World Cross Costs $3 Million to Stage?

The bids must include full accomodations for the IAAF Congress, hundreds of IAAF Family delegates and spouses, and lavish expenses.

Free airfare, 5 star hotel rooms, food, rental cars, banquets, etc. must be included for the hundreds of members of the IAAF Family attending the IAAF Congress. You see the IAAF Family at every IAAF World Cross Country and IAAF World Championships. They wear the blue credentials and are exempt from security screening.

The IAAF Family always take up thousands of the best seats at the finish line, but are absent during the finals, drunk, and pre-occupied schmoozing around. They always have a glass of wine and a plate of cheese with them. They are upper crust, privileged/ruling class people from the IAAF member countries.

IAAF Family wrote:

The bids must include full accomodations for the IAAF Congress, hundreds of IAAF Family delegates and spouses, and lavish expenses.

Free airfare, 5 star hotel rooms, food, rental cars, banquets, etc. must be included for the hundreds of members of the IAAF Family attending the IAAF Congress. You see the IAAF Family at every IAAF World Cross Country and IAAF World Championships. They wear the blue credentials and are exempt from security screening.

The IAAF Family always take up thousands of the best seats at the finish line, but are absent during the finals, drunk, and pre-occupied schmoozing around. They always have a glass of wine and a plate of cheese with them. They are upper crust, privileged/ruling class people from the IAAF member countries.

I figured there might be a lot of expenses in being made to fly in athletes from a lot of countries which I could accept but this I really can't. Considering there is only $260,000 in prize money (men and women), if they blow even $100,000 on bigwigs, that's basically all the prize money for the men or women that could be doubled.

Meanwhile I understand the IAAF makes the US pay extra in prize money to make up for athletes paying US taxes? That's what killed the World Cup coming to the US a few years ago.

But I'm not sure hoe it works.

So in Europe say you win the $100,000 at the Berlin Marathon and you live in France, you don't have to pay taxes on it? Can someone explain how that works.

The television signal for the event is funded by the local organizing committee (not the IAAF), along with production costs, television truck, manpower and related costs. In countries with a state-run broadcast network (i.e. ERT in Greece, the BBC, CBC, etc., that's not a big deal, but it is in the USA).

The LOC has to make sure proper visas are issued to all IAAF member countries who wish to compete. You can probably look up on the State Dept. site what countries the USA requires visas for. An LOC in the US that wants an IAAF event better have on board someone familiar with how the State Department issues visas and/or is friends with members of Congress who can help expedite visas.

There may be other expenses which normally governments/city/state agencies in other countries would pick up but which a US LOC would be forced to pay for.

wejo wrote:

Meanwhile I understand the IAAF makes the US pay extra in prize money to make up for athletes paying US taxes? That's what killed the World Cup coming to the US a few years ago.

that's really odd. i don't know how non-US countries tax prize money, but nearly every country uses a foreign tax credit system. as an example, if you are a french citizen and french tax resident who earns income in the US that is taxed by the US, you claim a credit for your french taxes equal to that amount. in other words, you are no worse off as long as your home country tax rate is at least as high as the foreign country's tax rate.

there are also special rules for artists/athletes/entertainers in many of the US income tax treaties.

so the bottom line is that the only individuals this would negatively impact are individuals from countries with a lower tax rate than the US, or from countries with lax tax enforcement. probably applies to many athletes from the developing world, but few from the developed world, putting aside tiny countries and principalities.

It's a complex issue as it depends on the specifics of your self-employed work and the tax agreements between the countries but in this case i think the french guy would have to pay taxes in france.If you are employed by a foreign sports club for example or have a long time working relationship being self-employed you have to pay atleast a high portion of taxes in the country of the employer but if you are a guy who's winning prize money here and there, i'm pretty sure you have to pay taxes at home.

We're still a long way from $3 million. What $100,000 for TV?

(And the Scottish feed for Worlds wasn't even beamed to WCSN).

And being able to work with the State Department doesn't cost a lot of $$$$. It's more a logistical problem.

The IAAF should start cutting a ton of overhead from its projects.

I have been one of those "IAAF Family Members" - blue credentials at every indoor and outdoor world championships since 2003. And only once -in Valencia, did I have my expenses covered and that was because the IAAF Technical Committee Meeting was being held the Sunday and Monday of that weekend. Even with that - the IAAF only pays for half the transportation and accomodations only for the days of the meeting. Every other time it has cost me thousands of dollars to attend.

3 Million $$$

The world championships (LOC) pays for all travel/accomodations (which includes food) for all athletes participating.

Do the math....

David Katz wrote:

3 Million $$$

The world championships (LOC) pays for all travel/accomodations (which includes food) for all athletes participating.

Do the math....

No they don't. Canada makes their athletes pay for meets like World Cross cause they're cheap like that.

David Katz wrote:

I have been one of those "IAAF Family Members" - blue credentials at every indoor and outdoor world championships since 2003. And only once -in Valencia, did I have my expenses covered and that was because the IAAF Technical Committee Meeting was being held the Sunday and Monday of that weekend. Even with that - the IAAF only pays for half the transportation and accomodations only for the days of the meeting. Every other time it has cost me thousands of dollars to attend.

3 Million $$$

The world championships (LOC) pays for all travel/accomodations (which includes food) for all athletes participating.

Do the math....

David I know you know way more than me but I think you're wrong on ALL the athletes getting free travel as the Canadians always talk about having to pay there own way to World Cross.

maybe someone is pocketing the money?

Wejo,

I will find out the exact breakdown of expenses.

Everytime I attend a world championship I am blown away at the high level of professionalism, dedication, and care provided by the LOC. There are enormous expenses dedicated to the execution and administration of these events- the care and well being of the athletes, transportion (to and from venues - both practice and competition), volunteers, local officials, support teams, medical,venue preparation,equipment and others. All of the championships witnessed had tremendous backing (both logistic and financial) from the government.

Athletics Weekly (in UK) also says that the NZ trio of athletes paid their own way. The Ghana "team" came from North London - maybe $150 each for the athlete and his manager to travel. As for thousands of the IAAF Family being at the finish line, maybe for track meetings but when I was there last Sunday for the opening ceremony the small grandstand didn't accommodate too many people and included real fans like the East Kilbride "Barmy Army".

So these are fair questions.

How much did it cost to host USA XC in 2007? That could be the basic cost of setting up the race. Then add on additional prize money, cost of officials, iaaf, and any accommodations for international athletes.

As someone who has directed races big and small, a $3 million price tag for the "Superbowl of running" does not surprise me at all. I think most of the shock and outrage over the cost is coming from those who have no experience organizing large events (sorry Wejo, the Keino mile was pretty small potatoes). The first race I directed was a shock; the little expenses just keep piling up until you have a $100,000+ budget for a 2000 person race. And these are local weekend joggers who don't expect anything more than a t-shirt and a bagel and water at the end. Trying to organize an event with professional athletes from dozens of nations must be a headache and a half.

There is always some overhead that could be cut from any event's budget, but to claim you only need a few hundred thousand bucks to put on World XC is crazy.

Wejo are you the co-founder of letsrun.com?

Who will do the Timing!!!! Hopefully NOT the company that Glenn Latimer is associated with. If so add a few more bucks to the cost.

Benji and Amie Durden would be the likely choice. They are very experienced and seamless.

Timing and results by contract(sponsorship) are done by Sieko and Epson for all world championships. For the XC and World Road Racing Championships, Sieko sub contracts the transponder portion. So far they have used Winning Time (when in Europe) or the J-Chip (Japanese).

Sieko performs the timing duties while Epson handles the results with an extroidinary team of experts.

On the few occasions when I've had the honor of taking a team to an IAAF event, I was presented with a check from the host OC to cover all of our travel, per diem and accomodations. I believe the only thing that wasn't covered was any extra personnel. ie They covered athletes, coach and manager for each team (men and women) If we sent a trainer, we paid. If USATF decided to send office staff, we paid. If a USATF big wig decided to add themselves to the staff, we paid.