I am now.

Doesn't mean their bitching is rational or makes any sense. ;)

I always said $1000 was my cutoff.

The only exception is the one Ironman in my hometown.

Given I don't pay for flights, car hire or a condo, I can justify more for entry.

But if I am traveling, $1k is my cutoff.

BTW Kona last year only cost me about $600.

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I agree. Gee I agree with you a lot. You must be a great guy.

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well, if WTC can float IMNYC at $1200, even at a loss, "anchoring" makes people think $800 for some backwater IM is a bargain, even if it's not.

I think that we're in a period of transition, economically speaking with regard to IM pricing. Between $1200 IMs and the redistribution of Kona slots from the fast to the slow, I think it will take a couple of seasons for things to sort out.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

$600 for Kona?
Did you swim there, and then sleep on the beach?

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float , hammer , and jog

this has me thinking about driving to every race from now on. I live in the Pacific NW, so IMCdA and IMC have real appeal if I want to be able to afford to do Kona or take a vacation or something.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Perhaps we should all agree that $1200 is just TOO much for the OP and others but there is a sizable percentage of IM participants for whom it is not really that meaningful. Welcome to the capital markets and division of wealth.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
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The market dictates the price. I would not be surprised to see 2 k by the end of 2013. Especially if Lance works back into the mix somehow.
Think about it. Ironman Paris, Ironman Tokyo, Ironamn Hawaii spring edition,
Oh yeah, it's coming

If everything was as simple and straightforward as it is in the classroom everything would be so much easier !

Please... No... Don't... Stop.

There's a lot of this "market will sort this out soon" talk going on all over the place and about more important things than triathlon.
It's an over simplification.
I'm a supporter of free markets all day long. But I don't want to turn this into a conversation more suited to the Lavender Room.

The "right" price to enter an Ironman depends on a lot more than getting to a number where 20% of the public does not laugh. If that's how you think a business should price it's product I wouldn't hire you to run an f'n lemonade stand.

Ironman needs to decide many things. A very important decision is for how long they want to be making a profit in the business of running triathlon for profit. Sure, there is a price point in 2012 where they will balance this "willing buyer and willing seller" University of Phoenix MBA bullshit and maximize the profit for a particular race. WTC needs to think about profit this year. Of course they do. But if they want to be still making money in the triathlon business 10 years from now they need to think about what's good for the sport of Triathlon and Triathletes, their product and customers.

Their customers' perception of value for money and their willingness to come back and buy their product again and again is a far more complex calculation than just setting the price. I'm not claiming to be smart enough to solve it for them. But, I am claiming to be smart enough to know that increasing the price until 80% of the public laughs and goes to a competitor is a great strategy to make high profit margins for a very short period of time.

Well, thanks. My doc said I wasn't getting enough condescension in my diet, so your comment should pick things up nicely. At least you recognize you are not smart enough to know the magic number at which price becomes so objectionable that customers search out substitute providers regardless of perceived value. I don't think WTC/PEP knows that answer either. In my line of business price is not even in the top ten considerations of potential clients, and I suspect it might not be in the world of destination endurance racing either (see also NYC marathon). A customer who wants a Porsche knows that Porsches are expensive, but he has decided Porsches are the best and when he can afford one he buys it. Your perception of value or mine is irrelevant to him as he does not need our permission to act. If WTC is in the business of selling Porsches (Ironman) then it is 100x more important that they maintain the perceived value than it is they shave 10-50% off the price.

If people willfully pay such high fees then let them. The triathlon tax is one of the main reasons im favoring bike racing vs tri racing nowadays.

Fair enough. You see Ironman as a luxury brand positioned in the triathlon market Porsche in the car market.
If that's the way they go I don't think it's a business that can survive for more than a few more years.

How do you reconcile the idea that Ironman is the Porsche of triathlon with the "Fanfare of the common man", Al Trautwig voice-overed images conveying the message that in Ironman anything is possible for anybody?

Just think how many athletes will pay their mortgage off early if they stop entering WTC races...

finally admit? I've never paid $1200 for an entire race trip

So for the average competitor that's just under $100/hour for the race, is this an incentive to go as slow as possible to make the most of your money?

The best thing everyone can do here is starting discussing about other non-IM branded races because they are out there and they aren't extortionately priced. Go vote with your wallet and support the less well known races or if you have the means, start your own full distance triathlon event.


It's the distance that counts not the bullshit "You're an Ironman!" and the m-dot tattoo that everyone and his Ironmother has now. Heck can we even stop calling them ironman races, I think that would help, "full-distance" or "140.6".

busso 70.3 is only $320. you do need to be a member of triathlon australia to get pre-entry but being a member also supports local clubs and covers any further race day fees. mandurah 70.3 is only $320 as well. i am not cure where you get $550 from ?

I don't think it's hard to reconcile at all. Ironman does that for the same reason that luxury brands advertise and market to populations where only a small percentage will ever purchase their product. They are saying "we are the best" so when the buyer is ready, willing & able to acquire the best, it has been identified for them. Continuing the car analogy, I think they can survive a very long time as long as they maintain their standards (BMW, Porsche) and they will go up in flames if they do not (Jaguar). Note that substitutes are already making headway (Rev3, Challenge).

At $1200 the event is still attainable for millions of people. For the event to sell out, they only need ~2500-3000 people willing to say "yes" from the millions of people interested in doing so. Their brand is now global, and NYC is an international destination. Coincidentally, my wife and I were in NY this past weekend and at our hotel it seemed like most of the visitors were either speaking a foreign language or English with a significant accent (no, not a NY accent). 1/10 of 1% of the global population is still 7 million people.

In metro NY, the Giants and Jets have at least 100,000 season ticket holders between them. I figure the average cost of a season ticket is $2,000 (SWAG), with some costing significantly more than that. Figure in the total cost of going to NFL games (parking, food, travel, etc) and it gets significantly higher. This is only to demonstrate one example where a lot of people think some experiences are worth (in terms of discretionary spending) a lot more than doing the IM and are willing to pay for the privilege.

my apologies, mandurah is 300 odd your correct. However we did busso as a team and it was around 440. As an individual it was more. How did you get $320?

No because there is no such thing as "Too much".

Economics 101 states that the marginal propensity for people to consume (and spend for products) is highly correlated to their income level. Some Italian sports cars sell for $1 MM and there is a wait list for those. Houses in Malibu sell for $25 MM and they sell after a few weeks in the market. A used Rolex Daytona watch can fetch over $25,000 and there will always be buyers for those watches.

As an economist, I see and analyze market forces that drive valuations of products, services and goods. For as long as there is a demand for something and the deman slope is positive, the price for that something will always go up. In the case of IMNY, the $1,200 was well above the equilibrium price hence it did not sell out, but that there were still registrants for it and that it could still have future registrants had the registration continued on. That price was not "too much" above equilibrium.

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No doubt that WTC is a for profit business. I looked up the registration fees for the New York marathon. $255 with a cap of 60,000 participants. $15,300,000. Dare I say a marathon has far easier logistics than an ironman distance race. I believe that the difficulty organizing the event and the resultant costs associated to make people happy and to turn a profit in NYC will make it a one time event. WTC sells smaller towns on the advantages of them running the race in those towns. There is not enough of a payoff for Jersey and New York City to care if WTC shows up or not.

Just a guess.

But they didn't. Tells me it was a risk they could'nt afford under the circumstances. Price, Value, Experience, it just didn't click on this one and they realized that after the fact. This fiasco is much worst than the Kona one, imo.
But you got to like what is happening now, with Rev3 twitts, HITS price announcement timing. Hopefully more to come.
Competition is a good thing.

Competition is indeed key in determining the price equilibrium. At the end of the day, competition by the producers for the consumers makes everything better. Producers strive make better products and services (benefits consumers) and offers these at the cheapest prices (again benefits consumers.)

Now to touch on a sensitive topic... we should also be aware that Slowtwitch.com will have a future competitor. The question is how soon?


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