Hi guys,
I discussion with Fleck on fb gave me the impetus to post this.
Contrary to what people may think with an over emphasis on Ironman branded events, the lifeblood of the sport is our local race director. Those people are barely making money, often losing money, doing it around a kitchen table with friends and family because they have the passion to give us a venue to do sport and derive happiness from putting their time into this somewhat thankless job.
Ironman races get or got a lot of revenue before the Covid19. For local tris, most of us register at the last moment because we don't really need to register early. But they also have expenses that they have to incur many months before their races. These are sunk costs and they may often pay for these out of their own previous year's proceeds to get this year's event going.
If all of us "don't register" because there may not be an event this year, what is likely going to happen in many cases, is there will be no event this and next year, because many of these people who are pretty smart will just go back to doing jobs in the corporate world on a steady paycheque. They don't need to do this, but we need them to be around minimally for next year.
I totally get that a lot of us will have zero income during this time (some of us will be paying employees while we generate zero income too), so times are tight for all. But if you can enter some of your local races for later this summer it will go a long way to help preserve the triathlon ecosystem that we depend on.
In closing, no one put me up to this. It was bothering me last night before going to bed that so many enterprises will go out of business, and should there be a second half to the season, it would be a shame if many had to cancel simply because they did not have enough registrations.
So if each of us can spare a small amount, every local race series that we can help save will only serve us later (hopefully this year, for sure next year). I am registered for a full line up of local Olympic tris and will register for two more that I was not sure about previously prior to this outbreak.
I discussion with Fleck on fb gave me the impetus to post this.
Contrary to what people may think with an over emphasis on Ironman branded events, the lifeblood of the sport is our local race director. Those people are barely making money, often losing money, doing it around a kitchen table with friends and family because they have the passion to give us a venue to do sport and derive happiness from putting their time into this somewhat thankless job.
Ironman races get or got a lot of revenue before the Covid19. For local tris, most of us register at the last moment because we don't really need to register early. But they also have expenses that they have to incur many months before their races. These are sunk costs and they may often pay for these out of their own previous year's proceeds to get this year's event going.
If all of us "don't register" because there may not be an event this year, what is likely going to happen in many cases, is there will be no event this and next year, because many of these people who are pretty smart will just go back to doing jobs in the corporate world on a steady paycheque. They don't need to do this, but we need them to be around minimally for next year.
I totally get that a lot of us will have zero income during this time (some of us will be paying employees while we generate zero income too), so times are tight for all. But if you can enter some of your local races for later this summer it will go a long way to help preserve the triathlon ecosystem that we depend on.
In closing, no one put me up to this. It was bothering me last night before going to bed that so many enterprises will go out of business, and should there be a second half to the season, it would be a shame if many had to cancel simply because they did not have enough registrations.
So if each of us can spare a small amount, every local race series that we can help save will only serve us later (hopefully this year, for sure next year). I am registered for a full line up of local Olympic tris and will register for two more that I was not sure about previously prior to this outbreak.