If you look into booking at the Fairmont, rooms range from $449 - 799 PER NIGHT. Yeah right.
clm
From: Jenkins, Lisa
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 10:46 AM
To: Escape2Bermuda
Subject: One-time offer to secure your spot in the 2008 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon!
Importance: High
The Escape to Bermuda Triathlon is the newest event in Escape to Alcatraz Triathlon Series and takes place October 20-21, 2007. The race covers the islands from end to end featuring a 1-mile swim, 24-mile bike, and 6-mile run.
We are offering a special deal to secure a spot in the 2008 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. The first 100 people to sign up for the Escape to Bermuda Triathlon and book 4 or more nights at the Fairmont Southampton will receive a guaranteed race slot in the 2008 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. This offer will be available beginning Thursday August 16, 2007 at 12:00am Pacific Time and expire on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 11:59pm Pacific Time.
To qualify for the race slot in the 2008 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon in San Francisco, participants must:
Participate in the 2007 Escape to Bermuda Triathlon (this does NOT apply to the Bermuda Shorts Triathlon)
Book and stay 4 or more nights at the Fairmont Southampton. Rooms must be booked by September 9, 2007.
This offer is not transferable. If you are unable to attend the event or do not stay 4 or more nights at the Fairmont Southampton, you will not be eligible for the race slot. Individuals will not qualify if they book and stay in the same hotel room. Those who are within the first 100 will be notified by September 1, 2007.
You are only coming to this conclusion now. It’s been that way for years. I recall back in the early days of IMH many of the top finishing AG’s were doctors and other high ranking business professionals. In fact, I recall Lew Kidder joking once in early coverage of IMH in Triathlon Today, wondering what would happen if their was a real medical emergency in California on IMH weekend as many of them were all over in Hawaii!! Now it’s gone to the next level completely.
A while ago I figured out the the average triathlete makes 5 times as much money as I do. But Bermuda has always been a kind of rich, snobby kind of place - formal shorts notwithstanding.
But - who knows? - this kind of triathlon is maybe exploring the possibility of looking for alternatives to exclusive golf clubs as places where big deals can be quietly made while the riff-raff are kept at a distance. To THOSE people this deal is actually throwaway cheap, though, so maybe not.
It looks to me like they happen to be catering to the rich triathlete, but I don’t see anything exclusionary (is that a word?) here. It looks to me like if you take a vacation and spend money there, they will throw in a desirable race entry. Not much different than going to a golf resort for $600 a night for a week and they throw in a free driver or putter. It is not like this is the only way to get a spot for Alcatraz now.
Technically if you want to demonstrate a trend you would need to show two (even better if you show more) examples of stuff like this. This would be more of a disturbing instance.
I am guessing that you can sign up for the Bermuda race, stay someplace that is reasonably priced (at least for Bermuda), and still qualify for a slot at Alcatraz.
I would definitely call that race a “boutique” event … I can see more and more of those in the future. Not cool … Of course for everyone who doesn’t live there, IM and other races around the world are also very expensive.
It bums me out when the classic races in the U.S. that I want to do someday (like Alcatraz) get so difficult to get into and they charge so much. I see where this is headed and it sucks …
ironclm, I know you and I butt heads once in a while (maybe more than that) and you’re not entirely enamoured with my iteration on this forum. I must, however, once again, take issue on this one.
I believe what you are suggesting is that a trend toward exclusive events marketed toward a high discretionary income demographic is somehow objectionable.
I disagree.
My slant is that diversity in sport should not only extend across racial and cultural backgrounds but also across economic ones.
At either end of the economic specturm there exists a leisure class- the hyper wealthy and the utterly financially destitute that live out of trash cans in the parking lots at Yosemite to dedicate themselves to sports like big wall climbing. We see some of that in triathlon.
On a good day I’m an upper middle class guy but I’ve been excited to share a helicopter ride with a billionare at a race in France. That’s an opportunity few other sports would offer a commoner like me.
I think this move toward races catering toward the well-to-do are good. I don’t see this to the exclusion of the normal races we have where the field is small, the venue modest and the entry fee reasonable. That is the backbone of the sport. I see the emergence of the high-end event as an acknowledgement that triathlon is the new golf, and I fail to see much wrong with that…
a) this is nothing new…triathlon is an expensive sport already, with $500 entry fees and $5000 bikes. Everyone I talk to outside of the sport is floored when the subject of cost come up.
b) this is not unique to triathlon. Golf at a top-notch course can easily be upwards of $300 a round, you can easily drop $2K on a set of irons, etc, etc. Ever hear of baseball fantasy camps? Plenty of sports have similar luxury packages that cater to the top-end of the market.
c) I don’t see how this is disturbing. There are plenty of options for the triathlete on a budget…local races, non M-dot IM’s, lower end gear (let’s be honest…is a $2K bike that much slower than a $5K bike as long as it fits?)
As to the specific example you cited, Bermuda is an exclusive destination irregardless of the triathlon. Not a lot of Motel 6’s or Marriott Courtyards there. Of course going to a race there is going to be pricey.
I took the OP to be simply a lighthearted post using the wording from a previous post that had a lot of traction. Rather than any real disagreement with the luxury holiday package idea.
You make a couple of wild logical jumps to get from that email to “Triathlon is for the rich only”. As with almost everything, money does buy you priveleges, but one outlandishly priced event hardly makes the entire rest of the sport exclusionary.
This “offer” represents 6% of the total Alcatraz slots. 7 different races have half the amount of slots that can be bought here (a total of 3.5 times as many slots). These slots can be earned at only the cost of the entry fee for that race. And the rest are open to a lottery that costs $0.00 to enter. Even the not-rich can afford that.
I am not surprised to find that a triathlon held on a tropical island in the caribbean is mad expensive. But there’s literally hundreds of examples of inexpensive races in the US at which a person could stay at an econolodge, camp, or similar.
Color me not impressed by this example of a disturbing trend.
I took the OP to be simply a lighthearted post using the wording from a previous post that had a lot of traction. Rather than any real disagreement with the luxury holiday package idea.
I guess you have to slap people upside the head. You do get it.
I’m confused. I’m not exactly sure what you find so disturbing about this. Don’t you spend thousands of dollars traveling to and racing in Brazil every year in addition to all the other races you do all over the US and the world. If you find it so disturbing, there are a lot of cheaper alternatives.
In any event, the offer of new products and choices, including the packaged race/vaction to which you refer, is welfare-enhancing, not disturbing.
