The 20th World Athletics Indoor Championships is due to be held from 21 to 23 March 2025 in Nanjing, People's Republic of China, at the newly built Nanjing's Cube gymnasium in the Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park. Nanjing wa...
The 2025 World Games (2025年世界运动会), commonly known as Chengdu 2025, is the 12th edition of the World Games, which includes sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. It is expected to be...
So what exactly are “World Games”, you might ask? They are an opportunity to get a large diverse group of athletes (and/or athlete wannabes) to show up in a city, with their tourist dollars.
Remember the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama? Me neither, but this article might shed some light on funding magnitudes with regard to these Championship style events:
I wonder if selling off Broadcast Rights can factor into pulling in some major cash? Possibly in the olden days when you had NBC competing with ABC and CBS; but current USATF/WA contractual language may have already gifted such rights away, with no chance of that money going to the host city?
It can't be the question about money because such event doesn't require to build any specific buildings, and elite runners also are not so many. At the end in Riga, Latvia it was quit profitable event with many participants in the mass start. I suppose it was due unstable situation in US.
It can't be the question about money because such event doesn't require to build any specific buildings, and elite runners also are not so many. At the end in Riga, Latvia it was quit profitable event with many participants in the mass start. I suppose it was due unstable situation in US.
The US does not have an “unstable situation”. The players in San Diego, including the San Diego Track Club offering volunteer help, have put on many USATF events in past years (X-country championships at Mission Bay immediately comes to mind.)
You bring up key points:
(1) Specific buildings are not required (and there is plenty of hotel space, and San Diego has been expanding their International Airport for many years, and getting around from the airport to hotels and to the race location is no problem.)
(2) Elite runners also are not so many; but the organizers were also going to have mass-participation Half-Marathon, 5k, and Mile races spread out over three days, with the elite race being the climax.
So what money did WA need?? It seems WA needs their palms greased excessively, or what?!?
I can only imagine that it must have had sth to do with politics. But I hope that, maybe this one time only, Trump is going to care about t&f and punish them to the extent that he can for that move. I mean San Diego already gets a lot of visitors, but the extra income from all the tourists to the race or mass participation events has to be an upset to the city and surrounding communities
The sponsor wasn't a USATF sponsor. It was $3 million for this event according to the article.
That to me seems to be the heavy lift.
Outside of Nike has USATF ever had a $3 milion sponsor for a single event? That number is astronomically high if true. I figured you might get a few hundred k for a sponsor for something like this.
I still think a shout out to the running community could get 10,000s of signups for this in no time. The Turkey Trot race you've never heard of in my tiny town in CT got 1,500 every year but like 50% of the people sign up right before race.
This is San Diego in September. I was going to see if we should have a LetsRun race there. Really bummed on this. They should have marketed it more in advance.
Wouldn't surprise me if the sponsor was Asics and if USATF put the kibosh on the whole thing because Nike, which can't sell running shoes anymore because they took them out of speciality stores, got pissed and threatened the USATF. If so, it's really pathetic.
Pushing this event to November, like some have rumored here, would be pretty bad. With World XC in Jan 2026, we need to host our selection event a bit before that, like in Nov or Dec of this year. Assuming that there is significant overlap between the runners (Blanks/Fisher in 5k? mantz and kelati with the discretionary HM spots? Cole in the mile?) they need time to rest.
Not just rest but also time to cash in with other events that aren’t national representation events. Also, if this ends up resulting in significant travel two months after everyone just went to Japan, I could see a lot of people just skipping it again. If they’re not riding their fitness from WCs in Tokyo, people might not want to plan another peak and base training interruption just for this. It’s all unfortunate.
The sponsor wasn't a USATF sponsor. It was $3 million for this event according to the article.
That to me seems to be the heavy lift.
Outside of Nike has USATF ever had a $3 milion sponsor for a single event? That number is astronomically high if true. I figured you might get a few hundred k for a sponsor for something like this.
I still think a shout out to the running community could get 10,000s of signups for this in no time. The Turkey Trot race you've never heard of in my tiny town in CT got 1,500 every year but like 50% of the people sign up right before race.
This is San Diego in September. I was going to see if we should have a LetsRun race there. Really bummed on this. They should have marketed it more in advance.
Wouldn't surprise me if the sponsor was Asics and if USATF put the kibosh on the whole thing because Nike, which can't sell running shoes anymore because they took them out of speciality stores, got pissed and threatened the USATF. If so, it's really pathetic.
Every staff member, official, every bit of merchandise sold and Hayward Field itself were all 100 per cent Asics for the world championships in 2022.
That is not a great time for it in the US. Many US runners will be doing NYC, usatf xc, marathon project, or CIM and a late nov date may interfere. I guess better than nothing, but they will still need to find a host city. San Diego is a very well to do city so if its too expensive there, there will only be a few other cities who could cover the cost, unless the issue was kickbacks, policing costs, etc - in which case San Diego is dumb af to give up estiamted 100 million in extra revenue.
No serious professional is doing club cross or CIM in the fall. In fact, I’m too lazy to look it up right now, but I don’t think there is a club cross this fall. The issue is simple, dealing with the USOPC, USATF and/or WA has become too expensive, complicated and troublesome to invest in.
World Athletics sold this event to cities with this pitch
”the event will pay for itself with all the sign ups you get for races around the event”
San Diego saw very few sign-ups or interest in the races around the event. They looked up and couldn’t afford to have the event.
Our road races are subsidized by hobby joggers, if that pipeline stops we are screwed. We have an awful model
It's pretty sad if they pulled out because they hadn't gotten enough interest. Why? Because it's March. The races were in September. It's pathetic when things have gotten to the point where races expect you to sign up 6 months in advance, if you you don't, they pull the plug.
The difference is the USATF leadership. The CEO of USATF, Max Siegel, is interested in lining his pocket first and the event after that. Only if Max is allowed to personally benefit or profit in some way does he allow events to go forward. His tenure has been wrought with blunders and disasters while he makes out like Louis XVI before 1793. Runners should decide no more.
This should be the blunder that causes his resignation. Anyone with a conscience in his position would resign after a disaster of this magnitude.
I'm not sure if USATF had anything to do with this but that actually supports your point, doesn't it?
I once heard someone asked someone who had had some dealings with Siegel if they thought he was more passionate about NASCAR or track and they said, "Neither. He's into making money for himself."
If he was paid $1 million less per year over his tenure, then USATF could afford to give $4 million to an event like this every 4 years. And private plane travel at a non-profit not doing like life saving work is laughable.
We're 9 years removed from this article:
PS. Only 15 years to wait until the current Nike deal, which doesn't appear to be indexed to inflation, expires.
My understanding is not enough people had signed up for the races yet, but no one had any incentive to sign up yet. I think if we had put out a call to action in the running community, "This thing is getting cancelled unless we get X signups in a week." We'd get at least 10,000.
World Athletics if you're reading this, why not consider it. S
I was looking forward to this and had started to wonder, "Should I even run a race?"
San Diego in September could have been an annual or biannual thing.
World Athletics sold this event to cities with this pitch
”the event will pay for itself with all the sign ups you get for races around the event”
San Diego saw very few sign-ups or interest in the races around the event. They looked up and couldn’t afford to have the event.
Our road races are subsidized by hobby joggers, if that pipeline stops we are screwed. We have an awful model
It's pretty sad if they pulled out because they hadn't gotten enough interest. Why? Because it's March. The races were in September. It's pathetic when things have gotten to the point where races expect you to sign up 6 months in advance, if you you don't, they pull the plug.
The typical hobby jogger will sign up for a local community 5K, but doesn't care about WA or USATF. I live in the Boston area. I can assure you that even in BAA races, the average participant is not motivated by anything related to WA or USATF. The problem that resulted in the San Diego debacle is global and national organiztions thinking they such a big deal that the locals will immediately sign up for the event.
WA is headquartered in Monaco. That fact alone speaks volumes.
That is not a great time for it in the US. Many US runners will be doing NYC, usatf xc, marathon project, or CIM and a late nov date may interfere. I guess better than nothing, but they will still need to find a host city. San Diego is a very well to do city so if its too expensive there, there will only be a few other cities who could cover the cost, unless the issue was kickbacks, policing costs, etc - in which case San Diego is dumb af to give up estiamted 100 million in extra revenue.
No serious professional is doing club cross or CIM in the fall. In fact, I’m too lazy to look it up right now, but I don’t think there is a club cross this fall. The issue is simple, dealing with the USOPC, USATF and/or WA has become too expensive, complicated and troublesome to invest in.
There's a 5k Masters National in SF in November I think. Club XC I heard was going to run in conjunction with World XC.
276 entrants? really. They must have done 0 marketing because I imagine they could get a few thousand from So Cal alone. Just shows you how small a corner of the running community letsrun really is.
Remember the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama? Me neither, but this article might shed some light on funding magnitudes with regard to these Championship style events:
It shows how all the wishful thinking about financing these sorts of events come crashing down in reality. The World Games finished with a $14 million deficit. Ticket sales were 60% of expectations but only 37% of the spectators actually bought tickets, the rest were related to sponsors or volunteers or freebies.
The event had anticipated an economic impact of $256.5 million but a post event review conducted by Quantum Consultancy showed the direct impact was just $11.7 million.
According to the report, only 13,521 people actually traveled to Birmingham. Over 85% of the attendees were from Alabama. Only around 2% were from outside of the United States. Consequently, only 4,437 spectators booked paid accommodations in the Birmingham-Jefferson area, resulting in a total accommodation expenditure of $1.8 million.
The post review event report does claim an indirect economic impact of the World Games was $165 million. But the report authors did not provide an explanation as to why its calculated indirect economic impact is almost 14 times higher than the direct economic impact.
