TF - I love your low cost approach b/c it is same as mine. Regarding swim cost, at my local Gold's Gym (1 mile from my house), a 1-yr membership is billed at $30/mon. I find it hard to believe that $30/mon is too much for anyone, given how much people spend on their fancy phones, TVs, cars, etc. Now the actual act of learning to swim, that is a diff matter. Many people just don't have the desire and motivation to spend several months learning to swim decently. But anyone can learn to swim decently if they want it badly enough. You just gotta have the hunger and drive. No one wins Kona just on hunger and drive, but they can be the best triathlete they can be.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

SW Ohio racing FTW!

That's actually an interesting concept.

A subscription model of sorts.

Hell, every other area of our lives has moved in that direction. Predictable, recurring revenue for the organizers and potentially more cost friendly pricing as a result. That's really the only way it works. Since we are talking about lowering prices and all.

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"One Line Robert"

I'm where spot is. Started Tris in 2003 and they I had high quality sprints and olys for 45-55 bucks that were hella competitive. I have been screwed out of a couple cancelled races as well recently so that also has a neg factor. My town of 16K also only has like two or 3 local runs and 0 bikes or tris and traveling starts to take a toll for every single race since I work every single saturday til 5pm so I need a hotel as opposed to a tent to make sleep worthwhile after a 2-4 drive.

I am weird in that I look for out of the way races in small towns bc that seems to be the best bang for the buck (what I learned in) but they are becoming few and far between. Minneapolis is the close race scene and their stuff seems stupid expensive for the hassle involved with traveling their in the wee hours or paying for a hotel decently close as camping is out.

In the end I understand the movement to IM and a half or two a year just bc those costs are the same for a sprint for me so might as well "make it worth it" even though I don't agree with that statement myself.

I replied with a rather lengthy response to the original thread which I'm not sure why has disappeared.....don't feel like doing a full repeat. Short version is I don't think triathlon is different than any other sport. You don't have to spend a lot to participate, especially in shorter Sprint and OLY distance racing, which is what I assume the distances the vast majority of newbies do when they start out in the sport. It's like any other sport.....you want to play golf on TPC type courses the cost will be significantly higher than playing on a local public course.....doesn't mean you cant enjoy the sport. You want to do a few WTC 70.3s and 140.6s every year, sure, it will be expensive. Around here (Phila/NJ, there are numerous local Sprint races for under $100. I may be missing something here with triathlon but golf, tennis, bowling, (who knows what else) have been also declining. Demographics change, priorities change.....it's not cost. Anyone here stopped participating totally in the sport because of cost increases?

As a preface i am a competitive cyclist, not a triathlete, but occasionally do a tri or two after the road season is over with friends. Here are a few thoughts:

We are all susceptible to marketing, we all fall for it, thinking that without the best equipment we cannot compete. I regularly feel this way, thinking if i only had a different setup i could have won that sprint. Ahhhh, if only i had a better TT setup i could have made up those 12 seconds. There is some truth to these thoughts, you probably could make up 12 seconds in a TT and probably find some extra time to gain that last 3 meters in a sprint. But, in the end the fittest guys always win plain and simple. We allow ourselves to embrace the marketing as an excuse for our poor performance, " i failed to KQ because i did not have the right setup," or " i lost the stage race because he had a better TT bike." I think the discussions on equipment prices are often emblematic of peoples desire to excuse their poor performance or simple lack of genetic talent.

Now the actual issue i see in Tri is the fairly high race entry fee combine with no prize money. In road racing i can race 30-35 times a year and essentially race for free with prize money often going 8-12 deep in most races. Podium a nice stage race and you can cover the entire trip costs for the whole family. This would be huge in my opinion as it would offset some costs for racers in tri and it makes things a lot more fun.

I am not going to compare entry fees in tri to road racing as the requirements are different and expenses are surely much higher in triathlon, but 3 times more expensive at the local level and 10x more expensive at the national/IM brand level? The local sprint i do every year with a few friends is 80 bucks for early registration + active fee + 1 time USAT membership = 100 dollars for 55 minutes of racing. It is just not worth the money, in fact i skipped the triathlon this year since i could enter 4 cross races with that same money and got a nice prize payout!

I think one issue that is driving costs up is decreased turnout in local races, often from serious triathletes. We have a few very good triathletes who occasionally ride with our road team and they almost never race any local races, its all about 3-4 big branded races each year and that is it. In fact these guys will not even go out to TT's, cross races, and heaven forbid a road race since it might mess up their training plan. Our team has been trying to reach out to the triathlon community to race the local TT's, cross races etc but it seems a lot of people are racing less frequently. I think this actually segues into the next point quite well: growing elitism. Triathlon has an income gap in essence, the middle of the road triathlete is gone and the marketers love this. The market has clearly decline in total members present, but the top group has increased and willing to spend even more money. To a company like Cervelo why not make a bike that will directly feed into this frenzy? I don't blame them, this bike will probably sell quite well. Same thing is going on with specialized trying to push the VIAS disc, the problem is most roadies don't buy into the marketing right away, sometimes to their detriment (aero frames can't climb etc). \

In the end the market will sort itself out

It very much depends on where you live as well. In the Midwest there are organizations like HFP Racing, or Champ, who have quality events for a low cost. They're pretty much unbeatable in terms of quality for the price. Plus you can race sprint to 70.3 locally.

If you live in SoCal you're out of luck; there are not that many events; all the unbranded 70.3 events have disappeared and there are only sprint and olympics remaining. Entry fees are usually $125 or more + fees + parking for an olympic. So for 140.6 there's only WTC, and the same for 70.3. Oceanside is now $325 when registration opens, and I think Santa Rosa is similar. Superfrog has some crazy entry fee ($500+?). Luckily St George is much better priced at $225 but it takes a 5h drive. In any case there's only one player and that player is WTC.

I only raced one triathlon this season because of cost (paid for two - only raced one). I understand that other sports are expensive, too, but for the sports that comprise triathlon, it really is much cheaper to just run or swim.

Swim
$50 USMS annual membership
$50 per open water race x 6 for full season of racing = $300
$30 x 2 for two meets = $60
$30 goggles
$10 swim caps
$30 grab-bag suit off SwimOutlet.com
$0 for wetsuit since these are prohibited at open water races and meets

So let's say that's around $500 for hours of competition. That includes gear of the same quality as everyone else - I don't bother to buy a tech suit because really, who cares about a few tenths. In open water swimming, it's always very low-key - wetsuits prohibited. I like that no one has an advantage over anyone else in that way.

Running is even cheaper. Buy some decent shoes and go out for a run. No gym membership required if you've got a place to run. I don't, so I pay for my gym membership, which includes a pool and my Masters membership ($7 extra per month). I would have to pay for this anyway for triathlon training.

Anyway, I just can't justify $700 or whatever it is for an IM. I really struggle to pay more than $100 for an Olympic distance race. I absolutely hate the $15 day-fee and wouldn't balk as much if it were $10. I don't like feeling that to be competitive in my age group, I have to upgrade my gear (which I did, and it helped, which kind of made me feel worse). I can't handle having to miss a race due to injury and eating the $150 or whatever I paid to race (did that once this year because the parking situation was so bad I turned around and went home). I got injured late in the season and missed a few swim and run races - 30 bucks, who cares.

As for swimming being a barrier for some people, I'm sorry, but swimming is part of triathlon. These folks should learn how to swim. I convinced my husband to do a triathlon last year in which he came very close to being rescued by a kayaker because he panicked. Now he can swim 1,000 yards without a problem and actually enjoys the sport because he took the time to learn. I would never sign up for a race that has a downstream swim where you can just float in your wetsuit and call it a day.

I would come back to triathlon if USAT lowered the day-fee, Active.com eliminated their stupid fees, and Olympic distance races were < $100. Race deferrals would also help. The gear ridiculousness I can deal with.

Anyway, just my take.

i qualified for aquathlon worlds. for team kit and registration it is $600, so we can pay usat to fly out there. i turned it down, and signed up for a local usat certified college aquathlon, that was $25.... and i think at a just equal level of competition as worlds would have been, cause these kids are up and budding xc runners/swimmers,etc.

when you sign up for a race... you see an advertised price... by the time you actually register, price is probably 25% more than advertised (processing fee, usat membership). it deteriorates the soul after a while. the full price should be advertised up front.

the tri club here in SD is doing something right in terms of pricing. $75 a year, and about 10 chip timed sprint races a year, with all post race perks as normal (food..... minus finisher medal and t shirt). participation is not that high though, because everyone is sucked into the mental realm of ironman being the only legitimate type of racing, so many dont show up for the race because they are busy doing a long ride or whatever.

so this gentrified sport of ironman, nationals, worlds keeps real potential athletes out, because of the costs which favor someone in a white collar desk position of the bourgeois class.

im only surviving in this sport because i use to have a decent job. i got hit by a car which insurance got me a decent tri bike to use. the race costs are getting to me though. the club races are real fun... i think you should contact them or other tri clubs should follow the model
.... we do have an advantage here though. you really dont need a pool membership. open water is bearable all year.

I dont think cost of triathlon is the main driver of the sports current numbers decline.

I am trying to do research on millenials and figure out "what do they do" there are a lot of answers, lots of different personas. They congregate in cities where triathlon training is probably more difficult, they have a passion for old fashioned hobbies such as bowling or sewing or crafts, they spend a tun of time watching TV on small screens, there is a subset whose hobby is posting on social media and another subset who look at the social media addictively but dont post much. The more motivated are entrepreneurial computer saavy brogrammers or power women, and there is a large segment who are under employed, and there is a segment who are mismatched between their skills and societies needs for gainful employment. All of these personas dont seem to fit with triathlon.

Back to cost, in any sport - I dont care which - you can spend a tun or a little. I just bought a second hunting rifle and I am surprised at the range of cost for guns, and how much people spend on that hobby even though I associate guns typically with a pretty low end socioeconomic NRA right wing wack-job crowd. Gun nuts spend $50-$100 every time they shoot at a range. Triathlon is a bigger time commitment especially when people feel the need to do half and full distance. I have never been more than an 8 hour a week athlete and all I do are sprints and olympics that are local. I think the biggest barrier to triathlon is time commitment.

another note it would be good to investigate the german triathlon machine... its producing good athletes from a young age. also mexico is starting to produce... and their races are pretty dirt cheap. what we pay in dollars for a race here they pay in pesos.

I haven't raced since 2011 until last summer my soccer friends wanted to do a tri as a bucket list item. We found a local sprint, and signed up for a relay. I think each share was about $60. Really they wanted to do it but for the swimmer who swam 750 yards for $60, crazy. They are one and done, due to the cost.

Even if you have all the equipment, think of the stuff you need to spend money on: pool membership, new running shoes, USAT membership, coach if you want one, races often folks do 4-10 per year, plus some CX or running races on the off season. PT for injuries, copays for ortho visits.

I think looking back without race fees it was at least $2500/year + consumables, + race fees, +race travel.

Doing an IM added easily $3-5K to the year expenses.

We now have 3 kids in college and my husband is back in school, budget has a new definition to our family. I did sign up for an Oly AB next August with the discounted early registration option.

Minor here, but it doesn't take a degree or even much of a brain to figure out that this is about winners and losers in a market economy and the winner is WTC IRONMAN and the loser is everyone else. As consumers, well, many of us will simply be priced out of the sport as WTC continues its march around the globe, and the influx of new participants will all but dry up due to the rising cost of entry.

The invisible hand isn't all bad, though, right? There are winners here. We get something after all...we get WTC's fantastic product, which for reasons I won't go into, is so good on balance that we'll pony up even with escalating prices; we'll let Active.com ram it in us on the back end of reach transaction; we'll tolerate the most ridiculous, consumer-unfriendly (non-)refund policies; we'll pay for the piss poor joke of a solution that is the registration insurance program (another profit center); we'll buy the shit Finisher Pix albums (that for some unknown reason never deliver a clean side shot from the drive side). I could go on. Even with all this nonsense and the proliferation of 70.3 and IRONMAN supply, the demand was still pent up -- at least until very recently, WTC literally could not provide enough product or charge high enough prices or dick us hard enough in so many ancillary ways in order to bring consumer demand in line with supply as they rapidly scaled their business towards an equilibrium. It's fashionable these days to denounce WTC and tout principles and all that, but I don't believe you people and I don't believe the polls, because I can see plain as day that the people have spoken with their wallets and the people choose WTC IRONMAN. We tattoo their trademark on our goddamn bodies, for crying out loud.

On the flip side, what we lose/are losing/will lose is smaller races and alternative multi-sport racing options more or less entirely. WTC marches around and effectively bullies or buys out the competition. If a race director won't sell, then they just hold a race in the same place or on the same weekend (or threaten to) or use their clout and promises of halo munificence to convince a municipality to back them. What choice does a race director have, facing dwindling numbers and an aggressive, unstoppable Goliath, but to sell out or shutter? The only thing saving independent racing is the shorter distances, because WTC doesn't dabble in grocery store margins. Costs don't scale linearly with distance, but revenue does. The IRONMAN product is almost a Giffen good -- IMNYC redux would have sold out in less than day, even though it was by all accounts a terrible race.

Anyways, with this loss in race options, we also lose the most viable platform to bring new athletes/participants into the sport. We lose affordability. We lose the right to express our principles because there isn't a tradeoff to be made on the lower end of the economic totem poll. It's a simple thing for WTC, really, at least domestically. Price x unique participants x average races per participant minus (largely fixed) costs. They do not give a single fuck about this sport or its growth or your hopes and dreams. This is a business, and you're part of an equation.

The free market giveth and the free market taketh away. Hope you like your tattoo.

Your points may be valid but they seem to focus on long course racing? Does WTC really have any effect on sprint and oly participation....and getting new people into the sport....or more participation from people currently only doing 2-3 events per year?

Have not read all the responses on this thread. My first half IM was the Green Mtn Steelman half IM (the third tri in my life). I did it with a set of goggles, running shoes, a 10 speed bike with Columbus SLX tubing, no clipless pedals, no aero stuff, a big massive bell V1 Pro mushroom helmet. This was a crazy tough course. Kenny Souza won in 4:16. Huddle was second in 4:19. I was back in 4:54 (33 min no wetsuit swim, 2:43 bike, 1:33 run crazy hot)

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...Steel-Man__P4451446/

Yes, entry fees have gone up, but you can do the sport with the EXACT same minimalistic gear as we did and you can post a reasonably fast time if you are young and have a big engine (I was 20 for that triathlon). And I was only 41st overall in this race. Lots of fast people on 10 speeds, speedos and racing flats and goggles.

All in, my gear barely cost $400 (1986 dollars, so call it $1200 today). Can easily be done.

Now the price of entry fees is another story. And my son and all his friends, their first tris in the last 5 years...10 speed, jammer bathing suits, goggles, helmet, running shoes....DONE and local entry fees for $50.

This sport is only expensive if you choose to make it expensive (I do cause I can afford it now, but I am inherently cheap and generally buy two tiers down form the top tier hardware and go for second hand if I have the choice).

I think Ironman fees are too high, that the fact they essentially force everyone into 3-4 day stays is ridiculous, and that Active registration fees are usurious. I also think the cost of some bikes have gotten out of touch with reality. With that said, my 2 cents is that cost probably keeps some out of the sport, but no more or less than a lot of other hobbies that require a lot of equipment or resources. Most who are interested in tri start at local sprints or olys, often times on borrowed equipment (my experience). The barrier to entry isn't THAT high. Obviously "Ironmans", coaching, super bikes, powermeters, etc get very expensive, but the fact of the matter is that people love to spend money on hobbies. Tri is much cheaper than a boat as an example. Ive said it before but IMHO the recent slide in participation we've seen is mainly just a minor bubble in participation deflating. Pretty much anyone who might be interested in tri did a few in the last decade because they were exposed to it through friends, coworkers, family, etc. This sport isn't for everyone/most though, and a lot of those who tried tri in the last decade aren't active anymore after getting their ironman medal and moving on to focusing on either just running or biking. Essentially the sport borrowed a bit from future demand. The universe of people excited about biking, running, & SWIMMING, who can make enough free time to train, and have some disposable resources is small and likely always will be. Not what the tri industry likely wants to hear, but that's my view!

This study on millennials and running races that does not bode well for getting them to ever do Triathlons with our current entry fees.....

Here is a quote"

"What races do they like?

Millennials are into more than just fun runs! In fact, 75% rated an event being timed as one of their top interests and their #1 interest was distance: half-marathons were the top pick, followed closely by 5ks and 10ks. And while 84% are interested in participating in a well-known event, they’ll only do so for a reasonable price: $26-$50 is the sweet spot, even for a marathon, only 9% were willing to break $100."


full article here.....

https://www.chronotrack.com/...als-race-promotions/

WTC isn't the only option and they certainly don't even remotely control the sport despite running major events. In Aus WTC have been retracting and other events have filled the space left. I do wonder if the writing is on the wall for WTC in some respects, but Triathlon itself is still quite strong.

I'don't like to know where people are finding $75 races.

"This study on millennials and running races that does not bode well for getting them to ever do Triathlons"

but that never was the age where we got our athletes. triathlon has always been a sport where folks begin late and stay later. average age for men is 41, women 38 or 39 i think. that 41 year old male mean age has, coincidentally, been the case as long as i remember.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Sidenote - I find that swimming is actually the more expensive component out of the 3 s/b/r...

Swim:
- membership at local pool is $65 / month which makes $780/year
- consumables are swim shorts and goggles
- everything combined it's about $1000/year

Bike:
- $400/year in replacement components including tires

Run:
- 3 pairs of shoes (2 road, one trail) --> $500
- some running specific clothing --> $100

So about $2000 lets me train and swim, bike, run without doing any races and not including nutrition. Assuming no accidents or dramatic mechanical failure with my bike, the biking is in fact the lowest cost of all 3. So that shows that triathlon is more than just the biking - at least for me it is.

Piling on here, but what I've seen is a significant number of folks passing up racing at the local $50-$100 sprints and olys in order to get in a WTC IM. I've heard some say words to the effect, "I'm not going to that sprint any more. It used to only cost $40 and now it's $50!" Then they shell out a couple of grand for a WTC IM along with the travel expenses. The local (relatively inexpensive) races are struggling. Without any science based study on my part, it sure seems like this will eventually have an impact on participation in WTC events.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

We can find them here in Minneapolis....I could name 7-8 within 3 hours....$75-$85 for a sprint with no USAT one day fee...

Do you have some data on that Dan....seems like back in the 80's and 90's 25-29, 30-34 were the largest/large AG?

...and I just get this feeling that Millennials arent going to join with us later in life as much as the preceding generations....and I hope I am wrong....

$30 for goggles every year??? Shoot, I've been using same pair of $4.50 Swedes for about 10 yrs, with maintenance of two new bungee straps. And $10 for a swim cap??? What about all your caps from past triathlons, plus if you do the USMS Go The Distance challenge, you get a free cap every year. OTOH, I buy two suits per year at $30/suit so I guess we're about even on the whole. You ought to try those Swedes if you haven't though, best bang for your buck in goggles. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."