This has all been covered countless times before and the people who actually know I.e the race directors explain the massive increase in fees from insurance, local government, emergency services etc are the key driver of cost. Putting on an Ironman/full distance event which spans basically 18 hours across multiple venues is just a huge undertaking and subsequently expensive endeavour.
TBH with inflation being out of control I’m amazed they have been able to keep the prices relatively flat the last couple of years. My home and contents insurance alone is up 20% yoy.
Exactly. And beyond this, I personally don’t have that many free weekends a year to just disappear away from my family. And I’m not going to DRIVE three hours each way - alone - to some podunk town in Va/MD/DE or wherever for a local race. And none of those courses are interesting anyways, and there are basically no half distance races anyways.
So I’m guilty as charged for the $200 markup. But at $200x3 at 6 hundo, it’s a rounding error compared to middle aged guys buying 10k bikes and pooping out times not even remotely justifying those bikes. Maybe we should guilt those guys into donating money to local races as some sort of triathlon tithing exercise.
The one I did was ridiculous. Hardly anyone was following the rules on lunges. Someone even left before doing the whole distance for the sled pull and didn’t get caught by the judges.
This is a very U.S.-centric line of reasoning. And IM-centric.
The price premium IM charges over independent races and Challenge races in Europe has gone from around 20% to around 100% in a few years. IM is now asking for double the alternative. There are direct comparisons, for example, between 70.3 Barcelona-Calella and Challenge Barcelona (which takes place in actual Barcelona, city center, so can’t be a cheap location), and between 70.3 Mallorca and Challenge Peguera-Mallorca. I don’t think the alternative races make a massive loss every time, huh.
We are talking mostly 70.3, not full.
I don’t know the U.S. market too well. Races don’t necessarily sell out there, so it could be different. But IM has less competition, so maybe not so different.
The race costs are high for sure but it’s more the local hotel and Ironman agreements that add so much more money to the trip .
The way they buy up all hotels locally and then resell at a huge market up so frustrating.
And increases the cost much more then the race price allow .
E.g Chattanooga you could get a hotel in August for around 80-150 us a day . They buy them up and resell for 300-500 a night . That’s a huge cost for 3-5 days.
Local race prices are rising as well but the local hotel and race do not go into cahoots set higher prices on hotels.
Supply and demand surge pricing is like that for everything though.
The hotel we almost exclusively staty at when we go to visit our son at college is what I’d call a high end 3 star hotel. Not cheap but not expensive. Except for football game weekends or graduation when the lowest rate goes from $200/night to $1,000+/night.
Here are the lowest rates for April 2027. You get one guess what weekend graduation is.
