Competitor Group Sued For Not Paying "Volunteers"

Wow I hope Competitor loses this case! I've always had a huge problem with their fake "official charity" business b/c all the random hobby joggers assume that RnR is donating the insanely high entry fees to charity. RnR is intentionally misleading and knows it.

Hope this lawsuit gets some press so folks will be more aware.

I vote with my feet and pocketbook and do not run RnR events, but so many do and it annoys me that they ruin real non-profit races who keep the $ in the community.

I'm always happy that others make the effort to volunteer during various endurance events, but I'm amazed just how many people still choose to do so when it comes to "for-profit" businesses like Competitor Group or the World Triathlon Corporation, owners of Ironman. I can see where volunteers might think they're helping fellow athletes, but these are big corporations that tend to put the needs of their shareholders before that of the athlete. They also lay down the law with "non-compete clauses" for so many struggling race directors in areas where both may host events.

I tend to volunteer for more charitable causes when donating my time or hard-earned dollars, like with those poorer people--those born with fewer opportunities--in Kenya and Ethiopia!

Paging Let's run dot com editor staff.

How about a front page article on this story?

It looks like a huge story. There is very little information on it too.

This is interesting.

Hood to Coast is also a for-profit event, which purportedly gives money to charities. It requires teams to provide 3 volunteers in order to participate if it has any team member living within a more than 100 mile radius of Portland, OR.

Teams can by-pass the entry lottery if each runner agrees to raise a certain amount of money (I think one year it was about $825 per runner). HTC then "donates" that money to a charity and touts its donation, but in fact it was the team members who contributed far in excess of the entry fee to participate who raised the money. No money came out of the pockets of HTC.

HTC makes tons of money every year - and it almost completely relies on "volunteer" labor to make it work.

Competitor Group has very cleverly built a scheme to enrich themselves. Glad to see that it's now exposed.

If Competitor loses this, it will negatively affect ALL races. Look for race fees to skyrocket.

This could be a great thing for real races, and cut down on the mega event walk-a-thons.

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the death of the local race wrote:

If Competitor loses this, it will negatively affect ALL races. Look for race fees to skyrocket.

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So sick of races using charity to enrich themselves.

There outta be a rule. If you say your race is about charity, you HAVE to disclose how much you are paying yourself and how much the company makes. Period.

And using volunteers to pad your bottom line!?

Off-topic, but same for for-profit websites that ask for "donations". At least LRC doesn't do that. Many speciality forums ask for donations when the website is clearly their main income.

Rock 'n Roll Marathon race profits all flow here --http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calera_Capital

Think any of these guys would perform their services to a for-profit company for free? Bwahahahaaaa.....

I don't think this lawsuit will be successful.

And if it is, it really would maybe end all major events.

They volunteered.

Yes, these companies do make a profit off of the events but they also do raise a lot of money for these charities.
They put a lot of work in organizing and running these things and get paid for it.
If they can't get paid for it they won't do it.

To pay the volunteers you can raise the entry fees, give less to the charities or not pay the organizers, which means not having organizers, which mean not having the events.

The events just do not work without volunteers.
So the act of volunteering does make money for the charities.

Corporations are now being sued for skirting state labor laws by using unpaid interns to perform tasks that meet the definition of part-time employment. Competitor Group's business model may have to change.

Here's my pet peeve about big marathons... first, here's some data from our local marathon.

Participants: 30,000+
Revenue to Competitor: >$3 million
Revenue to charities: millions
Increased revenue to local businesses: Est. >$20-$30 million (couldn't find source so I'm remembering this.)

Of this $3M to Competitor Group, millions to charities, and $20M to local commerce, how much comes back to the local running community? The answer is not much at all.

It should be at least $100,000/year. The construction company that built one of our bike paths told me that they could build an 8-mile dirt running path for about $300,000... not a single track trail, but an honest to goodness 10 foot wide, hard packed dirt trail.

This is what I'd prefer to see, but it's going to take local runners and running clubs to demand it.

Does Competitor actually donate any money to charities? I was under the impression the runners who ran for Team in Training, etc. did all the fundraising and the money went to the charity they were representing. Competitor can say, runners raised x amount of dollars for charity by using their event as the tool to fundraise, but I don't believe Competitor donates anything or anything significant to any charities. A few years back they got caught cheating on their taxes by claiming they were non-profit (each race is seperately incorporated) even though the events were clearly making profits. Other than tossing a few comp entries to some of the local running clubs, they give nothing to the local running communities. However if a club has a Rock N Roll training group which results in a bunch of runners from the club or community signing up for the event, they throw the club a few bones.

Wonder if the lawyer read this thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5403875

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Barrister wrote:

Does Competitor actually donate any money to charities?

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Does Competitor actually donate any money to charities?

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No. Quite the opposite. They actually charge non-profit organizations a fee to be an "approved charity" of the Rock 'n Roll series. Thus, Competitor Group profits from non-profits.

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Interesting lawsuit when you read it through. Putting aside the question of whether a for-profit business (or anyone else for that matter) has the right or ability to not pay someone who does work for that business, it seems to me that in this case the plaintiff willing offered to perform certain duties for no financial remuneration. She had the free will to offer to volunteer or to not offer to volunteer. That she didn't fully understand the charitable position of the event she was volunteering for would seem to be on her, not on Competitor Group. To me, this is a lot different from a student who signs up as an intern, ostensibly to learn about a job or industry, and then is assigned a pile of grunt work to do. In that case, I've always seen it as purely a way for a business to unethically bring on free labor. But in this case it's not like the plaintiff was volunteering to be a bike escort to learn how about that side of race production.

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d2xccoach wrote:

Interesting lawsuit when you read it through. Putting aside the question of whether a for-profit business (or anyone else for that matter) has the right or ability to not pay someone who does work for that business, it seems to me that in this case the plaintiff willing offered to perform certain duties for no financial remuneration. She had the free will to offer to volunteer or to not offer to volunteer. That she didn't fully understand the charitable position of the event she was volunteering for would seem to be on her, not on Competitor Group. To me, this is a lot different from a student who signs up as an intern, ostensibly to learn about a job or industry, and then is assigned a pile of grunt work to do. In that case, I've always seen it as purely a way for a business to unethically bring on free labor. But in this case it's not like the plaintiff was volunteering to be a bike escort to learn how about that side of race production.

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