"You don't know what Active and WTC have going on? Mike Reilly, perhaps?"

fyi, mike reilly hasn't worked at active since 2014.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Dan, but isn't Mike part owner of Active? Shareholder?

Yup, and kudos to him for founding or co-founding that business back in the 90s. That was the time of mailing in printed entry forms, so active was truly revolutionary and a boon to race promoters. But, there is no doubt in my mind that there was a you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours relationship going on between WTC and Active since way back when, and with Mike firmly entrenched in both entities that rubs me the wrong way. But, far worse happens in business all the time.

"Dan, but isn't Mike part owner of Active? Shareholder?"

no. and i might say an emphatic no.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"there is no doubt in my mind that there was a you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours relationship going on between WTC and Active since way back when, and with Mike firmly entrenched in both entities that rubs me the wrong way."

i have an old and feeble brain, but according to memory active was formed as a merger of racegate, started by scott kyle and mitch thrower, and active something. active athlete? started by jim woodman. mike was not to my knowledge ever a founder or owner.

but he worked there, he was a salesman, he was an officer and, yes, ironman was his client. i don't think there was anything dishonorable about that business or his service there (while he was there), altho things have gotten a little funky with the whole industry in the last few years.

you can pretty much figure it this way, and i've written about this often: there are 2 insidious relationships in mass participation sport: registration engines and charities. i have no idea what deals ironman has, but everybody, every 15,000 or 25,000 person race, you name it, charities and race registration are rarely pass-throughs. they are profit centers. the race is getting a vig.

why do i say insidious? because you think that when you buy a charity slot all that money is going to charity. and when you pay a "convenience fee" it's the cost of that registration company to process the registration. and that the race is doing it's best to keep that fee down.

nooooooooo.

i would make a bigger stink of all this if it would do any good, but most people just accept this as the cost of entry, literally, to the race in particular and to the sport in general.

if i might segue, this is why i don't have a problem with that horrible cuss word: regulation. there aren't enough people to demand that race registration engines (or concert ticket companies) be precluded from kicking back a part of the convenience fee to the race, or concert promoter. but i just think that's flat wrong and i would love to see a law keeping that from happening. i would also like to see a law keeping event promoters from charging more than face value for race entries, that is, if a marathon charges a $350 entry fee then it cannot charge gay whales for jesus more than $350 apiece for the bloc of 50 entries it's purchasing to raffle off.

i think that's insidious, because if i pay $1000 for that marathon slot in order to support the gay whales for jesus then i think it's a reasonable expectation that at least $650 is going to the organization. alas, that is often not the case.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

They're a California based company, and we all know how letigious CA is, eventually some young (or old) enterprising attorney (or AG running for Senate) will see the issue here, and we'll all get whatever's left of the class action suit. Pressures building, they've already had to settle on more than one occasion.

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All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I just registered for IM South Africa this morning. The processing fee was 151.5 Rand ... about $11 at today's exchange rate. So nice that they don't use Active.Ripoff.com. BTW, the entry fee came out to about $407. Everything is cheap except getting there.

Not sure why you need a regulation for this...if people didnt willingly pay the fee to sign up then they would either go out of business or lower the fee. If people who pay for charity spots asked about the split of money (if they were actually concerned about where the money was going) and they got an unsatisfactory answer -- then they shouldnt sign up for the race to begin with. I wouldnt drop 1000 bucks for a race entry without knowing where the money is going. If they wont share the split with the charity then you know they are screwing you. The fact they take more money from charity spots is probably a races form of market segmentation. You could argue the morality of it but then withhold your money if you feel it's wrong.

Businesses always have and always will try to extract maximum value out of customers. If they stop getting signups they will lower their fees. And if the fees are too low to put on a profitable race the business will go under. It's pretty simple.

Purchasing decisions is an effective market signal, as you point out. But it's also OK to use speech to influence business behavior. It's also an effective tool, particularly in this day of social media.

Another point is that your economics 101 refresher works best in competitive markets, where business have competition for racers. WTC effectively has monopoly power for a popular event. Regulation tends to come into play for monopoly conditions. E.g. utility companies are highly regulated because they tend to operate as monopolies.

I understand how monopolies can distort the market -- however I disagree that WTC is a monopoly. There are other non-WTC 140.6 and 70.3 distance races (albeit decreasing every year) and there is no government aid in the WTC monopoly (like a utility company). You could argue that WTC puts on the best 140.6 races and the demand for them is relatively small compared to other race types/distances but the market size does not make a monopoly. WTC perhaps markets itself well and provides incentives for repeat races (AWA/Kona Legacy spots) but that's not much different than most brands in competitive markets. In fact -- those incentives show (IMO) that WTC is actively competing in the market rather than sitting back and reaping the benefits of a monopoly. If Nike or Under Armour wanted to break into this market they could in a heartbeat if they wanted to sponsor endurance events (big if and likely not). Any company with sufficient capital could put on a 140.3 race.

Lastly, Ironman racing is an entertainment business. Regulating WTC for being the premier provider of an entertainment event would be downright silly. It's not like WTC is providing healthcare or water here. While personally I am against regulation of almost every kind -- I can see the arguments for necessities -- people need water, electricity, roads, etc for society to function. However as an avid triathlete and Ironman -- I do not see Ironman racing as a necessity to a functioning society and feel that if people are unhappy with the price / management / charity distribution / etc from WTC they are free to take their dollar elsewhere.

your post triggered some memories about ticketmaster, and i'd recalled one of the key issues back in the '90s was whether or not they were a monopoly.

this article is a pretty interesting read and added many details that i never knew or didn't remember.

It's a pretty good business model, acquiring monopoly power over processing payments for a popular event

It is an isn't a monopoly.

The reality is there are LOT'S of choices in event registration companies. I worked in the business for 3 years. At one point in North America, a few years back, there were over 60 companies all offering online event registration in the endurance sports events space. But this is NOT a choice, that the end-user (you/race-participants), is involved in. It's a business-to-business decision and deal between the online registration company and the event!

It SEEMS like a monopoly for Active, if you are only entering in and racing IRONMAN races, and perhaps a few other select, endurance sports events, because Active has the contract with IRONMAN for all of their races, as well as many other marquee, popular and big running, cycling and triathlon races/events.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Agreed. I would say 7 or 8 years ago most everybody was using Active. 5Ks, marathons, mud runs, everything. Now, I rarely see Active anymore, but of course, I haven't signed up for a WTC event in a long time.

charities and race registration are rarely pass-throughs. they are profit centers. the race is getting a vig.

Dan

A possible driver for this, is that, while I know it's hard to believe, but particularly for this mid-sized to very big, endurance sports events, they are not the massive profit centers that people (participants) think they are. Participants simply do the quick and easy math, and they come up with this massive number. They never consider the fact that the hard costs to put on these large events, are also massive! And like many businesses, their actual margins are quite thin (despite what participants think)!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Technically speaking, no. But it enjoys monopoly-like power due to the strength of the brand.

I'll make the Ticketmaster analogy. Say Ticketmaster does the processing for a Rolling Stones tour, and has the exclusive rights to do so. That's kinda like a monopoly. Sure, there are other bands people could go see. "Trail, you could go see Nickelback instead!" Right.

The popularity of the brand and limited number of entrants, along with the very strong relationship Ticketmaster has with Stones-sized venues all combine to give Ticketmaster Monopoly-like power.

Same with Active.

And WTC is even more of a monopoly if you'd like to compete to be called a 70.3 or Ironman World Champion. As a pro or age-group.

I'll make the Ticketmaster analogy. Say Ticketmaster does the processing for a Rolling Stones tour, and has the exclusive rights to do so. That's kinda like a monopoly. Sure, there are other bands people could go see. But the popularity of the brand and limited number of entrants, along with the very strong relationship Ticketmaster has with Stones-sized venues all combine to give Ticketmaster Monopoly-like power.


I know it get's a but fuzzy and blurry, with a brand/business like Active, because they are working both sides - the B2B side and the B2C side of their business.

When looking ONLY at registration it's better to look at it in the B2B way. You can't control what brand of ink cartridge and other parts that come in your Xerox copier - that's a deal that is struck between Xerox and who their cartridge and other suppliers are!

Participants, get angry and mad at Active, but really what they should be doing, is expressing their displeasure for this to IRONMAN ( or whoever the race/event is), about their choices of registration supplier. This may result in NO change, but at least the expression is going in the right direction and the context/perspective is correct.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Just signed up for Santa Cruz 70.3. I recently moved back to the US after living overseas for 3 years, so this is the first time I've noticed the new active.com fees. After registering I immediately came to slowtwitch and found this thread because I was curious if anyone else had complained. Between the fees and the fact that we have to keep our USAT membership paid at the time of registration, I think we are all getting fleeced. However, I wanted to do this particular WTC race (among others), so I bit the bullet and paid. I won't feel sorry for WTC when their registration numbers sag to the point they have to make pricing changes, but I'm not going to give up racing while I wait for it to happen.

I wish there were more Challenge series races in the US. I did a few of them overseas and much preferred that experience to M-dot!

Just signed up for my first full IM registration, so I'm getting to swallow this bitter pill for the first time.

Obviously not much has changed since this thread started. At least I'm now aware that it is a percentage rather than a fixed fee.

$795 IM WI General Entry
$67.10 Active.com Processing fee - 8.44%

I pre-registered for IM 70.3 Des Moines next year
$375 General Entry
$31.80 Processing fee. - 8.48%

A true processing fee would be < $20, or free if WTC would do their own processing. Interesting ideas about possible kickbacks. Of course, business doesn't have to operate like this. If it costs $900 to have a safe, fun race, I'll pay that - just make that clear on the website.