Wife is doing Galveston this weekend. I’m sure there are less than 700 signed up. Race is going ahead
This is a bad move by wtf. How many folks are NOT going to be making travel plans to 5150 events in the future because of this
Wife is doing Galveston this weekend. I’m sure there are less than 700 signed up. Race is going ahead
This is a bad move by wtf. How many folks are NOT going to be making travel plans to 5150 events in the future because of this
I don’t know if this was accidental or intentional, but it’s perfect.
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?
Did you hear about Miami 70.3 last year?
I am surprised that they thought the 5150 race was going to be a 1-to-1 replacement for the 70.3. I am also surprised they can’t at a minimum break even with 700 participants. Guess someone promised a bit too much.
I am very surprised that they can not put on a really decent event for 700 participants with $105,000 in race fees.
How much was the pro purse?
Not to derail this thread, but who pays for the 90K the city has to shell out for the race? Is it the good ol tax payers or does the WTC have to pay? I would think the city would pony up for the anticipation that the tourism would spike and pay for it 10 fold.
If it’s the WTC than the 15K left over from the participant money will surely not make it profitable after covering all their cost.
Most likely the city as part of the package to have WTC come to their area/city/town.
With a cancelled race the city will not be out $90,000 as they will not have to pay for the policing and traffic control that was in that amount.
I am surprised that they thought the 5150 race was going to be a 1-to-1 replacement for the 70.3. I am also surprised they can’t at a minimum break even with 700 participants. Guess someone promised a bit too much.
WTC is held by a private equity firm. Their entire job is to make money for the stakeholders, and in cases like this it’s very possible that profitable is not necessarily profitable enough. The business model isn’t exactly built on investing in the growth of any one component (e.g. the 5150 series). It’s more about expanding the brand to its logistical and financial limits in order to maximize the profit stream today - taking what they earn and acting quickly to cut losses.
Private Equity Firms are not that dumb. They understand that when developing a new line of business, there is often up front investment required to grow a company’s presence in new markets (in this case an Olympic tri series).
I’m going to give Providence Equity much more rope in this discussion and assume that the folks running WTC were the ones who made the call and not Providence. If Providence is that dumb, then it is the company’s leadership team that needs to provide pressure on the board of directors, because the company’s management team generally knows its products and markets better than the private equity firm. The company’s management team can usually provide some back pressure and get their way when the loss is nominal and a good investment in future growth of the product line.
Right now, what’s on hand is a PR disaster on account of a WTC official publicly saying that they cannot make money with 700 entrants. Consumers generally don’t care that a company makes money. They just want a good consumer experience for their money. WTC owes this to the guys who bought race entries to Clearwater.
It would have been much better to go ahead with the event, suck up the nominal loss on this, and build the brand. From the outside, I feel that a VP for the 5150 series made the wrong call here. I seriously doubt that Providence Equity gets involved with meddling with individual races making money or not…more likely the guy running that “Product Line” with his team came to this conclusion. This happened on CEO Andrew Messick watch. He seems like a reasonable guy with his heart set in balancing what is good for the sport with profits.
Cancelling this race because it is not going to turn an “immediate profit” fails on account of it being bad for the sport and also fails on account of the move being bad for profits for the future of the entire 5150 series even though seemingly it addresses a near term one off profitability issue. I give credit to Andrew for being a fairly thorough guy with decent vision, so I have to believe there are other factors at play here that are not being publicly discussed yet.
Wife is doing Galveston this weekend. I’m sure there are less than 700 signed up. Race is going ahead
This is a bad move by wtf. How many folks are NOT going to be making travel plans to 5150 events in the future because of this
There’s only about 450 registered for the Galveston 5150.
I’m surprised we are saying “only 700” and “only 450”. This is plenty of participants to run a race. It might entail taking a profit hit in year 1, but so what?
They were trying to get local participants by luring the carrot of a St. Anthony’s entry for next year. This one will be tough sell in the future. With the other series like Rev3 and HITS the WTC may not have total control that they wanted. Even Hyvee while a decent size for the open race only had a few hundred in for the 5150 qualifiers if that.
It is a shame because for an Olympic Distance race it could have been anice course. plus with 700 enntries they may have gotten a handle on the drafting there.
oh well.
I am very surprised that they can not put on a really decent event for 700 participants with $105,000 in race fees.
How much was the pro purse?
45.00 and a buffet dinner at Shoney’s :0)
I’m surprised we are saying “only 700” and “only 450”. This is plenty of participants to run a race. It might entail taking a profit hit in year 1, but so what?
You are taking a lot of liberty with this Dev. You have no idea what other things might be pressuring WTC’s financial position as they continue the meteroic expansion. It could very easily be a good ole cash flow issue.
I’m surprised we are saying “only 700” and “only 450”. This is plenty of participants to run a race. It might entail taking a profit hit in year 1, but so what?
You are taking a lot of liberty with this Dev. You have no idea what other things might be pressuring WTC’s financial position as they continue the meteroic expansion. It could very easily be a good ole cash flow issue.
I’d bet that if they had a “growing broke” problem their PE firm would be pretty quick to arrange some debt capital.
Some friends and I were talking about the 5150 series on a run last week and here was our opinion:
For some reason there is a premium placed on longer triathlon events these days (70.3 and up). For the average Joe, JUST TO FINISH, <--------(please note that), there is very little more training investment involved with doing a 70.3 or an olympic.
Swim: About the same, if you can swim 1500 you can swim 1.2 miles.
Bike: Biking at 15 mph isnt that hard for 56 miles.
Run: Who needs to run? Just walk it.
So instead of telling his buddies he did and Olympic (what the hell is that), he can now say he did a half IRONMAN…that comes with alot more office cred…
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.
As far as I know and what it was in the past is hy-vee pays the purse for the race.