I watched the Tour in person 4 times. I spent probably $40 TOTAL and that was to park and then buying food at Solvang.

Aside from when Lance was racing, I don’t think it ever had enough hype to attract significant amount of out of town visitors. Watching it this year on TV it was sad to see how empty the finishing chutes were.

I’m guessing the majority of Californians had no clue the race was even going on the past 5+ years.

Sounds like everyone here is way smarter than Beacon Economics or any economics firms that does economic analysis for governments and the private sector. Looks like the ToC only generated about $100/day for 7 days, so it totally makes sense to sunset it. N=1 qualitative analysis rules!

I actually don't care. I was just quoting the article. The data-less insights are humorous to me.

First off, no need to take it personally. Nobody was attacking you.

Secondly, here's what you need to understand about these sorts of "economic benefit" analyses: nobody has the first clue who "benefited", but it's very clear who paid the bill. This reminds me of the 34th Americas Cup in San Francisco. On face value, it sounded like a steal. It cost $5.5 million to host, which the City of San Francisco got the bill for, while it supposedly generated $364 million in benefits (with some estimates as high as $550 million). Guess what... when the time came to decide if Team Oracle would defend their title in SF, the city's answer was "no way in F*&%ing hell are we paying for that again."

So yes, I'm sure Beacon Economics is very clever at coming up with great "economic benefit analysis" - just maybe not so good at identifying who benefited.

My N=1 experience certainly was far more reflective of the typical ToC spectator than your 50,000 people spending $200 a day scenario. I don't know if you are from CA, but I'm guessing not cause then you would realize that there are very few people that would want to take time off work and spend the night at many of the host cities. Sacramento? Stockton? Ontario? Santa Clarita? (no offense if anyone is lives in one of those cities).

:) :)

I did not take it personally at all. My part in this thread began with the comment that the official claimed benefit was a big number, and the race organizer was a crappy negotiator or business manager for not fully leveraging that. It was really tongue-and-cheek. In my city, when big public projects are underway (like stadiums), the governments, contractors, and owners all rally around the big economic benefit numbers. It does not matter whether they are made up, those numbers are leveraged to justify the thing.

See, it's win-win for when big concerts and events like the Superbowl come to town. There's money made on both sides.

For cycling, it appears to me that in the case of "hotels, restaurants, local spending" that only the local area stands to make some jingle. You're not going to make a bundle in TV rights. You're not going to be selling tickets. There is limited merch sales.

Or..........nobody makes hardly anything.

I also find it really two-faced for some localities to claim such a hardship for it when they'll willingly let some motorcycle convention or souped up economy car convention take over and destroy and run amok in their towns for a little jingle. But that having the cyclists come through for a stage or one day is such a horrible thing.

Or the traffic and closures for a concert/stadium don't bother folks.

I say make sports betting on cycling legal again. Sure, we say it ruins things..........but losing sports betting ruined the massive original track cycling phenomenon in the US. Maybe allowing it will bring numbers back?

The cities are contractually obligated to pony up for large number of hotel rooms, staff time, police time, and other expenses to host for ToC.
For example, the city of Ventura was on the hook for almost ~180k in expenses for their day hosting the ToC in 2019.

https://www.cityofventura.ca.gov/.../View/14341/Item-12B

But that's still money that got spent in those towns that otherwise wouldn't have been.

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

That's great, but that's really the heart of the problem. The people that are footing the bill (race organizers) get none of the benefit. So what we're left with is:

Local municipalities - don't care that their local diner is making a few extra bucks. They just care that they don't have to pay the cost of road closures, police, etc. our of their town budget so they bill the race organizers for ALL of that.

Local businesses - make a little extra money but don't contribute anything back to the race organizers in exchange.

Local public - are, by and large, just really annoyed that their roads are closed for some event that they care nothing about.

Race 0rganizers - get to cover all the costs and rely on sponsors to try to cover costs, as there are no tickets sales to make any money off of like in other sports. They get nothing back from the one group that does get some benefit (local businesses).

Is it any wonder that race organizers are struggling to make this work financially? Kudos to Amgen for being the title sponsor for as long as they were. They're really the only reason the ToC went on for as long as it did. Just reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Amgen finally stopped seeing the ROI in sponsoring the ToC so the race organizers are trying desperately to find a new title sponsor, hence the "one year hiatus". If they find a new sponsor, it'll be back. If not, it's dead. I wouldn't be surprised to see it come back in a shorter (2-3 day) format to try to run it on a much smaller budget.

it seems in california everyone is looking for what is in it directly for them. in europe the towns pay (sometimes big) money to host races as it brings in people, money and exposure for shared benefit. in a newer, non-EU context, TdU was created because the locals wanted something to replace the F1 GP they lost and replicate those benefits. it is significantly state funded but only because the state as a whole benefits from it. some of the other US race hosts seem to have understood this too.

the cycling model doesn't have the direct income streams that many other sports do, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't economic benefit, it just requires stakeholders to look a bit deeper and cooperate so everyone plays their part in creating something worthwhile.

This is why I find it difficult that Ironman is able to extract fees from municipalities and not have to pay for stuff...this isn't Europe y'all.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I don't know that this is a California-only phenomenon. I think that the "spirit of cooperation" only gets you so far, and is probably at least part of the reason why ToC lasted for 14 years. But, when municipalities are struggling to balance budgets and have to choose between laying off police officers or starting to charge for services like this, something's gotta give.

This is why I find it difficult that Ironman is able to extract fees from municipalities and not have to pay for stuff//

But these two things are completely different. Ironman does bring in millions to a local economy, and that is not too hard to track. If there are 3000 folks in a race, probably 2/3 came in from out of town, and need rooms and meals. And I would guess that a lot of people come in a week in advance, so the impact can be pretty substantial. The bike race brings in a few press and a couple of people to watch. Ironman probably gets a very high % of family and friends to come along too, so besides the athlete, you got that going for the economy too..


Cities get their moneys worth out of hosting an ironman event, the only question is do you need/want the hassle that come along with it? Most answer yes, but as we have seen, some just punt on the whole thing..

I think you're underestimating that by quite a bit. First, the entire race team and race staff entourage fills several hotels each night. I've seen this in person, e.g. hotel clusters with all the team buses parked outside, etc.

Second, the crowds can be impressive. It's hard to gauge how many travel from some other place. But those crowds are going to eat out, etc., typically.

It's not the Tour de France, but it's still pretty legit.

Ya, but those are local crowds coming in for a few hours to watch the race, maybe eating one meal. And the teams and such, that is what a lot of those free rooms from the city were for. But ok, a few 100 people came in town for 1/2 a day, maybe got a room, ate a meal or two, then were gone. That picture on the bike path would look exactly like that without the race. Block off the road for a couple hours, and the normal crowd looks pretty much like that, not spending any money too.

I said it before, triathletes on the other hand coming to do an ironman, book probably 3 to 7 nights, 3 meals a day, and some other outside stuff too. I would always go watch a couple movies before big races, maybe take in a museum or some other local thing to do..And that is in the 1000's, so nothing like having the TOC for half a day and night, at all...

Each municipality's agreement is different and Ventura's costs were on the high end because they hosted the opening stage of the women's race (start and finish), including the kick-off press conference, and a men's stage finish. Also, note that the city was only required to offer 155 rooms on the peak night but the total number of hotel rooms for all the staff and teams is closer to 400 and, IIRC, we were there for two nights.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

At the end of the day, this event costs a lot of money to produce. AEG refused to cut corners because they wanted to provide a first class event for the teams, sponsors, and fans. Every year, local municipalities were cutting back on what they were able to provide, so AEG absorbed those costs and tried to offset it through sponsorship. They've been losing money on this event or barely breaking even for years. I don't know for sure because I'm not involved in the day-to-day operation of the race but it seems like a number of factors all came together at the right (err, wrong) time...increasing costs of race production, sponsor turnover, Grand Tour dynamics, Olympic year, etc. I, like most fans of the sport, hope it can be reborn in 2021 as a profitable, sustainable, and world-class event.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

Second, the crowds can be impressive.//

I have been looking for my pics from 3 different years, two times I was at the KOM, and the other I was at the mountain top finish. For the KOM there were about 20 people, and the hilltop finish, maybe a 100+. There were all out my front door, so I imagine most of the folks were like me, drove up to have a look, and then went home. Of course the crowds are a lot bigger in city finishes like you posted, but once again, I bet most of those folks drove in to watch, then went home. Some of course are traveling fans, but apparently the final arbiter on our discussion has spoke, and it says they spent more than they took in...

I'd guess it's much higher than 2/3rds at most venues. Whatever it is, after then event, IM can give the host city concrete data with the # of athletes who competed, and, importantly, what zip codes they came from. Inferences and assumptions begin from there, but at least you're starting with something objective.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

What killed the Amgen Tour of California.


https://www.velonews.com/...ren-interview_502524

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Train safe & smart
Bob