I voted for one day in Kona that is split by equal % of participants…
Like it’s always been.
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Do you think the age groups should be equally split as well? If not, why not?
FWIW, in order, I put (from most to least preferred):
2 days traveling the world
2 days in Kona
1 day, everyone together, traveling the world, 50-50 split on slots
2 days as it is today
1 day, everyone together, Kona, 50-50 split on slots
1 day, everyone together, traveling the world, old allocation
1 day, everyone together, Kona, old allocation
Really feel like if they’re going to go back to one day, and be consistent with the message sent by starting the split…they’ve got to keep the premise of equal slots for men/women.
But I also think that it is premature for them to come to conclusions about the success/failure of two days yet…it was always the second cycle that would see if numbers made more sense. Anyways.
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Since i didn’t get to vote… Thank you.
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Let’s think about this as a business. Of the options given, which one presents the greatest return for lowest risk?
Kona probably has the greatest monetary return but also the highest risk (literally getting kicked off the island).
The rotating venue has a financial upside in that you can have venues bid to host, a new group of participants interested in the venue, etc. IMO the big risk here is what happens to Kona? Does it just become another 140?
For this reason alone I can’t see MDot moving away from Kona entirely. I think the most likely scenario is 2 days, Kona and a rotating venue. Gives the stability of the “Kona Boost” and still captures the market of a rotating venue.
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Wasn’t it always going to be a “failure” no matter the 2nd location if the Kona option was always going to be available “next year” for participants? And I’m not saying they should have moved off Kona entirely (I’m in the camp to move WC around), but the setup was always going to give IM the data it wants- the importance of Kona.
(IE do I think IM Corp falls off with race numbers if they actually moved away from Kona…no I think “we” would all simply recalibrate…but when X race is just always there 1 year away at worse, you don’t really give anyone any reason to actual “move on”…and again I’m not saying Kona actually moves on. I just think when they look at women in Nice as a “failure” so that’s why it has to go back to Kona only…it was destined to “fail” no matter what location they choose)
ETA: And I’m not saying Kona isn’t the end all be all, “special” birthplace, name all the superlatives you want. But the way they were “rotating” was destined to basically come out with “this is why Kona is so special, no one wants to race anywhere but Kona”.
I think it would be a huge step backwards to go to 1 day Kona. PTN was the 1st time I actually heard credible/real whispers that “2 days” can work in Kona again a few weeks ago on their pod.
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No, I don’t think so.
The question of failure was always going to be around whether you could get enough women to Nice. And unfortunately, with the way that the first set of qualifying races went and when Kona was in 2023, you wound up where the first set of North American qualifying races were all bunched too close to Kona 23 to take a lot of your typical frequent flyers for IMWC – leaving them to either travel to races outside of North America to chase a slot, or all the eggs went into the Texas / Lake Placid bucket, or waiting until you saw when there were slots offered at 70.3s. But to have a really small qualification window for where the largest percentage of your women’s participants come from was always going to result in Nice '24 being sizably different than Kona '23 was.
The outcome was predictable for this year. It was always just a question of what changes would happen for the next round of qualification, and whether those numbers grew. That’s where I think this is a premature action to take.
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The outcome was predictable for this year.
I guess my point is the outcome was predictable from the day they divided up the WC races but kept Kona in the rotation as “1 year away”. Let alone didn’t they even give people the chance to “delay” their WC entry to the event they wanted in the 1st years of the rotation; or was that an urban legend?
Obviously they as a business can’t truly run a WC rotation of say 4-5 year window (including Kona) to actually see the value of Kona and/or give the sport the ability to “move on” from Kona lore. So the way they did it to me was sorta like “no duh” everyone is going to pick the Kona option.
So I guess I’m saying that I don’t necessarily agree that the reason people didn’t pick Nice was because of the NQ races or timeline. I thought it was obvious people aren’t going to pick another race location if Kona is still an 1 year away option.
Even the men were 10% more for Kona than Nice (that venue has gotten ~2800 on site, so well below “capacity”). Does IM give out more WC spots based on the venue’s capacity or keep the same numbers ~2500 because that’s what Kona can hold?
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Outside of getting kicked off the island (at which point you just opt for #2 option), Kona is arguably the most steady. You leverage your brand to keep your base of KQ dreamers but your upside is probably more limited. It’s a known brand that you leverage to keep the pipeline of dreamers going. But you’re limiting yourself to 2500 slots in an island in the Pacific that not everyone can travel to, and saying no to trying to grow women’s sport on its own merits.
On the flip side, a traveling WC has higher upside but more risk - you separate yourself from one of your biggest brand assets but you now open your opportunity set to those who can’t afford to travel to Hawaii. More slots means more people can dream, and keeping it in different locations means that you might be able to swing more repeat customers. There’s also a bigger upside to having a women’s only day. But it comes with a big downside in that you’ve now severed the Kona dream and have to rebuild a WC brand on its own. All those NBC broadcasts now do you no service and you have to start again somewhat. You’ve also built a following of vocal athletes who prefer Kona and might not want to stick around to let this new thing develop.
If you rotated the WC, you’d just make Kona a legacy/lottery 140.6. Number of ballots = number of IMs raced in the past 10 years of something. Suddenly your legacy group is taken care of and you have a 2nd premium race to market.
Every few years, perhaps on the big milestones (60 year anniversary, 75 year, or whatever) you’d bring the WC back to the island to celebrate however many days the town will give you.
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Still haven’t gotten my survey. But maybe that’s cause I haven’t raced in over 2 years.
Your whole post is really good analysis, but this part is massive. Kona was already like 50% higher priced than other IM’s. They could surely keep that price the same even without the WC label and still sell out. I don’t remember if Nice was also marked up when it was WC, but sure seems like something they could do with any venue.
Plus if they announce the venue early enough they can advertise for the year prior as well. “Come to IM Place and get a preview of the WC course for next year”
I would vote for two days rotating (that technically covers some years in Kona two days rotating). If the survery can be used to pressurize the town of Kona for two days rotating, that makes the majority happy. If everyone votes for 2 days Kona, and IM shows that to the town, the negotiating strength is in the hands of the town, if IM says, “you know what, we really want to stay here, but our athletes from around the world will go anywhere, then maybe they thing twice”.
Having said all that, what’s stopping a 5000 person one day race with transition behind the King Kam hotel. The pier restriction seems artificial, as they used that parking lot for T1 and T2 either in 2001 or 2002 when the pier had construction. Just slightly longer transition times, but maybe not if you flow it so you run direct (right now tranition times include out and back loop of transition)
I haven’t raced in eight years and got the survey.
I voted mostly for leave as is or else back to kona one day.
Although the more time I spend in newzealand I think moving it would be a good choose as each place has so much to offer that the other doesn’t . Variety can be good .
I am just worried the year my age might be near the bottom of my age group it might not be somewhere I want to attend ???
I need two - 3 years to plan so staying consistent is important .
That’s funny cause I didn’t get it either. Probably Ironman went over and said, “make sure this does not go out to Bryan and Dev, it’s more entertaining watching those jokers dug in on each side as they keep spending money with us, and influencing others to keep spending money with us, we need more jokers like that !!!”
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Both myself and mrs IP have been racing for over 20 years (60 I’m between us ) and neither of us got the survey yet
She just KQ at IMWA and we have both raced kona plenty of times
Neither of us will go anywhere else to race outside of OZ for any race really apart from kona
While the first women only race at kona was super special with just lady’s , it was totally different feel and a really enjoyable race day
The lack of interest in filling the spots even at kona is somewhat sad that pretty much anyone can still go if they want
Mrs IP won her age and was the first to take hers 1 spot in 64/69 with a 12-30 is pretty solid race time for a 67 year old
There was a lady doing her first IM on our table and she was there hoping to go
We said just hang around you will get a spot if u want
She came 28 in the 45/49 I think it was and sure as eggs after Offering it to the first couple in the age group winners they just say who ever wants to go come up on stage
So that’s what she did
While we are happy for her it certainly takes the sine off mrs IP win
The men was even worse
We actually went home and went back to the “roll down” 90 mins later and they where still trying to give away the spots
I think the 40/44 went down to 56 spot
Roll down in Oz used to take about 10 mins with pretty much every one taking the spot and hardly any roll down
IMWa cost us $1100 au while we just paid $2700 au for the kona ticket
We i raced kona first time in 2010 it cost $1000 au
Took me 15 races to KQ with so many near misses
And you got more bang for your buck back then
If it was cheaper especially nice then u might get a few more takers
If they are gunna keep a women’s only race then just ditch the second venue and just have the WC at kona and just rotate the genders
One year men race
Next year women race
.IM keep the shine on kona and not loose face and $$$ trying to run a second Wc that no buggers wants to go to except the rich instagramers
And secondly we know the big island very well with living there from time to time and many friends that live there and actually work for IM and there is zero chance they will lose the race from kona it’s not under threat , but also even less chance a second day of raceing each year is gunna happen
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Seems a loaded survey to get the data they want with a new mayor willing to have that discussion and a new CEO wanting to make a mark…ie. 2 days in Kona.
Personally i am in for Nice 2025 and absolutely stoked. If they flip me i (& my wife) will be pissed.
If they are to go back to kona and can pull off a 2 day Saturday-Saturday thats only option i can gather may work. imagine it does go to Kona as a 1 day on caveat that proportional representation is over. Its 1100/1100 + 50/50 pro. I can only imagine the podcasts and “forums”.
Second, I do not hear a lot of women invited to podcasts asking how they feel about going backwards to kona for a 1 day race or europeans who can drive, train, short flight to Nice vs a $20k trip to Hawaii. It “feels” the conversation is very American centric.
I love Kona. I go vacation there near every year. But this all feels like a business saying “we’ve always done it like this” & that rarely ends well.
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They won’t change 2025.
If IM wanted, they would’ve done it by Nov-end. And this already would’ve been too late. If they’re collecting data now, it’ll take them a month to analyze and make proposals. 2025 will be fine from the business perspective - Nice will welcome >2000 racing men like in 2023, and Kona will sell out for women, at the expense of declining average athlete’s competence.
[quote=“ironpo, post:36, topic:1283911, full:true”]
IMWa cost us $1100 au while we just paid $2700 au for the kona ticket
We i raced kona first time in 2010 it cost $1000 au [/quote]
The IM race entries have sadly went up, but a big part of ‘your’ problem is the weakened Australian economy and its monetary policy.
Are we getting a sense that the survey is going mostly to people who haven’t raced recently?
Or is it just a random sample?
I haven’t gotten it, if feels like it was random.