He tore it in half? What a fucking ass hat.

That's fair. But do slow pros deserve to get paid well just because they have a pro card? Or should they have to "pay their dues" and prove they deserve to be in the money?

Very true Brian. This is why I think you need tiered IM races like you do on the itu circuit. Of course you need WTC buy in for this. The neo pros need to be supported. Me I'd set them up in the second tier race communities doing outreach, camps, TV, radio, etc. have them add value. Pay a stipend. Grade them.
I know there is many faults with this, first of which is that WTC needs to feel that their future is somewhat tied to the success of their pros. But for Providence to cash out again they need big media buy in. It's not gonna come from just new races.

They make a shitload. All major expenses are covered by the town or by sponsors, ie police, volunteers, food, schwag. So, the vast majority of registration revenue is straight up profit:

You are a bit off on your figures.

The hard costs to put events of these size and scope have increased dramatically. NOTHING is donated or given. Services are not covered by anyone. Events of all sizes have struggled with this. To the best of my knowledge the WTC has no sizable sponsors that, just give money. So almost all revenue must come from entry fees.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Consider that the fodder that loses in the first round of tennis grand slams still make more money than IM winners, same thing for golf.

That Pro triathletes don't make a lot of money is not news. It's been this way for a long time. The money and who makes what drops off precipitously from a very small A-Group of Pro triathletes at the very top.

My wife raced as pro triathlete for 10 years. She regularly finished in the top-5 of various Ironman races around North America and elsewhere ( 5th at Ironman Lanzarote one year). It could be said that over that 10 year period behind Lisa Bentley she was Canada's second best woman's long distance triathlete. I'm a bit biased, but the results speak for themselves, but Triathlon Canada and Triathlon Ontario recognized her hard work and performances by honoring her with Elite Long Course Woman Athlete of the year several times. She qualified 3 times for Ironman Hawaii in the old system and raced there twice

Total winnings in most years was on average about $4,000. In Canada, money sponsorship is next to impossible for an athlete at this level - so getting some help with equipment is about as good as you are going to get. Thus, she kept working at her job which is a Professional Hair Stylist. She ran her own business, so the one advantage of that is that, she could come and go as she pleased time wise, set her own work schedule, for training and racing. All tolled not a bad balance.

Could it have been different if prize purses were bigger and deeper? A couple more thousand dollars while helpful, at this level would be a plus, but it's really not that substantial. For really fundamental change, there would have to be a lot more money in the Pro pool and paid more evenly through the ranks. But then you have to shift over the the question of where would that money come from and how are the Pros as a group generating value that would allow for that sort of money to be put into that pool in the first place?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

That's different and you know it. Qualifying for the PGA is a. Dry difficult process. Not so in tri.

I have no doubt that big IM events have expenses that I have not encountered through my experience in producing SavageMan. However, the biggest cost is police, medical, and emergency services, and the WTC RFPs for host locales explicitly state that the host locale is to eat the cost of police/emergency services. Another big cost to normal events is "volunteers", as most donate to church groups or other causes in return for their "volunteers" labor. But, not WTC. Their volunteers are true volunteers who don't see a dime of compensation. Another big cost is lodging for the hundred plus official folks, but the host town also is mandated to provide lodging for these folks. Schwag, I don't know. Maybe $3 of an athlete's $800 is going to the schwag or maybe the product logo on the bag is covering it. Now, for sure there are other expenses, like Mike Reilly and servers to run ironmanlive and gas for the 18 wheelers. But, all told, a high percentage of that large entry fee goes to profit.

I never argued for the first part of your statement. WhatI said is many pro's that have paid their dues that we interact with on this board in fact, may not have become pro's in the first place if the standards were higher.
Paying your dues is part of the process and everyone pays at a different rate. Last year's AG phenom Drew Scott hasn't quite been the overnight success everyone predicted. Maybe in a year or two, while other pro's who are first year pro's are having quite decent years (von berg)(sp).
I think the standards should be tougher, but not too much tougher. Otherwise, Rapp, Gerlach, jonnyo and others on here may have never become pro's in the first place.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
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They already have this with the P500, P1500 etc races. If I'm placing top 3 at major IM's around the world I don't need to go to IMLP, it's not a race that's for me. IMAZ maybe, Roth for sure, IM Melb probably (although that field was much thinner this year vs 1st year).

It's a multi pronged problem. The pro's, as individuals and collectively, need to figure out a way to demonstrate their individual value and their collective value. WTC needs to figure out a way to leverage the pro's to drive the value they get from the pro's. Each needs each other, and maybe it's somewhat lopsided, but WTC fails to leverage their pro's as well as they could, and the pro's both individually and as a whole fail to leverage themselves.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
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Last year Josh Beck swam 1:17:13 and won overall amateur.

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I was at IMFL last year. Walking around while they were setting up there was a pretty enormous amount of shit they have in trailers. Fencing, railings, etc. I was amazed at the behind the scenes stuff that people see but don't see.

Those fences were put up by United rental. A couple of forklifts & a heavy lifter, 8 guys not affiliated with WTC who told me they were making their hourly rate, hundreds of portojohns, swim buoys, kayaks, tents, there was a lot of stuff in the trailer that a once race or two race only production crew wouldn't need.
Also in exchange for those free hotel nights, free police (which aren't free since I know a cop who worked IMAZ at 1.5x for 9h of work) WTC guarantees that there will be some many hotel nights covered by racers or they pay the difference.
I know a few other RD's from around the country, a lot of services that were once given as in kind support are no longer in kind. The requirements have gone up as well. Before it was 1 sergeant for 7 patrol officers now it's 1 for 6. Before it was 2 cops per major intersection now 3 are required.

Pretty much from the financials leaked the % profit per race isn't as high as I'd have thought.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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I don't disagree. They could both do more, but you can only get so much juice out of a lemon. The bottom line remains true that IM is a boring sport to watch, and without TV viewing interest, outside advertising revenues will remain scant at best. It's these advertising revenues that make richer sports like golf and tennis as rich as they are for their pros - even Crossfit now has extended coverage on ESPN.

So WTC doesn't feel it needs the pros that much, as long as they have a handful at Kona, which they'll always get, and the pros themselves have no bargaining leverage because they compete in a boring spectator sport and can't afford to speak out in case it harms their sponsorships. Nothing will change, unless they let Lance compete again. And while that last bit should really be in pink font, unfortunately it's true. Lance was a sufficient personality that he drove TV viewing interest that none of the current pros generate.

A few ideas to make it less boring....... draft legal for pros, "King of the Mountain" big bucks prime for a kick ass climb somewhere on course (top of Papa Bear at LP). At the end of the day some TV needs to be in the mix, even if it's only web streamed and back to a wide screen at the venue for spectators.

I think one consequence of this attention on prize money at IMLP will be that in the future there isn't ANY prize money at this race. To me that would be the smartest move for WTC at the moment. Take that money and make the prize purse bigger at other races. If there is no prize purse there to begin with then nobody can complain it's not enough.


MC

WTC has alreday hinted at changes with the races, prize money, etc. so that is a 'given' in my mind. It's just that we (pros, others) don't know what it will look like. The only thing that is certain right now, is that if an event is listed on the pro membership site as having money, etc. then it still does. The event listing goes through the end of the 2014 calendar year.

The thought is that some of the smaller $$ races right now will NOT have a purse nor will they have points. But, that money will shift to other races. Again, this has been hinted at, but until it's announced or whatever, we're all just guessing. Given the the proximity of several events to Kona, they'll very likely be gone. Other smaller $$ races, likely gone as well.

Depth of pay, who knows. Again, Messick hinted at things in an earlier interview this year, but no one knows for sure.

Edit. So 'if' IMLP ends up not having prize money in 2015...I don't think that it will be a consequence of TRS and the 7th place payment.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

I think one consequence of this attention on prize money at IMLP will be that in the future there isn't ANY prize money at this race. To me that would be the smartest move for WTC at the moment. Take that money and make the prize purse bigger at other races. If there is no prize purse there to begin with then nobody can complain it's not enough.

That idea has been discussed, externally and here for a long time.

Here's the thing - the overall amount of money that the WTC has put of for prizing has increased significantly but the numbers of races they have on the schedule with prize money has expanded as well. What has not grown much is the overall size of the group of Pros. This has lead to a spreading of the talent/competition pool very thinly across the events. I agree, that would be potentially a better approach would be to pool the prize money at some select Ironman races with much bigger deeper money.


However, this is not a new idea - Graham Fraser, when he was running all of the Ironman races in North America did exactly this 10 years ago. Flip-flopped featuring the men and the women Pros at Lake Placid and Cour D'Alene respectively, pooling all of the money for the men and alternatively the women into one race for that year. Despite a near doubling of the prize purse for those years, there was middling up-take on the part of the Pros, so Graham went back to the way he had done it in the past! Which begs the question, if it's about the money, why did the Pros for those years show limited interest in this opportunity?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Good point. Maybe 8% is a little too generous. But then again, how small do we want the pro fields to be? Maybe it should be 9% just to fill the ranks a little more....(I went 8.28% at my last qualifying race.) I will say that the womens fields might be better off with 10% to add some numbers. Some races barely have 10 female pros.

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Fleck and others; im one of the least-qualified to speak on the subject, but isn't this what wtc is already doing with the championship races (north american champs, asian-pacific champs)? the races with a larger point value attract the best pro field?

Yes probably an oversimplification to say it would be a direct consequence, but could make the decision easier if it's was still being debated.

Why doesn't WTC setup these lower tier races as "beginner" pro races. New WTC pros have to pay their dues at these races, get a top 3 finish or 3 top 10's or something before they can enter the bigger money WTC races. They wouldn't have to have prize money at these races, the draw to get into the bigger races and ultimately Kona would be enough to make them enticing. There would be certain exemptions obviously, olympians in other sports, ITU athletes, etc.

ITU doesn't let pros signup for their big races just because they have a pro card, there is a process in place.

MC

I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that they seek $25k from their "medical sponsors" for an Ironman event. Providing all medical services including is a requirement of the sponsorship. In essence, the services are given.

Then there has been a shift in the model - Makes sense, because the total cumulative costs, to put these events on, has risen significantly in the last 5 - 10 years!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Yes I realize they have higher and lower points races. I meant at the lower tier races it's only for the newer pros and the bigger races for the top dogs.
Agree with your other points.

IMNYC (NJ?) folded after one year because it was cost-prohibitive to deal with the logistics at that location. I realize that was an outlier in terms of the scale of jurisdictions needing to be covered but the point is that there is a significant cost to put these things on. Just ask the town of Penticton if it's a cash cow to put on a major full distance triathlon :)

Those people are still responsible for generating a significant amount of the revenue from the events. Spectators and media pay for those sports. IM doesn't have the value to the general public and therefore doesn't generate significant revenue from the masses - just the participants.