Playing Dirty wrote:
Look how many more women than men finishers. The Competitor Group has figured out how to make money on this sport. What they probably do is look at a letsrun thread for advice and do the exact opposite.
You are so right. The Competitor Group is backed by private equity money (Falconhead Capital) and is hoping to bring in $100 million a year in a few years.
See
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009390759_marathon27m.htmlThey will keep charging more and more as long as people keep paying it. That's how the world works. You can choose not to run their races and literally vote with your feet.
The other concern Competitor has is that marathons often use a lot of free labor (volunteers) and get a lot of funds from the cities where they put on the races. That article above says Tukwila (a suburb of Seattle I believe) gave the race $450,000 cash and $150,000 in services. Competitor needs Seattle more than Seattle needs Competitor (there are only so many places they can put on races), but Competitor is smart to get the local municipalities within Seattle to compete for its business. Clearly, the city knows Competitor is a for profit group and still decided to fund the race (thinking it will bring in more long-term) but a lot of the volunteers may not.
(See this RW thread I just found googling this issue:
http://www.runnersworld.com/community/forums/runner-communities/marathoners/volunteers-profit-marathons?plckShowLatestPost=1the 2nd poster says "I tried to see what info I could find on the competitor group and there is not much out there leading me to believe it is a private company - somewhat small - and operates almost like a not for profit "
which is complete nonsense.
So that is an area of concern Competitor has.
However there are a ton of for-profit events that rely on volunteers to increase their profits. Sure more money might go to charity if people got paid for an extra 2 hours of work and gave the money to charity, but people often have a lot of extra time on their hands and want to be involved with big events especially when some of the money goes to charity so they give their time. There should probably be a whole different thread on for-profit races and volunteers. But don't think it is unusual.
The NFL and the SuperBowl operate the exact same way. Thousands of Volunteers.
Professional sports in the US make billions on subsidies from local municipalities despite studies showing if you don't account for civic pride the subsidies do not pay for themselves long-term. No doubt there are some instances where they do.
I'm living in Ft Worth and everyone in the MetroPlex is wishing the new Cowboys stadium had been built in their town. No matter how much it cost. The stadium is truly stunning.
There is civic pride associated with marathons as well, but overall I think a lot less people care about their local marathon than their local NFL franchise.
Economic impact studies are notoriously inaccurate. City managers should know this and take any numbers given to them with a grain of salt and try and put a value on things. The economic impact manager of Tukwala says in that article above "Speck said the marathon folks told him the word "Tukwila" will appear on 100 million pieces of literature, including brochures, magazines and other promotional material."
A few comments 1) they say they are doing something and actually doing it are 2 different things. He should sign a contract outlining what he's getting in return for the city dollars.
2) I wouldn't assign much value to the name Tukwila or wala (see I can't even remember the proper name) being on a brochure somewhere. He should put a monetary value on it. I bet when he does it won't be that high.
If done properly Competitor, the city, and charities can all benefit. Competitor has to be leery of crossing a line and the bigger and bigger they get the more scrutiny they will get. They are aware of this.