USATF making qualifiers pay to race the Marathon trials

Most anyone with even the most basic sponsorship (i.e. free shoes) will have the fee paid by their sponsor.

There are few who qualified who will be shelling out $50 for the fee.

Do I think its ridiculous there is a fee at all? Yes. But that is a whole different issue. USATF should be a financially sound enough operation to be able to put on the trials without a charge. The fact that it isn't is what is sad. But given the current state of affairs at USATF, it clearly is not ridiculous that they charge.

Between all the membership fees for the organization, the TV rights for the few meets they broadcast, the fees they collect to sanction road races and meets, advertising, merchandise, etc... how is USATF this broke? That is the better question.

You are an idiot if you think the 50 bucks per runner is more than a drop in the bucket for what it costs to put the race on.

Right now there are 60some mens qualifiers. That makes for 3k or so in men's entry fees. Not even close to what it costs to put the marathon on.

They could easily make that up somewhere else in the budget.

Yup,

As a race director for a small cross country race, a founder of a club that has managed to secure several sponsorships over the years, and as someone who knows the NYRR operations quite well... I am very familiar.

As I mentioned, it doesn't really matter that they charge... its not like most of the athletes are going to pay.

But to say that USATF SHOULD charge is lame. If anything, it shows how weak an organization it is. More then anything, it reflects poorly on the professionalism of the system.

$50/person is about $6,000 in revenue from the athletes. Not that much money when you consider Houston is shelling out $1.7 mil in investments for the trials.

Which reminds me... USATF doesn't even pay for most of the trials' cost!

That is not even close to a good comparison because we use the race as a fundraiser, its not a National Championship, and we're a bunch of hobby joggers.

Here is a better analogy.

When I graduated college, I stopped running and picked up baseball again.

I played in a recreation baseball league that plays in Central Park.

Outside of a bar sponsorship, we had to pay the park for the field use, we had to pay for our equipment, etc.

So, we paid to play.

Why, because it was RECREATION.

My little race is RECREATION.

Now...

Major League Baseball players, last I checked, don't have to pay to play in the World Series... or the playoffs... or in any game for that matter.

So should we start charging MLB players now that it has come out that my little baseball league chargers to play?

Bottom line, I could care less about the $50 fee... but think it reflects poorly on the professionalism of USATF and the financial state of affairs of our sport.

No, my club doesn't charge dues. I coach for free, organize for free, and before the guys on my team became my good friends, often paid for race entries and other club services out of pocket.

Now my friends/teammates won't let me do that and pick up their own tab for race entries and whatnot.

I'm curious now why the USATF lowered the standard so much. They could make a butt load of money if they had the standard at 2:24 and charged entry fees. To drop the standard to 2:19 and still charge entry seems strange to me. Not unreasonable, just strange given what happened between 2008 and now.

King,

Your comprehension (or maybe my writing) is poor. The analogy sucks on both sides and that was the point of my post. You can't compare my cross country race with the trials (like that one guy tried to do) just like you can't compare sandlot baseball with MLB.

That was my point... the 2 are completely unrelated and made that one guy's argument ridiculous.

So you and I agree (I know that must pain you).

the Crazy Person wrote:

You are an idiot if you think the 50 bucks per runner is more than a drop in the bucket for what it costs to put the race on.

Right now there are 60some mens qualifiers. That makes for 3k or so in men's entry fees. Not even close to what it costs to put the marathon on.

They could easily make that up somewhere else in the budget.

I honestly don't remember how the process worked but didn't Houston 'bid' to host the marathon trials? I take it that means that Houston paid money, a lot of money, to USATF to hold the trials in Houston. So is USATF putting this marathon on or is Houston? Who is paying?

Does anyone remember how much money was involved in the bidding or was money involved? Seems to me that the athletes should be the LAST place USATF goes to squeeze out a few more bucks.

Malmo wrote:

wtf??? wrote:http://www.usatf.org/events/2012/OlympicTrials-Marathon/entry/index.asp

WTF? Anyone else find this absurd?

No.

I don't see what the problem is?

I think it's funny that they offer a per diem AND charge the athlete to enter the race, threatening to pay more if they enter late?

Does the athlete have a right to know where that money goes?

Did New York charge the runners this fee? If not, why the change?

I guess people should no longer question random, arbitrary fees - and just pay them no matter what. What if it was $100? $200? $1,000? When does it become worthy of question?

haha YO wrote:

I'm curious now why the USATF lowered the standard so much. They could make a butt load of money if they had the standard at 2:24 and charged entry fees. To drop the standard to 2:19 and still charge entry seems strange to me. Not unreasonable, just strange given what happened between 2008 and now.

I was wondering about that this morning also. Hell, if they want to make more money charge a graduated entry fee by time. Some rich schmuck would be willing to fork over some good money to run the trials with his x:xx time.

the Crazy Person wrote:

You are an idiot if you think the 50 bucks per runner is more than a drop in the bucket for what it costs to put the race on.

Right now there are 60some mens qualifiers. That makes for 3k or so in men's entry fees. Not even close to what it costs to put the marathon on.

They could easily make that up somewhere else in the budget.

Huh? There are like 130 men and 165 women. You're only looking at the marathon list.

Prize money from Houston Marathon committee:

1st Place $50,000

2nd Place $40,000

3rd Place $30,000

4th Place $20,000

5th Place $15,000

6th Place $10,000

7th Place $8,000

8th Place $7,000

9th Place $6,000

10th Place $4,000

Total $190,000

Plus $20,000 to all Olympic Team qualifiers (must actually run in London).

Prize money from USATF:

1st Place $4,000

2nd Place $3,000

3rd Place $2,000

4th Place $1,000

5th Place $500

Total USATF Prize Money $10,500

Why not run the trials and the open race at the same time like all the US Championship road races? Are they worried there may be someone that didn't break 2:19 that shows up and beats the qualifiers? Or that a non-American gets in the mix? Isn't that more representative of what the Olympics will be like, anyway? The race host could avoid appearance fees and prize money and there'd be no foreign elites in it anyway...

The race is a seperate race because USOC and Houston Marathon have conflicting sponsors and USOC must have their presence known. The USOC sponsors pay a lot of money for these rites and all of the sponsors are very prominent at all of the trials (track, swimming, gymnastics, etc)

Houston Marathon is going to fly in all of the A qualifyers and put them up in a nice hotel, feed them good food, take great care of any reasonable needs and pay out some fairly genourous prize money. They will also fly in an entourage of usatf and usoc people to enjoy all the same perks as the athletes and then some. They will do their best to put on a spectacular show, hopefully have organize great live coverage (this might be wishful thinking, we shall see). All of this, while putting on a huge marathon the next day, closing down a chunk of one of the biggest cities in the world for a weekend.

USATF is going to organize a convoluded entry process that requires a token fee and token club membership and something you can only pay for with visa. They will do their best to make sure that the 6 athletes that make the team have a photo op in a usa (thus nike) uniform. They will drink a lot of overpriced alcohol and then they will pat themselves on the back for another job well done.

Sorry, I forgot. USATF will also make sure to have an intern hang up some banners and sell some teeshirts aswell. This is before they force swoshes on our 2012 marathon team and drink/pat backs.

expenses paid wrote:

Do the A standard runners have to pay the entry fee?

Sooo... did anyone answer my question?

How many of the entrants actually have a chance at the 3 spots, 10 maybe? Their entries are covered by the sponsors, the others who are taking part and have no chance to make it, some of them go out of pocket.

Btw I understand that I probably spelled every 3rd word wrong. I'm bad at spelling and I'm typing on a blackberry. It doesn't make anything I said less true.