Hopkinton wrote:
Pick it up wrote:in 2011 45,000 registered and 35,670 finished. So over 9,000 never started (or DNF). Chicago could probably make a lot of money transfering those registrations to other runners if they don't mind the administrative hassle.Sounds good. But profit motives seem to get in the way. The DNS number in 2011 was closer to 7,000. $145 x 7,000 = $1 million in entry fees collected from people who never show up. A tidy little sum that Bank of America Chicago Marathon quietly pockets. They figure, "who's going to say or do anything about it?"
What? it is not a "tidy little sum" as you so scrumptiously put it. It is nothing. With 45000 potential participants that extra 1 million dollars is 22 dollars of services per person. When you are putting on an event of this size, their budget itself probably has a +- 1 million dollars on it. The race pocketing there 1 MILLION dollars. Don't act so smug about your beliefs. They are running a big operation. 1 million dollars is nothing.