You are not USAT's primary customer. The RD is

USAT sanctions races. You pay a fee to hold a license to race USAT sanctioned events. USAT doesn't put on events, RDs do and they aren't putting them on currently.

The fact is there have been many USAT sanctioned events this year. You've had the opportunity to participate in these events.

USAT has in fact fulfilled their end of the bargain by sanctioning events. Now they may not be the events you wanted to participate in yet you've had the opportunity to race this year already using your USAT license.

If you participated in a USAT sanctioned camp you've also used your license. There have been many camps you could have participated in this year. We got ~ 30h of training in the week long camp I had to cite 1 example.

Your passion is evident i think we can all agree on that.

PS- Rugby is a sport. Baseball.......well I could argue against that being a sport but I digress.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

This is a bullshit disingenuous argument. You do know that even the scumbag auto insurance companies are refunding part of their premiums now because people are not driving? Yeah, they could have made the same argument - oh too bad, you could still be driving although you have nowhere really to drive to.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I love this.

Depending on specifics.
Auto insurance can be hundreds to a few thousand per year. Gym memberships hundreds to a few thousand per year.

The USAT membership is $50 for the year.

It's a bummer, but not sure its worth getting upset about. Maybe in a few months they will announce they will let the renewal ride another three months.

i am paying for a bunch of services i don't need right now. i'm not rich but think it's the right thing to do to try to support the economy. hopefully if i lose my job in the near future, somehow the karma will pay me back. but specific to a service like USAT license fee, rather than refund part or all of this would it make more sense to extend memberships to include an additional even or 2 in 2021? or discount 2021 membership. that way they can hold onto $$ at this point..

and FYI, i'm in the Brad Culp camp...there is not going to be any mass event racing in 2020. especially not any that involve internationally field. let me put it this way... if you are 65 years old and have a few underlying health issues, or maybe that describes your parents...are you going to participate in a race with 2k participants crammed into a corral or transition swapping spit and sweat, grabbing water cups and snacks on an open table. just not seeing it until there is a vaccine. maybe they can find a way to pull off super small local races or pros only bike and tri races,
but that's my 2 cents.

I'm not holding my breath on anything this year and you nailed it with big International events. I haven't paid for ITU Worlds in Edmonton because I'm not sure it will happen and don't want the hassle of them processing a refund.

On thread topic... I'm not really sweating USAT membership. I look at it as me supporting the sport hopefully... most years I race 10+ times but this year who knows?

Did a search and this seemed to be the only thread.

So I get the 1 yr membership not being refunded, as there are some races. But what about 1 day licenses? I paid $15 for a 1 day license for St George, received a free deferral and am now being told to pay another 1 day fee for the new Ironman. How does that make sense?

Not upset, just trying to understand the principle of paying the insurance twice. I always do the 1 day since I rarely race.

The email I got today says you'll be refunded for the first purchase:

If you purchased a one-day USAT license, you will be required to re-purchase the one-day license while completing the below link. Your original purchase will be refunded by USAT in 3-4 weeks, if you have not already been contacted by USAT.

Here’s the thing about USAT fees—you get incredibly low value for them when there are races. Basically, you get a couple referees on the back of motorcycles that barely bother to enforce drafting rules. The rest of the money goes to the Olympic development, bureaucrats, and whatever other initiatives they want to publicize.

Whether you get to race or not is irrelevant—all that other stuff you subsidize continues.

Incorrect. USAT funds Olympic Development through sponsorship and philanthropy.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Correction then: all the money goes to the bureaucratic infrastructure

We all complain until get schwacked in a race, then we use the secondary insurance to pay bills.

It's funny. The Rugby people say the same thing. The archery people the same. The hockey people say the same. But the reality is there is value for $50/year. You may not appreciate it. But it is there. Not sure what else you would desire.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

That's swell and everything but what percentage of people who pay that fee actually use the insurance? More to the point: What percentage of people would spring for it if it were optional?

Every sport in the world is a duathlon: the actual sport, then competitive vitriol against the governing body.

Couple of points.
- the officials are requested by and paid by the RD, not USAT.
- my experience is the officials officiate drafting when they see it happen. Have you considered becoming one to help the sport?

Who would want to deal with the triathletes that need the officiating? We have a bunch of blatant cheaters in the sport, who would be whiny bitches as soon as they got a penalty.

You have a conflict in interest in having a fair race. The RDs don’t want to have people not come to their race because they got a penalty or dqed, but they’re the ones paying for the officials. But to solve the problem of the obvious drafting and cheaters you need to DQ them.

Until you change how that piece functions you’re not going to get enough people to officiate and you’re not going to fix the cheaters.

Meh, it's the same model in most sports, and the "conflict of interest" doesn't seem to be a problem.

The people who would consider not coming to a race because they can't freely break rules are probably generally toxic and hurt business by showing up at all. It's a win-win if rule enforcement drives them off.

I think Waingro had it correct ... "incredibly low value for the money."

With the long lists of people signing up for the over-crowded IM races, the whiny bitches can get penalties and if they don't sign up next year, someone else will.

I see no money lost from the big races where drafting is rampant.

Then why hasn’t it happened? We know there are officials at Ironman, they could fill a book with penalties but they don’t. The officials and RDs don’t want to deal with it.

I agree with you that I’d rather not have them there but it’s not that simple or it would have happened.

I think it hasn't happened because they just don't care. The bean counters treat it like a business and not a passion.