davejustdave wrote:
Beachboy wrote:
The best thing about what I do, even the entry level "ditch digger" make more then then some college boy with a BS degree.
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If you are paying your ditch diggers 135 an hour, hell, even 60 an hour, I WANT TO COME WORK FOR YOU! Manual labor in Ca goes for minimum wage. That's what? $11 an hour now? 10? I know I couldn't survive on that, and I'd bet dimes to dollars 99.99 percent of triathletes out there couldn't eithier.
Those people doing that kind of work work harder than anyone else out there just to pay their bills, being scared of hard work and commitment are not the reason they won't do triathlons. Not even close. The cost is. There are way, way, waaaayyyy more people earning that kind of dough than there are making 60-135 an hour, yet triathlon is increasingly moving towards exclusively marketing to the people in that $60+++/hr demographic.
But we wonder why numbers drop? You want growth you have to widen the demo you market to, not increasingly narrower it by continually raising the bar to entry.
Take a look at the census data on income, look at the average household income (55k for a 2 income house IIRC), and compare it to the average triathlete income per USAT (yeah yeah, I know, survey bias, blah blah blah math). They are so disparete it's plain to see this is a richer than average person sport.
$10 races would still be too much for minimum wage earners. Basically races target the people that can pay, and if you get past a certain threshold, a $100, $200 or $1000 entry really isn't going to kill your race. People over say $100/hour, just want a good event. $10/hour people will never enter. No use chasing that demographic.
It would be nice if everyone could afford to race, but that's more an issue of income rather than race entry fees. That's not nice, but it's reality.
TriDork
"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"