For-Profit Racing Comanies- a scam?

Maybe these people will at least figure out how to professionally promote events...

Totally agree! I think that what you are seeing is that people initially didn't mind paying ridiculous entry fees for races because they could tell themselves that the proceeds benefited charities. With that has come an expectation of what race fees will be. Now, these "for profits" are realizing that people have become accustomed to paying these kinds of fees and are honing in on the action. They need to be called out, so that people are plainly aware that these events are for profit and that proceeds do not benefit charity. To add insult to injury, they then get all kinds of free labor from people volunteering to staff their events. It's shameful, really.

These kind of operations need to be shut down! Here's another questionable operation:

http://flaglerlive.com/15476/dean-reinke-marathon

I wouldn't pay that much whether or not it went to charity.

I run for competition, not to benefit charities. If I choose to donate money somewhere that is another issue, but it will not be related to running.

No, not disturbed at all.

Everything is up front.

Maybe these guys can learn to put on a good event.

Charities have nothing to do with distance running except that they have been humping running events for years. Charity crap events helped to usher the demise of distance running where the charity whores fostered participation for $$$ rather than competition.

The charities don't give a flying fvck about running and only care about the $$$, this has been going on for 2 decades.

Snortner wrote:

No, not disturbed at all.

Everything is up front.

Maybe these guys can learn to put on a good event.

Charities have nothing to do with distance running except that they have been humping running events for years. Charity crap events helped to usher the demise of distance running where the charity whores fostered participation for $$$ rather than competition.

The charities don't give a flying fvck about running and only care about the $$$, this has been going on for 2 decades.

I don't disagree with this sentiment about charities. I too long for the days when running events were put on for runners by runners, and it was all about the race. I'd love to see more of that.

But I also don't think this particular link the OP pointed to is very up front at all. You have to read fairly closely to realize that no money collected from entry fees goes to charity. It would be more up front to make that statement clear on the charities page, especially when the marathon is called "Unite" and they refer to the charity page as "Unite for Charity", which apparently they aren't directly for. With comments like "serve as a foundation that enables its athletes to raise many thousands of dollars...", what a load of BS. First of all, they make it sound like the runners belong to them, pretty arrogant statement. Secondly, using a word like "foundation" obfuscates the fact that they are just a venue...or maybe they do mean foundation, as in a slab of concrete. When people see "serving as a foundation", I'll bet most would think its more like the way United Way serves as a foundation to support many charities...big difference.

Furthermore, can you tell me anything about CGI Racing based on this race website? I can't.

None of these companies are anything close to Wal-Mart in either the ability to deliver a product or size or domination. Even the folks who do Rock n Roll do not have a market share to rival Wal-Mart. Heck I wish all race organizers were as organized as Wal-Mart.

Even the races connected to charities end up giving a pretty small amount to charities. The margins on races is not that big. I am amazed at what people think the profit margins are for companies.

Let's cheer on more companies getting in to promote racing. The bad companies will go away (free market). However,no matter how poorly a the Komen 5K is, it will attract folks because of the cause---is it really even a race?

In fact, I could argue that more companies and more races should lead to lower prices and/or better service to the runners. The problem is that MOST runners at these events are not competitive. Few are aiming/competing for AG awards. Most are just there to cover the costs so those are who are running for awards can get them.

No, Komen isn't a race, it is simply a mass charity event, one can even "Sleep for a Cure" where you can enter the "race" and not actually do the event.

I was really turned off by Komen when I saw 3 fat women lighting up before the "race". Instead of "racing" for a cure, they could simply loose weight and stop smoking.

I agree- this CGI Racing Company uses some misleading language and appears to be deceiving the public about how charities are involved in this race. They are clearly not a "foundation" or a "non-profit" that will send certain proceeds to a worthy cause...it is simply business tycoons selling a $10 race for $80!

Companies like CGI Racing Company are dangerous for the sport. They quickly get a monopoly on events, charge whatever they want, bring corporate America into the sport, and drive away local races that raise funds for local needs. Yeah, it's an organized event, but like any big company, a few dudes are getting a fat paycheck while everyone else suffers.

I don't know about the other companies, but CGI is definitely misleading. They're implying that they donate money to charity, which they don't.

"Endurance sport fundraising is one of the largest and most visible avenues of purposeful competition. The Unite Half Marathon is very proud to serve as a foundation that enables its athletes to raise many thousands of dollars for charitable organizations from all over.

The UNITE for Charity program is a great way to support your favorite cause. Most of these teams provide group training and coaching, inspiration and motivation that will get you to finish and most significantly, you help raise money to support your favorite cause."

I don't see anywhere that they imply that their entry fee is going towards anything. They have partnered with a charitable organization to raise awareness of said organization.

Full disclosure: I work (occasionally) for a for-profit timing company. Tomorrow we are putting on a race in which 100% of all proceeds are going to a local community youth outreach organization. Lets not paint with too broad a brush here...

What's a proceed?

the simple fact that they have a tab on their website titled "Unite 4 Charity" and they aren't giving a dime to anyone besides their own pockets (although they do encourage the runners to donate) is VERY misleading.

Doesn't bother me a bit. I see what it is and just ignore it. I ran 35 races last year and did not duplicate any of the 25 races I ran the year before and there were still tons of other races I want to run. No different than the million restaurants around. I just choose to go to the ones I want.

I don't think that avid runners who race often choose races based on whether they support charities or not. Most just want good competition at the level that they expect to perform.

But for the non-runner who's "training for the half-marathon" runner's world style, fully knowing that they'll check it off their life's list of to-dos and never run another, the fact that one race is for charity and another race is not does matter in choosing which race to run. And sadly, these non-runners far outnumber the "real" runners. These are the people who are scammed.

The sad thing about companies like these is that they attract all these people who would probably opt for an actual for-charity event, so the real charities lose. That's messed up.

Yawn. Get back to us when you know what the cost structure of the race is.

BTW, my extensive experience is that "charity races" are much more likely to have non-certified courses, lousy shirts, inexperienced timers and poor post-race food and drink selections.

You've got it exactly backwards. If anything, it's the "charity races" that are trying the hardest to profit from the race. After all, if they don't profit, the race disappears.

Charity and racing have always been totally unrelated, no matter how hard promoters try to mash them together. If you want to pay $90 to run a 5K, that's fine, but don't smugly pretend that your weekend hobby is doing anything to benefit others. If you want to collect money for a cause, feel free, but you are wasting your time if you load it up with $15000 of overhead so that you need 200 people to sign up just so you can break even. People's life threatening illnesses probably don't have any place being other people's weekend excursions.

I just feel sorry for the poor saps who volunteer at for profit races, which just helps their profit margin.

Why don't they just volunteer to flip burgers for free at McDonald's so that McDonald's can be more profitable?

Well, this is what Ironman has been doing for years. It is a for profit business owned by private equity. People fall all over themselves to provide free volunteer labor for the event snd pay $250 entry for a half ironman race and $525 for a full. I remember 12 years ago when you could do a half ironman for $90.

If people like the product they really don't care where the money goes?

Do you chose your races based on what charity they are for?

This.

IllinoisMaster wrote:

Yawn. Get back to us when you know what the cost structure of the race is.

BTW, my extensive experience is that "charity races" are much more likely to have non-certified courses, lousy shirts, inexperienced timers and poor post-race food and drink selections.

You've got it exactly backwards. If anything, it's the "charity races" that are trying the hardest to profit from the race. After all, if they don't profit, the race disappears.