Especially those hypocrites in the M45-49 age group.

The race management business is like any business - there will always be a small group, who are not on board with what you are doing. There is another group that extends that a bit who are vocally negative, and then go ahead and buy the product or service any way! However, the vast majority buy the product or service - otherwise they would go of of business, fast!

I work with many very good race management companies. Here's what a leading one told me recently, "I could put on the perfect race, there would still be that hand-full of people that would come up after and lay into me about something"

There are so many moving pieces with really big endurance sports events, triathlons in particular - think about it. They are putting on three races in one day!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Don't tell me what to do.

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Gary Mc
Did I mention I did Kona

this is slightly different to lets say other walks of life

this particular race management company has cornered a "world championship", so I can see these guys are torn, but ultimately, instead of whining about it, they should all f**k off to the management of challenge and tell them they can have the strongest field in the world if they do X, Y and Z and no show WTC, you don't even need all, you just need enough to make the field weak enough to be a shambolic world championship, but if they've not got the wit between themselves to organise, then you keep doing what you've always done you'll keep getting what you've always got

It is human nature and they have great brand recognition. Look at all the Apple pleebs who fall over themselves getting the latest and greatest Apple device. The Ironman brand has built themselves up as THE place to go for Iron distance racing. People will overlook their stupidity/bullshit just to say the did an Ironman.
Then there are others who actually do recognize their nonsense and go elsewhere and have productive and happy lives.
But I agree, it is hard to feel for these guys....if you are unhappy with your boss, quit and go somewhere else. Life is too short to be unhappy with a boss.

Hmm. I should have tried this as a strategy to KQ.

Seriously though, I do vote with my wallet in and out of tri's Unfortunately depending on what you're looking at buying it takes so many people to make an impact it's almost impossible. Look at all the people who want to KQ, and ask yourself "What would WTC have to do in order to have people abandon the brand entirely?" It's an interesting question.

On the other side of the coin I support people, products and even races that support me. Reputation goes a long way, but again it takes a lot of people to impact the bottom line of most companies.

I am voting with my wallet. I am not fast enough to KQ, so maybe my calculus would change if I were. Having done two M-dot brand races, I now feel justified in saying I much prefer the other guys. My long-course and full-distance money was spent this year with Challenge and Rev3. And I will be doing so again next year.

And you've started the 25,939th thread on this excat subject since the slowtwitch forum began. Congrats!

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

I think there is a pretty small minority who care about the professionals either way, most people are interested in the race day experience that is put on and/or the name. Ironman is still the biggest name out there in long distance multisport, and as far as I know WTC still do a pretty good job of putting on a race - I've only done a handful of WTC events, but the only quibble I could have with any of them is the drafting on the bike, and that is a problem that is endemic to any large-participation event. If I wanted to do a small-participation long distance event then I'd look elsewhere, but for a mass participation event WTC seem as good or better than anybody else out there in terms of their event management.

I honestly couldn't tell you which pros were taking part or won at any of the WTC events I've done, in fact the only race I've ever done where I took much notice of the winning pros was at a fairly small race back in 2007 with less than 500 competitors. I noticed that the winner looked to be about 16 years old, turned out to be a guy called Ali Brownlee....