World Cross Costs $3 Million to Stage?

Only half of your expenses are covered, you get to drink for free and party for free and are too busy and wasted to see the finish. Your IAAF Mafia chums take up all the best seats which just happen to be empty during the finals. I wonder why you put up with such grief !

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 heard that's what killed the IAAF World Cup 2006 in l.a. The political face-saving excuse given was denial of U.S. IRS tax exemption, but the real reason was apparently that LA refused 1000 seats for the IAAF do nothings, and refused free accommodations and free airline tickets for the thousands of dignitaries the IAAF drags along to every championships.

The budget for the Edinburgh event is given as £800,000 plus value-in-kind support.

Reportedly:- Kenya had an initial budget of Sh400million but it was later reduced to Sh320million,(close to 5 million dollars). Other reports suggest they may not actually have had much more than the 150 million the Kenyan government supplied.

The rest is bribe $$$$$$$.

Thousands of IAAF tagalongs?

I never said it would cost just a few hundred thousand. The prize money alone is $260,000. But if most countries foot their own bill to attend, throw in another $750,000 and you're at only $1 million.

Throw in another million on top of that for who knows what and you can get a ton of TV, etc and you're still a million short of $3 million. And that makes the $3 million event 50% of your $2 million event.

You could either totally boost the prize money, or host a lot more events (or turn a nice profit), but hopefully the IAAF ensures that big percentage goes back to the athletes but in this case that doesn't seem to be the case.

$500 airfare, $500 lodging (athletes should be doubling up, so this is a $200 a night hotel for 5 days which is about double what it would cost in Boulder), $500 food ($100 a day, they're eating like kings).

That's $2500 an athlete * 200 = $500,000. But I think most federations are paying some of the costs. Maybe not.

Sorry to repeat myself..but I have had half my expenses covered for only 2 days of the Valencia weekend because our committee was meeting. I paid all expenses for all the others. As a track fan, I am very fortunate to have the oppertunity. And when at these competitions I spend a great deal of time learning more about the administration and technical methods utilized, and speaking with athletes & coaches to get their opinions about the rules. It's a great learning experience.

For me, the only time I will have my expenses fully covered is when I get an assignment to work. As of now, I have received one assigned - Technical Delegate for the World Juniors 2010.

you don't expect this to be organized for free do you wejo?

if the $3 million is bantered about long enough and someone coughs up the money ... and it only costs $2 million ... then the extra $million is money in the bank. this is just the type of gig that some freeloader type in boulder can use to finance their otherwise freeloading lifestyle. wejo, you must know that this is the opportunity of a lifetime for someone in boulder. maybe this is some scheme whipped up by rich castro to finance his retirement. or perhaps it could fund rich's video research venture into topless college and elite women jumping on trampolines ... for research purposes only ... of course.

What do you sponges do there with all the free perks. How come we can't buy a good seat because you guys have them all reserved. If you guys are really track fans why aren't you watching the finals from your seats.

Unfortunately for the true fans (which I consider myself one)ALL sports block out prime seats for public officials and sponsors. Compared to many other more popular sports, athletics has a tough time securing good, long term sponsorship. Athletics World Championships requiring tremendous financial and logistics support from the municipalities. Any international sports federation is obligated to provide good seats and some perks in return for support.

We're not talking about the IAAF, LOC, other sports, or sponsors. We're talking about you and the IAAF sponges who aren't in their seats when the finals are happening yet thousands wanted those seats and were willing to pay for them. What the hell are you people doing then ? Are you off sightseeing ? Stoned and passed out ? Everyone in the stands at Osaka was wondering out loud and pointing to those empty IAAF VIP and IAAF Family seats in 100 different languages. Why don't you do like the NFL and just schmooze and vomit up in luxury boxes, and leave the seats for people who flew in 10,000 miles to see Bekele, Allyson Felix, etc.

wejo wrote:

I never said it would cost just a few hundred thousand. The prize money alone is $260,000. But if most countries foot their own bill to attend, throw in another $750,000 and you're at only $1 million.

Throw in another million on top of that for who knows what and you can get a ton of TV, etc and you're still a million short of $3 million. And that makes the $3 million event 50% of your $2 million event.

WTF?????

Anyway, in case you couldn't tell by reading, $3M was Wittenberg's estimate of what it would cost to hold it in NYC.

I could care less about how much it costs. Just think how awesome it would be just to have some of the greatest runners in the world here and in boulder so I wouldnt have to pay jack to go anywhere since I live here. I could just see myself going to the safeway and there being guys like bekele looking for milk or whatever they eat. Plus the US might actually field our best athletes since they wouldnt really have to travel far. I think this is just what the US needs in terms of support for track and xc. Plus Boulder is perfect because there would be so much support from the community and there is tons of hotels in town and near by and people could stay in denver if they had to without much problems.

More than a few CU alumni would run this instead of dodge this.

I doubt if any USA LOC will agree to all the perks that the IAAF battalion sized delegation wants. They have to be flown in for free, housed, chauffered, fed, entertained, etc., 800 or so people who won't even be watching the races.

The money would be better spent by Boulder, by hosting a world class cress country competition with $3,000,000 in prize money. $1,000,000 for the mens champion, $1,000,000 for the womens champion, for example. Name one WXC finalist who won't show up to win $1M ? (Hell, Carl Lewis would come out of retirement, and try XC for that kind of money). We should be spending the money on the athletes and not frustrated has-beens who think someone owes them a perk, like the slobs at the IAAF.

Exactly, stop playing ball with the self-important bureaucrats and catering to their selfish whims. It's nothing more than business as usual. I don't know why anyone would care to get in bed with them unless it's with an eye on a possible cushy position with them down the line.

XC Nationals in Boulder was a stupid idea and so is XC Worlds in Boulder. If the IAAF really cares about encouraging more European involvement then that's not the way to go. All it does is cater more to the African domination.

If it's going to be in the US, at least hold it in a world class city like San Francisco or Dallas and not in some hippie backwater in flyover country.

finally, a post with some sense (all those bashing david katz should be banned for one year-sorry dave).

look at triathlon and what lifetime fitness did. they just up and decided to have their own race, albeit with around $500-$600K.....guess what happened??? they had a better field show up than usually shows up for the world championships. folks, if you put up that kind of cash, you don't need it to be the world champs, you just need to advertise the hell out of the the fact that YOUR RACE is giving out more money than any other race on the planet, bar none.

the athletes will show up and so will the press, guarantee it......now how to go about securing a couple of mil in sponsorship....therein lies the rub...good luck with that one.

And now that race is going to shit because it no longer has the biggest prize purse in the sport, the ITU hates it because it's non-drafting, has no TV coverage any more, and will have a very weak field this year with the Olympics taking many of the top athletes.

And the other 3 years, the field is "A+"... I seem to recall seeing it on TV on NBC last time around.

If the ITU hates it, then that is good reason to like it :)