Jhanley wrote:

That’s not really the point. Attendance is way down. One of the obvious reasons is the venues.

The more likely reason is due to the fact that triathlon numbers are down across the board. I little while back I went about mapping the number of races and participant numbers in my home state where I started tri (Montana) over a 15 year period since I got into the sport.

In 2010-15 there was 15+ road tri’s across the state ranging from 50-450 participants with the majority having 100+

This year there were just 6 road tri's in the state . I looked through results in those races from 2018, 2019, and 2021 and at best they are getting 50% of the participation they were in . But most seem to be maybe 20-30% what they used to be. So basically you have gone from something like 2000+ total registrants/finishers between all the races to maybe 150. That’s about a 95% decrease from what it used to be. It wouldn’t surprise me if half of the races that are left are gone in the next couple of years. Tri’s are hard to put on and if you are only getting 20-40 people it’s tough to keep going.

Hopefully other states are doing a bit better. In my current locale (WA/ID border) I have seen maybe a third of the tri's fold in the past 6 years.

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Matt

It certainly isn't the venue. The venue is nearly perfect for the race.

It could be the city/location in the US, but I don't buy that because some of the highest participation years were in Milwaukee.

From https://www.visitwilliamsburg.com/...eGroup_2023-2024.pdf

2007 ......Portland, OR ...............1,200
2008 ......Portland, OR ...............1,100
2009 ......Tuscaloosa, AL ............1,100
2010 ......Tuscaloosa, AL ............1,700
2011 ......Burlington, VT ............ 2,500
2012 ......Burlington, VT ............ 3,500
2013 ......Milwaukee, WI ........... 4,300
2014 ......Milwaukee, WI ........... 5,780
2015 ......Milwaukee, WI ........... 5,370
2016 ......Omaha, NE ................. 4,100
2017 ......Omaha, NE ................. 3,700
2018 ...... Cleveland, OH ............ 5,450
2019 ...... Cleveland, OH ............ 4,400

You could argue that the location of Omaha was a negative based on that data. The only years 2013-2019 where attendance was less than 4,300.

Did the Oly. 60-64 AG. It did get hot on the run for sure!

A little off topic, but I think that it's interesting that, in consecutive years and at the same location, attendance can be so variable. 2009-2010 Tuscaloosa is the one to look at here in this clip from the full document linked as a PDF. From 1,100 to 1,700, so +600 or >50% increase. There are others, too... 2018-2019 dropped 1,050 from 5,450, so almost a loss of 20%. 2011-2011 gained 1,000 on 2,500, so an increase of 40%. Referring back to the PDF at earlier years, there are plenty of other examples, so this is not a recent phenomenon. Since USAT membership/involvement isn't likely to be changing 40% in a year, I do wonder... Does the 1st year of a venue influence the 2nd year attendance if the location is great (increase) or not-so-great (decrease)? I've been to Tuscaloosa and Irving (multisport, not long tri) and they were very different. But would I not go the 2nd year because of the venue? I don't think so / it would need to be pretty wretched (and these two locations were fine). I wouldn't go b/c I was injured or had a timing conflict - which is super possible this year as Irving and Ibiza (World's) are a week apart and right at the end of the academic year when I'm most busy...

2009 was only Olympic. 2010 was Olympic and 1st year of Sprint.