The entry fee for the 1984 Hawaii Ironman was $75. As strange as it sounds now, until then that was the most I'd ever paid for a race of any kind, and about triple what I was paying for other triathlons at the time. Growing just by the rate of inflation since, that $75 entry would be a paltry $166 in 2013. But we all know that won't even cover the swim costs in Kona this October. Okay, inflation may not be a fair comparison, since many costs have out-stripped the inflation rate.
How about comparing Kona's cost to the increase in college tuition? Well, let's move to 1985, the first year Kona's entry weighed in at triple digits and became a then mind-boggling $100. If you compare that $100 entry fee to the T-Rex of educational costs, the much-in-the-news insane college tuition increases over the past few decades, Kona's entry is still the heavyweight. If Kona were a typical US college that increased its fees in step with the average of its academic brethren, it would cost about $650 now, not the approximately $800 - $1000 it does.
So Kona's cost is growing leaps and bounds faster than inflation and even a leap or two faster than college tuition. What gives? Well, theories abound, but my feeling is that somewhere along the way from being born Ironman, one race with a few determined souls, period, to becoming the juggernaut World Triathlon Corporation, with series upon series of Iron Girl, IronKids, 70.3, and 5150 races, not to mention a quiver of a few dozen ironman qualifying races across the globe (and let's not forget the modifiers of Ford, Timex, et al.), Ironman, the idea, lost its way in the corporate-speak and branding-fixated world in which we live. And in losing its way it sold its soul, or should I say it decided to pass on the cost of selling the soul of triathlon to each of us, like it or not.
Yet, other than being a teacher who knows he's likely to have to mortgage his family's future if he hopes to do another Kona qualifier/Kona Ironman sans sponsor, what irks me most about Kona is how it has made us a "Top 1%" sport financially even though we've really only been a Top 1% sport physically, and even then only sort of. The Ironman calls itself a World Championship, yet increasing numbers of the top pros are deciding that the WTC isn't particularly nice to them and that Kona isn't as lucrative and great an experience as they can get elsewhere. Especially if prize winnings are the main motivator, as a former pro and knowing how "take it or leave it" Ironman has become, I'd probably stay away as well unless I knew I had a pretty darn good chance of cracking the top five and the real money that only begins to pay expenses. The guys at WTC have figured out the pro game as well; they now invite fewer pros than ever before and every one of them has to qualify each year, even the top folks!
In terms of sheer number of podium spots, Kona in many ways is a world championship for the age group triathletes, not the pros. Many of the top pros may stay away, or not earn the requisite points to be invited, but age groupers around the world all know that Kona is the dream, the big enchilada, the bona fide imprimateur on that Triathlon C.V. Thousands upon thousands of age group triathletes vie for precious few Kona age group spots each year, making the age group competitions arguably the very most competitive "races within the race" that Kona has become. With all due respect to the pros, even a little bit of digging into Kona times will indicate that in most any given year the top five spots in a number of age group races are closer and more fiercely challenged than those in the pros. To cite a very personal example, in 2011, when I placed fifth for the 50-54 age group at Kona, I was about a mile back from the winner when he finished. Which means that five of us were still quite close after a very full day of racing that included numerous lead changes and top-five reconfigurations. In the pro race Craig Alexander was almost a mile up on second place by the end, and while his performance speaks for itself (and remains the record), the men's pro race was over well before Craig zipped down Ali'i Drive.
Yet the folks at WTC don't really care that much about the age groupers either. What they want is the money, and the more of it the better. How else to explain the "Legacy Age Group Athletes?" Not sure who these folks are? Well, picture an independently wealthy jet-set person with loads of time, a flexible schedule, and an urge to do more than a dozen ironman races across the globe and you've got an idea. It's this very group that WTC is targeting when it invites those "special" hundred entrants to Kona. Never mind the times they post or how they fare relative to others in their age group, Kona wants them. Or should I say Kona wants their money. And what better way to get cash than the Costco way of purchasing in quantity. Never mind that a world championship is putatively about quality...
But WTC doesn't stop there. At the very same time thousands upon thousands of age groupers are desperately trying to get a measly qualifying spot, somewhere, somehow, and even though a full hundred coveted spots have already been given away to the quantity-trumps-quality high rollers mentioned, WTC gives us the "General Age Group Lottery," which subtracts another hundred spots from the 1800 Kona thinks it can handle (another issue altogether, and one that I will take up in a future post). Lest you think this is a truly impartial lottery, think again. In this lottery, quantity (read: money) is again king, for you have to keep entering year after year in order to remain viable and work your way up the lottery food chain and increase your chances. Apparently, each year a triathlete enters the lottery she gains another point, sort of like being able to enter your name multiple times in a drawing and thereby ever so slightly increase your probability of getting selected. The catch is that if you miss a year of lottery entering you lose all these credits and have to start the process over. And, of course, it costs to enter the lottery. In fact, just to make the money-as-WTC-mantra logic clearer, you can actually increase your lottery chances by paying more, becoming a member of the "Passport Club," and thereby entering a more select group. Again, quantity smites quality at a "world championship," and although anecdotal conversations with triathletes who've entered the lottery would seem to indicate that anyone's chances of getting to Kona this way are rather dismal, WTC, of course, isn't going to divulge how infinitesimal these chances are - but they'll be happy to take your money nonetheless.
Implicit in most anyone's definition of World Championship is the idea of merit. Folks are deemed the best in the world - the world champions - presumably because they've demonstrated that they're better at something than anyone else, at least on a given day if not over a much longer period of time. Yet credibility rests on competition. As I've often said to those who, after a race, have asked me how I've done, it pretty much depends on who shows up. Winning a race is relative to who you're competing against. I've been fortunate enough to have won dozens of races, but it was a 7th place in Kona way back in 1984, in which I "lost" by nearly an hour to this guy called Dave Scott, that has conferred the most satisfaction. Why? Simply because on that day, and unlike any of the previous 8,000+ days of my life until then, I had the privilege to race the best in the world.
Will the best long-course triathletes in the world continue to turn out every October for Kona's race? My sense is that as Ironman gradually prices itself into the stratosphere and thereby effectively out of most folks' financial orbits, it will gradually behave less like the athletic meritocracy it once was and more like the global, brand-obsessed, monolithic event production company it has become. Sort of like the family who went to watch a fight, only to have a hockey game break out, Kona may gradually become the place where mostly well-heeled tri wanabes go to see and be seen, with a somewhat, sort of, it is if we say it is! "World Championship" occurring at the bacchanal week's end. One thing's for sure: the Ironman Merchandise Tent will have extended hours and long lines all week...
How about comparing Kona's cost to the increase in college tuition? Well, let's move to 1985, the first year Kona's entry weighed in at triple digits and became a then mind-boggling $100. If you compare that $100 entry fee to the T-Rex of educational costs, the much-in-the-news insane college tuition increases over the past few decades, Kona's entry is still the heavyweight. If Kona were a typical US college that increased its fees in step with the average of its academic brethren, it would cost about $650 now, not the approximately $800 - $1000 it does.
So Kona's cost is growing leaps and bounds faster than inflation and even a leap or two faster than college tuition. What gives? Well, theories abound, but my feeling is that somewhere along the way from being born Ironman, one race with a few determined souls, period, to becoming the juggernaut World Triathlon Corporation, with series upon series of Iron Girl, IronKids, 70.3, and 5150 races, not to mention a quiver of a few dozen ironman qualifying races across the globe (and let's not forget the modifiers of Ford, Timex, et al.), Ironman, the idea, lost its way in the corporate-speak and branding-fixated world in which we live. And in losing its way it sold its soul, or should I say it decided to pass on the cost of selling the soul of triathlon to each of us, like it or not.
Yet, other than being a teacher who knows he's likely to have to mortgage his family's future if he hopes to do another Kona qualifier/Kona Ironman sans sponsor, what irks me most about Kona is how it has made us a "Top 1%" sport financially even though we've really only been a Top 1% sport physically, and even then only sort of. The Ironman calls itself a World Championship, yet increasing numbers of the top pros are deciding that the WTC isn't particularly nice to them and that Kona isn't as lucrative and great an experience as they can get elsewhere. Especially if prize winnings are the main motivator, as a former pro and knowing how "take it or leave it" Ironman has become, I'd probably stay away as well unless I knew I had a pretty darn good chance of cracking the top five and the real money that only begins to pay expenses. The guys at WTC have figured out the pro game as well; they now invite fewer pros than ever before and every one of them has to qualify each year, even the top folks!
In terms of sheer number of podium spots, Kona in many ways is a world championship for the age group triathletes, not the pros. Many of the top pros may stay away, or not earn the requisite points to be invited, but age groupers around the world all know that Kona is the dream, the big enchilada, the bona fide imprimateur on that Triathlon C.V. Thousands upon thousands of age group triathletes vie for precious few Kona age group spots each year, making the age group competitions arguably the very most competitive "races within the race" that Kona has become. With all due respect to the pros, even a little bit of digging into Kona times will indicate that in most any given year the top five spots in a number of age group races are closer and more fiercely challenged than those in the pros. To cite a very personal example, in 2011, when I placed fifth for the 50-54 age group at Kona, I was about a mile back from the winner when he finished. Which means that five of us were still quite close after a very full day of racing that included numerous lead changes and top-five reconfigurations. In the pro race Craig Alexander was almost a mile up on second place by the end, and while his performance speaks for itself (and remains the record), the men's pro race was over well before Craig zipped down Ali'i Drive.
Yet the folks at WTC don't really care that much about the age groupers either. What they want is the money, and the more of it the better. How else to explain the "Legacy Age Group Athletes?" Not sure who these folks are? Well, picture an independently wealthy jet-set person with loads of time, a flexible schedule, and an urge to do more than a dozen ironman races across the globe and you've got an idea. It's this very group that WTC is targeting when it invites those "special" hundred entrants to Kona. Never mind the times they post or how they fare relative to others in their age group, Kona wants them. Or should I say Kona wants their money. And what better way to get cash than the Costco way of purchasing in quantity. Never mind that a world championship is putatively about quality...
But WTC doesn't stop there. At the very same time thousands upon thousands of age groupers are desperately trying to get a measly qualifying spot, somewhere, somehow, and even though a full hundred coveted spots have already been given away to the quantity-trumps-quality high rollers mentioned, WTC gives us the "General Age Group Lottery," which subtracts another hundred spots from the 1800 Kona thinks it can handle (another issue altogether, and one that I will take up in a future post). Lest you think this is a truly impartial lottery, think again. In this lottery, quantity (read: money) is again king, for you have to keep entering year after year in order to remain viable and work your way up the lottery food chain and increase your chances. Apparently, each year a triathlete enters the lottery she gains another point, sort of like being able to enter your name multiple times in a drawing and thereby ever so slightly increase your probability of getting selected. The catch is that if you miss a year of lottery entering you lose all these credits and have to start the process over. And, of course, it costs to enter the lottery. In fact, just to make the money-as-WTC-mantra logic clearer, you can actually increase your lottery chances by paying more, becoming a member of the "Passport Club," and thereby entering a more select group. Again, quantity smites quality at a "world championship," and although anecdotal conversations with triathletes who've entered the lottery would seem to indicate that anyone's chances of getting to Kona this way are rather dismal, WTC, of course, isn't going to divulge how infinitesimal these chances are - but they'll be happy to take your money nonetheless.
Implicit in most anyone's definition of World Championship is the idea of merit. Folks are deemed the best in the world - the world champions - presumably because they've demonstrated that they're better at something than anyone else, at least on a given day if not over a much longer period of time. Yet credibility rests on competition. As I've often said to those who, after a race, have asked me how I've done, it pretty much depends on who shows up. Winning a race is relative to who you're competing against. I've been fortunate enough to have won dozens of races, but it was a 7th place in Kona way back in 1984, in which I "lost" by nearly an hour to this guy called Dave Scott, that has conferred the most satisfaction. Why? Simply because on that day, and unlike any of the previous 8,000+ days of my life until then, I had the privilege to race the best in the world.
Will the best long-course triathletes in the world continue to turn out every October for Kona's race? My sense is that as Ironman gradually prices itself into the stratosphere and thereby effectively out of most folks' financial orbits, it will gradually behave less like the athletic meritocracy it once was and more like the global, brand-obsessed, monolithic event production company it has become. Sort of like the family who went to watch a fight, only to have a hockey game break out, Kona may gradually become the place where mostly well-heeled tri wanabes go to see and be seen, with a somewhat, sort of, it is if we say it is! "World Championship" occurring at the bacchanal week's end. One thing's for sure: the Ironman Merchandise Tent will have extended hours and long lines all week...
