has anyone ever boycotted a race due to price? (Read 364 times)

I ran about 15 races last year in the New York City area for less than the price of a single NYRR Marathon registration fee. It all depends on what you are looking for.

Hearkening back to my Economics 101 class in college ....  dang, that was a long time ago. 

Races will charge what the market will bear.  If there are enough people willing to pay the dollars for a particular race /experience .... that's what's going to happen.  When they step over that threshold, numbers drop off and the dollars will have to go down for the race to continue at that level.

There used to be a ton of people (myself included) from my hometown that would go up and run Grandma's marathon - Duluth MN.  One of those races where you had to set your alarm to apply to get in before it filled up.  Prices went up .... cost of lodging went up (2 or 3 night min stays) etc.  It's no longer a problem with the race filling up.  That race experience hit the threshold.  I really enjoyed the race and would do it again, if the cost was back in line with how I valued the experience. 

NYRR Marathon is on my bucket list and I'd pay to do it ...  after I add up the costs,  it might end up on the list with Grandma's ..or if I value the experience enough,  I'll start saving to run it again.

With all that said, races are great fund raisers for charities.  A charity race has to be pretty spendy  before cost would stop me. 

 

Hearkening back to my Economics 101 class in college ....  dang, that was a long time ago. 

 

Not all races are profit maximizers (especially when most races explicitly aren’t for profit), they don’t compete in a very well organized marketplace (information about “competing” races is often incomplete for both buyers and sellers, and is nearly impossible to make good comparisons – a 5k vs. a 15K on a particular weekend in a particular area has so many different values to different potential consumers), etc., ad nauseam, blah, blah, blah

So, economic theory is great, but let me describe for you the sophisticated price setting mechanism used by the race committee I was a part of last year:

“So, what are we going to charge this year?”

“I don’t know, what’d we charge last year?”

“$25”

“Sounds good, let’s go with that.”

“Done.”

I wouldn't call it boycott but I have not been to any races except my club races for a long time because I can't justify paying as much as I pay for shoes to go to a race.  I generally don't pay more than $50 for a pair of running shoes.  I paid less than $50  for my Holux 1200E GPS device that maps my runs.  Sporttracks only cost me $35 dollars.  It cost me nothing to run by myself on the horse trails and I can arrive and leave when I want.  Go ahead and charge $70 if you get enough people to sign up but I will not be signing up for any races that cost more than $30.

I'm boycotting the next U.S. Olympic trials for the marathon.

I don't want to pay the price of getting in--involves PED's, 200 miles per week, time travel,

genetic manipulation, and a lot of begging.

 

Not worth it. I'd probably miss Mad Men season 7.

Ha!