NYC Marathon Meeting With Pros At 11 am Today

My guess wrote:

What will prob happen is that they will give runners the choice of doing the Marathon in 2013 or 2014 with a credit for 2012. NYRR does not offer refunds for the smaller races why would they start now? Makes business sense to offer a credit rather than hard cash. NYRR does have assets but to think they have a huge some of cash laying around is crazy.

That seems reasonably fair and I'd be OK with it if I were affected. But it doesn't explain why there's money to give to charities but none to refund. And while they've never refunded race entry fees before I don't think they ever simply cancelled a race before so it may be time for a new precedent.

People have to realize that one day there will not be a NYC or Boston Marathon. Everything comes to an end. Why not just stop the whole thing now? Seems like good timing.

The black cactus wrote:

I could give a s**t about the hobby joggers. Black cactus gotta get some a dat chedda

I

As of the year end of their last 990 filing (3/31/2011):

Cash: 1,142,102

Savings & Temp Investments: 7,023,626

Accounts Receivable, net: 4,608,225

Inventory: 96,828

Prepaids: 662,921

Land, Buildings, equip: 7,376,710

Accum Depreciation: 6,522,426

Investments - Publicly traded: 24,597,862

Investments - Other: 2,231,901

Total: 41,217,749

Accounts Payable: 6,196,427

Deferred Revenue: 17,519,618

Total: 23,716,045

Unrestricted Net Assets: 17,009,040

Temporarily Restriced Net Assets: 492,664

Total Net Assets: 17,501,704

If you look at their publicly available 990 it has details on the costs and revenues related to the marathon. I'm just way too lazy to type it all here. I'm sure many of the expenses are already paid for and aren't refundable. But I would guess this is where an insurance would hopefully come in for them.

Mismanagement = Bankruptcy

Let the NYRR's either take out a loan or go bankrupt. They created this problem when they didn't cancel the race early enough.

As far as the signed "no refund" waiver... It will NEVER hold up in court!!! Go see an attorney tomorrow morning!!!

Seems to me nyrr is liable considering the race was not canceled due to weather but rather " public opinion". Seems like two different things.. that means I could advertise a race.take urban money and offer no refund. Simply based on the public's opinion of my race

Yes, this could be done if there was a waiver that was signed by the fool entering along with paying the race fee and the $3 - $4 active.com convenience fee.

People wouldn't be too upset as long as they got their race tee shirt and goody bag filled with samples and ads.

another look wrote:

Seems to me nyrr is liable considering the race was not canceled due to weather but rather " public opinion". Seems like two different things.. that means I could advertise a race.take urban money and offer no refund. Simply based on the public's opinion of my race

I thought about that myself but the NYRR has lawyers and i'm sure they are covered on this.

The race was cancelled because of the Hurricane. After the Hurricane, the Mayor ultimately decided he couldn't stand up to public opinion/unions.

So he told them they couldn't have it.

I think the NYRR would win if this was pressed in court as clearly it was force majeure.

rojo wrote:

I think the NYRR would win if this was pressed in court as clearly it was force majeure.

As has already been explained, force majeure enables them to cancel the race. It doesn't enable them to keep the money.

I just closed my checking, savings, and credit card accounts at ING Direct and Capital One because of Mary Wittenberg

Do it NOW!

rojo wrote:

I think the NYRR would win if this was pressed in court as clearly it was force majeure.

But the cancellation was only indirectly caused by Force Majeur. Will be an interesting test for their waiver.

Money back is no option given that 90% of event expenses are spent in advance. Where there is no money, there won't be money back.

Anyone who's bitching about that should look into getting insurance for his/her race entries (and will quickly realize it's better to accept it as part of the sport).

Anyone who believes an event like NYCM can be postponed has no fvcking idea about event planning. I'm appalled that you and wejo have no clue.

otto wrote:

I'm appalled that you and wejo have no clue.

You must be new here.

So where did this money go? Are you telling me all the entry fees were lavishly spent by all the employers? Did they just eat the money and made it disappear? Please.

It's a mutual agreement: I pay, you let me race. You don't let me race, you give me my money back. Simple logic. If I wanted to throw my money around just like that then I would've done it on my own a long time ago but I decided to spend it on this race. Simple trade/barter logistics. Natural harmony of interests...

It is their duty to figure out how they're going to reimburse these runners. If your house is set on fire, you expect some money back from the insurance company. They can't just say "Oh we screwed up, but don't worry, instead of giving you that money back, we'll just give it to charity. Have a nice day."

I want to see you on their place, Rojo. Don't be so insensitive.

God you people are idiots.

You signed a waiver, you will not be getting your money back. Look up the definition of a non-profit, just because they have people making a good salary does not mean it's some sort of scam.

and either way if you think it is maybe you should not have signed up and paid the fee.

case closed.

Goldman wrote:

God you people are idiots.

You signed a waiver, you will not be getting your money back. Look up the definition of a non-profit, just because they have people making a good salary does not mean it's some sort of scam.

and either way if you think it is maybe you should not have signed up and paid the fee.

case closed.

I'm not going to repeat what has already been said 800 times, so I'll just leave it at this: you don't understand contract law.

Goldman wrote:

You signed a waiver, you will not be getting your money back. Look up the definition of a non-profit, just because they have people making a good salary does not mean it's some sort of scam.

and either way if you think it is maybe you should not have signed up and paid the fee.

Waivers do not always hold up.

Just because NYRR is a non profit does not mean they do not have to uphold their end of a contract. (Yes, people can make good money without it being a scam).

I don't know if anybody will get any money back or not. In particular I don't know if anybody would actually find it worth their while to pursue it.

NYRR could reasonably mount a force majeur defense if they did something like reschedule a race at another time, gave allowances towards future races, or something like that. Just cancelling their consideration seems very unlikely to hold up.

otto wrote:

Money back is no option given that 90% of event expenses are spent in advance. Where there is no money, there won't be money back.

Is not a large portion of the mass entry fees to cover police and emergency crew support, and then the city for road closure? Well neither of those should have to be paid because the city opted out. So what 90% of event fees being pre-spent are you talking about, hmmmm?

otto wrote:

Money back is no option given that 90% of event expenses are spent in advance. Where there is no money, there won't be money back.

Is not a large portion of the mass entry fees to cover police and emergency crew support, and then the city for road closure? Well neither of those should have to be paid because the city opted out. So what 90% of event fees being pre-spent are you talking about, hmmmm?

Goldman wrote:

God you people are idiots.

You signed a waiver, you will not be getting your money back. Look up the definition of a non-profit, just because they have people making a good salary does not mean it's some sort of scam.

and either way if you think it is maybe you should not have signed up and paid the fee.

case closed.

Maybe but are they going to pay again to run next year?

As for this 'just because they have people making a good salary does not mean it's some sort of scam.'

Does not mean it is right either, they have some people volunteering to work, marshalls etc for free and others making big money out of that. Not just this race but all these sort of events, but check the entry fee for London, there is no comparison

Is the race organiser(s) going to return their over inflated fee, why should just the runners pay