kileyay wrote:
Why do people keep throwing up participation numbers from local races to show that TRIATHLON participation is declining? Every single person here would stipulate to the fact that WTC is gobbling up market share, cratering local races/racing organizations at a staggering rate. The ONLY empirical evidence to suggest that there are participation declines is the USAT data. Those declines are extremely modest (basically a flattening), as some have already mentioned. As an armchair observer of this industry, I will be really interested to see the latest figures from USAT, which will give us a much better sense of whether the ecosystem is actually contracting, or just shifting to being more WTC dominant.
Like any organization, I am sure they spin the data to reflect the sport in a positive light. Say for example that membership was previously 90,000 adults and 10,000 children, but grows to 80,000 adults and 25,000 children. They would be all over the press telling us membership was up from 100,000 to 105,000 without mentioning the drop in adult membership, and the drop in revenue since the kids only pay $10 per year. Without access to the detailed data, you can't say what is going on based on their numbers. The local participation counts are down all over and WTC isn't gobbling up local sprint tri market share, or even international distance races after their 5150 series belly flopped on the concrete.