How can Boston Offer Full Refunds, but every other race cannot?

Guessing Boston also re-opens registration. They seem to be a well run group & probably are in a very good financial place. It's good to see them lead like this during this time. I expect they find a way to have full fields by September.

Here is the latest available Form 990 {2018) for Boston Athletic Association.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/46111707/11_2019_prefixes_01-11%2F046111707_201806_990_2019110816831360

Enjoy.

Taking the refund is the smart move in any case as there isn't going to be a Boston this fall. Or London, Berlin, Chicago or NYC.

there was I wrote:

Taking the refund is the smart move in any case as there isn't going to be a Boston this fall. Or London, Berlin, Chicago or NYC.

Do you think if it's cancelled they'll say, "Tough luck, you had you're chance" and deny entry to 2021?

It would depend on whether there's a 2021 Boston, which is not a bet I'd take.

I'm keeping my entry. I want to run either September 2021 or April 2022.

As the former president of a local non-profit running club on the west coast, I wanted to give my two cents. Our club hosted between 3-4 events per year (100-500 people per event). Some we kept the cost low and relied on donations as these were free to the community while others had a standard entry fee attached.

I made sure the club was always financially solvent that our donations were based primarily on membership dues and extra profits after allowing us to build a reserve for bigger donations or as some may call it a rainy day fund.

While other local road and trail races in the area who are non-profits would drain their account to have enough to cover the timing companies fee the next year.

I can't tell you how much resistance I always got from the rest of the board in terms of folks who just wanted to spend all of our cash reserves thinking it would easily come back. I am interested to see how the local racing scene recovery for both non-profit races and the for-profits companies, after all, is said and done.

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To note, there are a lot of things that might need to be pre-paid for a road race that is not reliant on donations. In addition, one should look at who is putting on the event. If it is a for-profit company, I'm betting these are a slew of the ones hoarding the entry fee since they probably have debts to cover and/or need to put food on the table still......

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If I was a race director right now, after all, debts are settled. Not that anyone has too, I believe the right thing to do would be to offer a refund to anyone who wants it (or at least a partial one so the company can break even), offer deferment to the next year or a discount for upcoming races if you can't offer a refund. There is an inherent risk individual who signs up for events like concerts if they will happen or not.....

First, I want to reject the premise of this thread: not every other race can't provide refunds. Some can, and some can't. Some can, but don't. Every race is unique both in its circumstances and goals.

That being said, many of the reasons Boston can refund (and is choosing to) have been illuminated above. To sum up:

1) Per the 1099 above, the BAA has a cash reserve that looks like it's nearly exactly equal to one year of its operating budget. This is a best-practice for non-profits, but not all of them abide by it (or are even able to generate those funds). What that means is that the BAA could go through one year with no revenues and still pay 100% of their expenses before running out of funds. Would they want to do that? No. But could they (disregarding exact cash-flow and expense-cycle quirks)? Yes. That they have the cash is the biggest reason they can refund (because if you don't have the cash, you can't!).

2) Because Boston has a true, hard cap on number of registrants, and actually turns away qualified runners every year, and for many folks running Boston is a once- or very-few-times-in-a-lifetime event, the BAA knows that both very few people will take them up on their offer, and also that they will be able to back-fill those limited slots with paying qualified runners who were originally rejected. And even if the refund "take rate" is higher than anticipated and the BAA doesn't quite fully fill the field--which is unlikely, and also they also have other ways of filling it besides qualifiers--they can cover a small hit out of their cash-reserves. (This would likely lead to them making some decisions in that would allow them to re-build that cash reserve in future years.)

3) I think someone else hit the nail on the head by noting that if you don't take your refund when it is offered now and the race is canceled or otherwise substantially altered (elite-only, or elite and virtual) in September, the BAA probably feels it has a pretty good leg to stand on in not offering you a refund then. In their mind, you knew the risk of cancellation existed (how could you not after so many other events have been cancelled?) and turned down their offer of refund thus knowingly assuming the risk yourself. This may not be fully decided internally, but I bet it has played into some folks' thinking.

Other races may fall in a different place in any of these categories, and so they may or may not be able to (or may or may not choose to) refund based on that (or on where they fall in numerous other unnamed categories).

Lenny Leonard wrote:

You paid someone money to run around on a street when that is an activity you can do for free. The only goods exchanged where your legal currency and the race packet. If they are shipping you that, then stop complaining.

A lot of race money goes to a charity or cause of some sort. Don’t be petty and ask for a refund from a likely non-profit because you don’t get to run.

Guess you have never tried to organise a road running event, yeah right everything is free to the organisers right?

Because some people are thieves and others aren’t.

Kudos to the races that do the right thing, and shame on the thieves.