“It’s very disheartening, very disappointing,” said D.T. Minich, executive director of Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater. “We were happy to have this to replace the Ironman. Now, for this to happen, it’s really a blow.”
For five years, the Ironman championship brought thousands of athletes and widespread media coverage during a slow spell for local businesses. Visitors to last year’s event paid for nearly $1 million in hotel stays alone, Minich said.
But with this year’s start of the shorter, less-watched triathlon, fewer athletes seemed eager to compete. About 700 registered, drastically lower than expectations and almost half last year’s turnout, said Philip LaHaye, the 5150 Series’ director of operations. “We couldn’t go into this event and produce it without taking a sizable loss,” he said."
Really? Does Philip realize that sometimes, in BUSINESS, in order to protect the long term goals and success of your company, it is acceptable and even necessary to take a loss on one event.
“It’s very disheartening, very disappointing,” said D.T. Minich, executive director of Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater. “We were happy to have this to replace the Ironman. Now, for this to happen, it’s really a blow.”
For five years, the Ironman championship brought thousands of athletes and widespread media coverage during a slow spell for local businesses. Visitors to last year’s event paid for nearly $1 million in hotel stays alone, Minich said.
But with this year’s start of the shorter, less-watched triathlon, fewer athletes seemed eager to compete. About 700 registered, drastically lower than expectations and almost half last year’s turnout, said Philip LaHaye, the 5150 Series’ director of operations. “We couldn’t go into this event and produce it without taking a sizable loss,” he said."
they needed to add… “so we just decided to pass that loss along to our customers” F’em
It seems that 5150 races are not vacation races and so WTC as going to struggle to get the numbers at the prices they want to charge. Athletes are not going to travel long distances for an olympic race, when they can do something alot cheaper locally.
Really? Does Philip realize that sometimes, in BUSINESS, in order to protect the long term goals and success of your company, it is acceptable and even necessary to take a loss on one event.
Really? Does Philip realize that sometimes, in BUSINESS, in order to protect the long term goals and success of your company, it is acceptable and even necessary to take a loss on one event.
Depending on your industry perhaps. Carrying cost, large debt service and one bad decision in a tiny margin business have wiped out many a competitor for me. I don’t know squat about the multisport management business, but with all the ridiculous swag athletes demand these days my gut tells me the margins are probably thin, but maybe it’s a big fat cat business I dunno.
Really? Does Philip realize that sometimes, in BUSINESS, in order to protect the long term goals and success of your company, it is acceptable and even necessary to take a loss on one event.
What if he can’t fund that loss?? Suddenly you have a race that could potentially become dangerous because the RD was forced to cut too many corners. What would a race disaster do to a reputation and long term goals?
Well theyre taking a loss either way, whether they cancel it or go through with the event. Obviously, the loss associated with putting on the race is greater otherwise they would have done the race regardless. I would think WTC would be able to (financially) handle the loss.
They rolled out this big series last year, with a lot of hype and expectations. I would hope that before they rolled out the series, they did enough research on the matter to believe that it was going to be successful in the future. How many companies are profitable in their first year (or first year of a new product in this case)? I would say very, very few. If they wanted this series to be successful, they would have gone through with this race, done a great job, taken the loss, and busted their asses to make it better next year. Instead, they did none of that, and seemingly gave up. That’s fine, it’s their company, but this whole fiasco shows that they aren’t in it for the long term, which is a scary thought. It’s almost as if they are blinded by the success of their other two series and can’t realize that it takes some really hard work to be successful in a new venture.
I’m sure the assumed financial loss from Des Moines with the mega-pro purse made WTC think 10x about all their races. I agree, though, 700 paticipants and you cancel? More bad PR for WTC.
Being owned by a capital company doesn’t help either.
Really? Does Philip realize that sometimes, in BUSINESS, in order to protect the long term goals and success of your company, it is acceptable and even necessary to take a loss on one event.
What if he can’t fund that loss?? Suddenly you have a race that could potentially become dangerous because the RD was forced to cut too many corners. What would a race disaster do to a reputation and long term goals?
I can’t say for sure, but with all of the expansion (in terms of races and employees) WTC has had in the past few years, I would really hope they could fund the loss.
And what do you think would be worse for the reputation of WTC?
Cancelling the finale of their new race series, and pissing off 700 people who have been planning on this race for months?
or
Putting on a race for these athletes, just maybe not a race that is up to WTC standards?
I would say #1 is worse, but that’s just my opinion. Obviously, they thought #2 was worse, but I still can’t imagine they didn’t have the financial resources to put on a quality race and still take a loss.
The WTC should put on only one “Championship” event at the Olympic distance and partner with existing races to draw qualifiers. That only puts them on the hook for one race. If that works, they can add their own qualifier races down the road.
One caveat, make the Championship event at a place that people will want to go to.
No big deal I am a struggling student enjoying triathlon I will absorb the cost of all the cancelation fees. Looking like my first 140.6 will be a rev 3.
Instead, they’ll cancel and offer people entry into “next year’s event”. Of course, what they won’t tell people that accept that offer is that there probably will not be a “next years event”.
Well, that settles it. All three of their stated reasons in the email are complete and total horseshit.
Due to low registration numbers, we felt that it was in the best interest of the participants, the City of Clearwater and the 5150 Triathlon Series to postpone this event. We are committed to the 5150 Triathlon Series and look forward to delivering great race experiences in our 2012 season.
The participants are mad, the city is mad, and the future of the 5150 series, especially in Clearwater, looks dead. Just man up and say “we don’t want to lose money.” They let it slip with one reporter, but the official word to canceled participants is still PR nonsense.
I’m over it. I already planned the course and schedule for the Doughboy 5168*. *With my saved money, I’ll get a nice hour long massage after it’s over.
Well, that settles it. All three of their stated reasons in the email are complete and total horseshit.
Due to low registration numbers, we felt that it was in the best interest of the participants, the City of Clearwater and the 5150 Triathlon Series to postpone this event. We are committed to the 5150 Triathlon Series and look forward to delivering great race experiences in our 2012 season.
The participants are mad, the city is mad, and the future of the 5150 series, especially in Clearwater, looks dead. Just man up and say “we don’t want to lose money.” They let it slip with one reporter, but the official word to canceled participants is still PR nonsense.
I’m over it. I already planned the course and schedule for the Doughboy 5168*. *With my saved money, I’ll get a nice hour long massage after it’s over.
This is totally unacceptable. They put on a series, and they had 700 people registered for the Clearwater finale. Even if they lose money with 700 people, it is an investment for the future and frankly a ton of race directors put on races in their first year or two as investment towards growing it in the future. I’m generally a supporter of what WTC has done to grow the sport (they are far from perfect, but they likely do more to grow triathlon than any other entity), however, this move is not acceptable. 700 is a perfectly decent size field.