandma's sent out, you just don't choose to believe it.

Races pay up front for:

permits

marketing materials

Promotion at other races

advertising

medals

Swag

And there are items contracted in advance that require non-refundable deposits, such as:

infrastructure (fencing, tables, etc)

Security

First aid

Supplies (cups, drinks, post-race food)

In addition, staff are paid year-round. Depending on the size of the race, you'll have:

a race director

A race-day organizer

A volunteer coordinator

Additional staff

In addition to race fees, races are counting on revenue from the expo, usually from a share of the cut on official merchandise, plus renting out vendor space. Those contracts also include an out clause so if the expo is cancelled, there's no revenue there at all.

There are dozens of other elements here, but that's a simple explanation of whee money goes out, regardless of if the race happens, and where it doesn't come in, if the race is cancelled.

So where in all of that does the money that goes to charities come in? If nearly all of entry fees is needed to cover that stuff how can they afford to give out that charity money? why would they need to pay for first aid and permits for a race that's not happening?

I like that this race exists and I want to continue to support them. If given a refund option I would have let them keep the entry fees anyway. But realistically I think it’s fair to say that a 20% discount on next year’s race is pretty weak. Can’t really imagine it being any less than that. That said, if that’s really what they need to do to survive then so be it. I think they could be a bit more “real”/apologetic to the runners though.

The numbers they cite in potential lost revenue for the 20% discount are questionable because not everyone will register again etc. Also they already offer pretty big discounts on early registration for the marathon. And my understanding is that the marathon does not always sell out. They talk about their reputation for taking care of runners and are basically arguing that “to take care of our future runners we need to not take care of this year’s runners”. It does feel like it’s all on the backs of the runners though rather than the sponsors being a part of it etc (I guess they were refunded).

They definitely could have followed the lead of other marathons and paused any new registrations over the last three weeks while they were deliberating.

Do you really think they paid deposit to all those vendors? Quite a few of the large race organizations withhold deposits until the last possible opportunity. Some large races will flat out refuse to pay deposits for race day services.

If these meet directors paid up front for all of those things and spent as much as they claim, they are the most financially idiotic meet directors of all time. That is why just about EVERY other big race is offering refunds.

More likely is that these guys are embezzling money. I don't think they'd pass an audit by the IRS.

Just boycott the race. Plenty of other races and communities to support next year that don't rip you off.

I actually responded to this but don't see it anywhere. If it's here and I'm missing it sorry for the repetition. You say I've been answered but just don't believe it. That's not exactly true. Some of what I've asked has been answered but not everything.

There's no need to pay for first aid and permits for an event that's not happening. The same would be true for liability insurance. But my really big question is about charity money. If a race spends nearly all of its entrants' fees on expenses where do they come up with all this money they say they give to charity? I'm assuming Grandma's gives charities money and would have this year if it happened. But where would that money come from if they use nearly all of their entry fees to cover expenses?

I can only see a couple possibilities here. One is that much less of the entry fees are needed to cover expenses than you're claiming. The other is that they aren't giving anywhere near the amounts to charities than they claim. Either way it seems like there's something dishonest going on. But I am asking because I only suspect this and would like to know if there is something I'm missing.

You're all right. Every race is a scam and you should stop entering them.

Well done. you've cracked the case.

Everybody who wants the race to lay off their full time staff so that you can get a few dollars back - do you realize this would be the end of the race? Those employees wouldn't just wait around for their jobs to come back - they'd go find other work. And you think a race could be run smoothly in 2021 if it had to hire an entirely new staff after it laid off the staff it has now? Nope.

So understand: your getting a refund now would be the end of this historic race. If you truly care more about getting back your $100 than you do about nine other people being able to continue supporting their families while preserving the knowledge and experience the race depends upon for its future viability, fine. But acknowledge that you're a selfish, entitled brat.

The cap on the marathon is 9,000, The Bjorklund half is 7,500, and 2,000 in the Irving 5k, plus 5,000 volunteers, plus hundreds more in official capacities as police, medical, media.

What is the minimum number needed to co-ordinate 24,000 people over 2 days? I think they are doing a pretty good with only 9 full time.

And they knew in January? Bull crap. In late February the president was downplaying it and saying the coronavirus would "disappear like a miracle."

Grandma's isn't trying to gouge or profiteer off of anybody. They are trying to survive.

Virtual RD wrote:

You're all right. Every race is a scam and you should stop entering them.

Well done. you've cracked the case.

So you either have no idea how to answer what I've asked or aren't willing to. Which is it?

ish wrote:

Everybody who wants the race to lay off their full time staff so that you can get a few dollars back - do you realize this would be the end of the race? Those employees wouldn't just wait around for their jobs to come back - they'd go find other work. And you think a race could be run smoothly in 2021 if it had to hire an entirely new staff after it laid off the staff it has now? Nope.

So understand: your getting a refund now would be the end of this historic race. If you truly care more about getting back your $100 than you do about nine other people being able to continue supporting their families while preserving the knowledge and experience the race depends upon for its future viability, fine. But acknowledge that you're a selfish, entitled brat.

What are those full time staff members doing right now? The next race is 15 months from now. There's no work to do at the moment. You don't have to lay them off, you just have to furlough them or make them part time.

If this race is so mismanaged that it can't survive this one cancellation without stealing money from the racers then the race deserves to die. Something better and more organized will take it's place.

Again, just about EVERY other race is offering refunds. There are currently 10 million unemployed people unemployed people and the shutdown just started. We may end up at 100 million unemployed. That 100 bucks is food for the families of the thousands of people who registered. Many companies are going to shut down due to lack of business. It stinks, but that's what is going to happen. This race is trying to stay afloat by KEEPING THE MONEY WITHOUT RENDERING THE SERVICES PAID FOR. That's unethical and according to my lawyer, illegal. I can't wait to subpoena their financial ledger.

Tin can man, my (pretty darn educated) guess is that among those who can afford the Grandma's weekend experience ($300/night, three night minimum unless they had chosen to stay in the college dorms), there aren't too many for whom that $100 is make or break right now. Sure, there are some, and I wouldn't be surprised if Grandma's were trying to set up a way to get refunds to people who truly need them, because they are good people. But most of the registrants will be okay without that $100.

In contrast, if the race were to furlough the staff, that's nine people completely out of work, and a race that thousands of people love gone. And for what? If there are nine employees making an average of $70,000/year and they were furloughed for a full year, that's $630,000.

With 18,500 racers, $630,000 provides only $34 per person - not even half of a full refund. So now you're saying you want to destroy a historic race, beloved by thousands of people, and put its employees out of work, all so that a group of mostly affluent registrants can get back $34/person. And, note - the staff have already been paid for most of this year's work. Grandma's will have been counting on the revenue from the 2020 race to make payroll for these next few months, until October when the 2021 fees start coming in. If you refund the 2020 money now, you're probably not just stopping payroll - you probably have to ask the employees to give back some of what they have already been paid.

Again, this is selfishness. Yes, other races can offer refunds because they are bigger. They are in larger markets, which makes their corporate sponsorships much more lucrative. You think Grandma's gets as much from Wells Fargo for advertising in Duluth as the Chicago Marathon gets from Bank of America for advertising in Chicago? Nope. They probably get 1/10th as much, at best. Other races can carry bigger year to year budgets because their fields are big enough to allow that. Grandma's can't, because there's literally no more hotel space in town.

Grandma's is not like other races. It's a big race in a small town. That limits its sponsorship revenue and its ability to carry a deficit and overcome one once it is incurred.

If you think it's worth having Grandma's die so you can have a few more dollars, fine. Those of us who cherish this race don't agree, and hope that it in the future you will look elsewhere for your racing.

I was fine with just grumbling to myself and moving on but that reply really pushed me in the other direction. I disputed the charge. I doubt I’ll get it back but oh well. Kind of a shame as I really wanted to run that race someday and now never will.

I’m glad that it will be easier to get into the race in future years with all you cheap losers avoiding it now.

You are not educated. First, the economy is totally F-ed. It's not too bad right now, but it will be getting way worse.

I was giving Grandma's the benefit of the doubt that the employees are full time. Most other races the employees are PART TIME and are usually working full time jobs and doing the race part time.

The vast majority of expenses for the race are not paid 3 months before the race. They are telling you they spent about 2 million dollars without even putting on the race. GTFO Grandma's.

To everyone asking about charitable giving (or maybe it's just one person hung up on it? You can never tell on LetsRun...), you know that the organization that puts on the race itself is a non-profit, right? A quick look around its website shows that it in addition to putting on Grandma's it puts on a pretty substantial set of free kids' events(

https://grandmasmarathon.com/our-races/youth-races/

) as well as making annual donations to other Duluth-area youth athletic programs and donating shoes to needy HS XC and T&F athletes (

https://grandmasmarathon.com/get-inspired/young-athletes-foundation/

).

Also, a big part of the charity impact of mid-major (and larger) marathons isn't direct giving, but other charities that use entries into the event as a fundraising platform. Again, in just a few clicks I was able to find this page (

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/grandmasmarathon2020

) which lists their official charities' current 2020 fundraising total at $186k. (I wonder if, since charity runners may be more about the cause than the running, the virtual race is a more satisfactory replacement for charity runners than your typical LetsRunner, and whether that played a role in Grandma's considering going virtual to be an acceptable replacement to an in-person event for their runners.)

I don't have any inside info on Grandma's operation, and I'm not sure that that info answers all of the questions about charities, but I figured a quick scan of the internet/the Grandma's website (that probably took less time than repeatedly posting questions implying that the race may be some sort of scam masquerading as a charity) might reveal some info, and it looks like it did.

It’s fine for a race organizer to profit from a race to a reasonable level. But a single race of this size is not a full time job for multiple people and it’s just obscene to pay people like it is and keep everyone’s money. Especially when fun runs rely so heavily on volunteers on race day it’s quite disgusting that a bunch of people sit on their arses all year on full pay waiting to order a bunch of slaves come race day. The idea that all the money is already gone is a straight up lie, no prize money to award, id doubt the tshirts are already made as it does appear that the director makes his own tshirts so he gets to doubly profit from this. And it appears the majority of cash is to pay the wages of people that literally do nothing all year. I highly doubt the majority of fun runs are a rort to this magnitude, the ones that are though are at least being exposed right now.

it's mostly me asking about charities so thanks for looking into that. But I don't believe anything tells us how much of an entrant's fee at Grandma's is given to charities. It seems like that $186 k is more than what the race gives. And I don't really understand what it means to say that other charities use the entries as a fundraising platform. But thanks again for what you did put up.