Started racing triathlons competitively in 2012. Fell out of it during Covid, tried to get back to racing but kept getting injured, family members died, etc.
I started to get the itch to race again when I saw the announcement of Omaha 70.3. I live in KC and it’s a short drive and I think Omaha is a great town. However, I’ve been researching entries fees and noticed that the newly announced Little Elm 70.3 is $550 to sign up! Other races I’ve looked at are $400-500 as well. I’m concerned Omaha will be the same. How did this come to be? Is permitting these days that expensive or is it just another money grab by Ironman? Help me understand!
I remember the days when early entry to St. George 70.3 was $250. Sigh.
I believe Little Elm was cheaper when registrations first opened. Ironman has a tiered pricing structure that rewards registering early with a cheaper price. Once they reach a certain percentage sold it goes up, then up again, and so on.
So it might have started at $400, then $450, then $500, then $550. Those prices are all in with like $50 in fees included.
I keep shaking my head at (i) the U.S. being generally more expensive than Europe (ii) IM 70.3s being literally three times the price of independent races (with closed roads, aid stations, finisher zones, big banners, loads of volunteers, etc.) in my country.
I’d bet Omaha is actually $570 since someone in the Oceanside thread pointed out that race was $570 when you clicked through after I posted about the insane price of $550 (that they say is all in).
Even sprint races are insane. $300 for a 1k-30k-10k. Costs can be kept down if they hd struct cut offs and got rud of beer gardens (junk beer anyway, go to a local brewery instead )
Sure, but those non-strict cutoffs are also what attract a fair number of participants.
Case in point: our half marathon in Connecticut offered an early start for racers anticipating to take more than 2 hours and 45 minutes on course. Over the last three years of running that race, nearly half the field wanted to take advantage of that start. Yes, it was a hard course (nasty rolling uphill from mile 7 to 12, then a straight climb to the sun back to the dam for the finish for mile 12 to 13).
People expect an event and not just a race. Either you have to fully strip it to the studs (and you’d get the few who appreciate that experience), or you play the game.
Im sure there are other ways to cut costs, such as doing a multi lap course is what i am seeing more events do here (less police needed, same set of porta potties)
Government purchasing is crowding out a lot of private competition as well. I spend a lot of time in the event business with my company’s tradeshows. Tent rentals for instance have gone up about 400% between all the disaster and covid rentals. Ironman is renting a lot of big tents.
To be fair it seems like almost everything has gone up a lot after Covid. Minimum wage here is over 20 dollars now which sets a starting point for all the other price hikes. And I’m not even a republican who roots against minimum wage increases. All the restaurants are up like 30-40 percent. As much as 50 percent up for popular ones.
On the event vs race thing. Not a criticism of you, because this isn’t you saying it as much as it is an assumption commonly made. I feel this is tough with triathlon bc it’s not like there’s other Ironmans out there to do or choose from.
If I could do an ironman race on the lake placid course, stripped back without all the fluff that i don’t want or care about, for a few hundred bucks less, I’d do it. But that’s not an option. I have to pay full boat and then i’m perceived to want everything extra that i don’t care about. There’s only one option on the menu. there isn’t a parallel stripped back version of the event i can do instead another time of year run by someone else.
this is all fine. I just object to the idea that ALL participants demand the level of production of the races they enter. it is a bummer to pay the high price when i know a lot of that is spent on stuff i could do without/don’t care about.
Sort of but you also can’t go race a race on the Western States course unless you do western states. But you can do a full without all the stuff just not on the IM course in LP just like you can do an ultra without doing the WA course.
I think that’s actually part of it, the hosts know there are fewer and fewer locations willing to host an event so they have more leverage. IM doesn’t want to lose a course like LP or WI bc they are now sort of iconic course so the locals know they have more leverage to raise cost above inflation. They don’t have ultimate leverage but they absolutely have more than 15 years ago.
His comment was he couldn’t do LP specifically without doing an IM with all the thrills. Was keeping the response specific to his, but you sure can and I have. Kona in February was still an amazing experience even if it was solo. There was something special about suffering the winds on the bike and the heat in the energy lab.
The counter point: people had independent full distance options, which had fewer amenities. And they attracted…dozens of people. Events like Great Floridian, Michigan Titanium, Rev3 Cedar Point back in the day…only one of those still exists.
People voted with their dollars – they’d rather pay the premium for IM, with all it entails.
I love a good grassroots event that features bringing my own cooler full of beers and telling tales afterwards. But I sure as hell wouldn’t want that after a 140.6 – whether that’s the right value calculus is up to you.
