Inside the economics of the marathon.

runners lucky enough to gain entry into the Boston Marathon through the

race’s affiliation with designated charitable organizations, the entry fee has now reached that high water mark. For international runners (those who achieved the qualifying time) the entry fee currently stands at “only” $150, while U.S. residents who qualified paid a paltry $110.

Too much, you say? Not for the 25,000 runners who were more than willing to pony up the cash. The 2009 race closed out more quickly than ever before; in late January, a notice on the Boston Athletic Association Web site announced that the race had reached its quota. Even if you had achieved the qualifying standard, if you had not signed up by then, you were out of luck for this year.

Boston is not alone in charging what to some may seem like exorbitant entry fees. The 2009 ING New York City Marathon will cost New York Road Runners $138, non-members $171, and international runners $231. “As much as we’d like not to raise the prices, it was necessary at this time,” race director Mary Wittenberg told the New York Times, adding, ““We’re sitting in a marketplace where we have to anticipate that costs will be up and revenue will be down.”

Other marathons are equally pricey. The inaugural Kauai Marathon in Hawaii in September will set back non-Hawaii residents $225 unless they registered before March. The entry fee for the Disney Marathon is $125, but its accompanying “Goofy Challenge,” in which entrants run a marathon and a half-marathon on consecutive days, does not come cheaply, at $285. Many other marathons have crossed the $100 barrier, including Austin, Big Sur, the Rock ’n’ Roll marathons, and Lake Tahoe. From all appearances, despite the ailing economy, these and other marathons are thriving.

Rem or not, marathoners, the $200 entry fee has arrived. It’s true—for those

Take heart: there are still lots of bargains. For instance, this year you could enter the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati for $60, until about a month before the event, and many other well-organized marathons are in that price range. The Nipmuck Trail Marathon in Connecticut is a mere $25, but you will need to bring a gallon of water with you. Why the water? It’s left at road crossings, from which runners can pour their own cups. What, you want it served to you for $25?

In some marathons, hidden charges drive up the cost. New York levies an $11 processing fee simply to file an application. That guarantees nothing other than the opportunity to enter the lottery to be chosen for the race. While galling to many runners (especially those not selected to run in the race), it is hardly a deterrent to potential race entrants. According to Wittenberg, who is also the president and CEO of the New York Road Runners, a dozen full-time employees are required to handle the application process as well as to provide customer service and technical support after the registration period has closed, thus necessitating the charge. In addition, Wittenberg said, “In an oversubscribed field, it does help ensure that there is a level of commitment of those individuals who sign up.”

Still, New York is the only marathon that charges a processing fee for all applicants. Mark Frankel, a marathoner from Wayne, New Jersey, summed up the feelings of many runners when he told the New York Times, “It’s kind of like a marathon tax.” Then there is the requisite credit-card processing fee for those who sign up for marathons online (just about everyone nowadays). That can tack on another $5 to $10, depending on the race.

Where does your entry fee go?

In defense of their entry fees, directors of the major marathons point to everincreasing expenses incurred by their events. As mentioned earlier, the ING New York City Marathon cited spiraling costs as the primary reason for its fee increase. An article that appeared in the New York Times before last year’s race noted that the event rents more than 2,000 port-a-johns, used at the start and along the course. Only two other annual, single-day events of any kind in the U.S. use more port-a-johns: the Rose Bowl parade in California and the Sturgis,

presidential inauguration—topped them all). All of the port-a-johns cost money, as does the staggering number of police and security personnel as well as the long list of amenities and small touches that make New York a unique experience for participants.

Participants sometimes fail to fully comprehend the long list of line-item expenses that marathons must incorporate into their budgets: race timing; facility, equipment, and vehicle rentals; runner transportation; awards; pre- and postrace

food; advertising; clerical and office expenses; and of course, the ubiquitous Tshirts and medals. The list goes on and on.

The Boston Marathon, which runs through six towns and two cities from the start in Hopkinton to the finish in Boston, was confronted with an additional cash outlay this year. Several of the towns along the route—most prominently Framingham and Wellesley—told the host Boston Athletic Association that they would require a bigger reimbursement in 2009. John Petrin, the town manager of Ashland, said the $26,000 received from the B.A.A. in 2008 was not enough to make up for the logistical, financial, and business impact felt by the town on race day. Thus, Ashland, along with Framingham, Natick, and Wellesley, withheld the permits until meeting with the B.A.A. to ask for bigger reimbursements. In the end, the B.A.A. increased the amounts it paid the towns, by $68,000 in all. The total paid to these eight cities and towns and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is now more than $700,000, according to the B.A.A. Few if any runners, however, give this kind of expense much thought when considering the steep entry fee on the race application.

Supply and demand

As has been noted many times, a marathon would not be able to charge entry fees if there were not sufficient demand to support the fees. More than 100,000 runners applied to run in the ING New York City Marathon last year and only 40,000 were selected. For charities affiliated with the Boston Marathon, entries into the race through their programs are so highly prized that the organizations have little trouble finding runners willing to raise $4,000 or more to earn a chance to participate in the historic, 113-year-old event. In that light, a $200 entry fee can seem almost incidental.

An informal survey of runners conducted at last year’s New York City Marathon by this journalist indicated that most runners were little concerned with the supposedly steep entry fee. One runner stated, “$160 seems like a lot, but if you take advantage of everything they provide you (transport, UPS trucks transporting your bags, prerace dinner, postrace party, expo, etc.) it’s more than worth it… . I’m unlikely to do it again, but I’m glad I did it and would highly recommend it to anyone else. If you’re going to do an out-of-state marathon, and in probably the most expensive city in the country, you have to be prepared to fork out big cash and get over it.”

Notably missing from the discussion thus far is one of the biggest expenses in the budget of every big-city marathon: appearance and prize money for elite athletes. The men’s and women’s first-place cash awards in the world’s major marathons are now north of $100,000, and total prize purses run into seven figures. Then there is appearance money, bonus fees required just to get the top runners

on the starting line. A truly valuable, well-known name can command several hundred thousand dollars from one of the major marathons. One television commentator stated that British star and three-time ING New York City Marathon winner Paula Radcliffe was offered a cool million dollars in appearance money to run in a marathon in Japan. That she did not accept speaks volumes about her bargaining position within the sport.

Another race expense—compulsory for major, big-city marathons—is race director compensation. Even some midsize races pay their directors, in varying amounts. Is this necessarily a bad thing? After all, these managers work hard to make their events successful. A well-managed event is critical to sustaining a marathon as a viable business, and it starts with the person at the top of the organization chart. So why not financially reward that individual?

One reason is that a number of other race directors work on a volunteer basis, as do many of those who work on committees or at aid stations, all critical to making marathons successful. Even the major marathons, in which the race directors are compensated, are dependent on armies of unpaid volunteers. Thus, there is a certain level of resentment of those who draw salaries by those who work at marathons as volunteers. That resentment is fueled by the perception that part of the increasingly pricey entry fees subsidizes the salaries of race directors and other race employees.

Some feel that holding onto the notion that we all should be in it simply for the love of the sport is anachronistic, however. In a keynote address at the 2007 Road Race Management race director’s meeting, Boston Marathon race director Dave McGillivray encouraged race directors to strongly consider getting paid for their efforts, if they were not already. After all, most nonprofit organizations that rely on volunteers also rely heavily on volunteer support but nevertheless compensate their CEOs. The business rationale is that you need to pay top talent to be successful. Such payments, however well deserved they may be, increase race budgets, extending an already lengthy line-item list.

Elite runners: worth the bother and the expense?

Getting back to prize money and appearance bonuses, although race organizers insist that sponsorship dollars by and large subsidize these payments, the reality is that all race expenses must be covered one way or another, either by sponsorship dollars or by entry fees. A Times article reported that according to federally filed documents, including the marathon and their weekly races, the New York Road Runners took in $10.8 million in sponsorship and television revenue for the year

the club relies as much or more on revenue from race entries as from sponsorship to meet its costs, which for the marathon now approach $20 million.

The arrangement is similar to professional sports, in which ticket prices keep rising, right along with players’ salaries and bonuses. Fans are often told that ticket prices do not fund the astronomical salaries of the players (that revenue from television rights fees and advertising sales does), but it sure feels like it to the average fan.

The difference in long-distance running is that those paying the hefty fees are often indifferent to the elite side of the sport, unlike the rabid fandom that is inherently part of professional sports such as baseball, football, and basketball. Runners are not paying to watch the stars, as in those sports, but rather are paying to run behind them. At last year’s ING New York City Marathon, a random polling of participants showed that few were able to name even one of the stable of elite athletes who had been recruited to run. In more than a dozen conversations, one or two were able to come up with Paula Radcliffe (or “that British woman” as more than one responded), while the men’s field drew pretty much a complete blank. One runner rattled off the names of several television and movie celebrities who were running but could not name a single runner in the elite field. Meanwhile, in an odd juxtaposition, a packed room of media correspondents from newspapers and magazines around the world followed every move made by the elite runners, gathering information and quotes at postrace press conferences for articles that would report upon the competition among the front-runners.

This year, because it lost its title sponsor, AT&T, the Austin Marathon eliminated its six-figure prize-money purse. For the first time in years, the speedy Kenyans and Russians were absent, conspicuously. Race director John Conley told the Austin American-Statesman, “Personally, I love having elite runners come in, but we had to make adjustments. I hope they’re temporary and that as the economy improves, we’ll see some of these things coming back.” The lack of world-class talent did not have an impact on the size of the field, as the race attracted more runners than ever. The view of top local runner Jennifer Harney is certainly shared by many. She told the American-Statesman, “Sure, I’d like to see the pros, but they’re usually so far in front, I don’t see them anyway.”

Although there may appear to be a growing disconnect between the elite side of the sport and the rest of the thousands who make up the fields in New York and other big marathons, it is not necessarily so. The names and faces of the elite runners may not be well known to average runners, but the concept of an elite race still carries significant weight. Simply knowing that the world’s premier marathoners are battling it out for large prize purses and finishing in times that seem unfathomable to the average runner adds a great amount of cachet to the event. Photos of the winners on the front page of local newspapers the next day are an indication to the nonrunning world that the race is meaningful. And to the average runner, that can be important. When an ING New York City Marathon finisher walks into the workplace the day after the race and mentions finishing

“the marathon,” there is no need to elaborate on when and where the race was held or how far the marathon was.

In contrast, the Yonkers Marathon is a well-run marathon just outside New York City that has a long history dating back to the early part of the last century. But it is a relatively small race that attracts a modest field of a few hundred runners each year. The winning times are more than respectable (given the hilly route), but far from world class. For more than a quarter century (from the late 1930s to the early 1960s), the race served as the U.S. national championship, hosted several Olympic Trials marathons, and featured some of the country’s top marathoners. No longer a championship event, the race is now run in the deep shadows of New York and thus generates only a fraction (if any at all) of the “buzz” that permeates that event. That buzz is what in large part creates such intense demand to get into New York and in turn costs the New York Road Runners millions to stage each year. That, of course, all leads to the upward spiral in the entry fee.

You paid for it, but do you own it?

Then there is the question of what, exactly, you are paying for when you sign up for a marathon. Nearly all marathons state that you own nothing, but rather that you—and you alone—are simply paying for the right to run in the race. Thus, most marathons prohibit the transfer or sale of bibs, since complicated medical issues can arise if an injured runner is misidentified. In addition, the results will obviously be incorrect. Several instances have cropped up in which embarrassed runners have learned that individuals to whom they sold or gave a race bib number finished high up in the field or won an award in open or agegroup competition.

Furthermore, the additional logistics and manpower required to implement an official transfer of bib numbers make such policies an unattractive option for many marathons. The Marine Corps Marathon is one event that has implemented a transfer policy, in which the buyer and seller can arrange the transfer on their own terms, whereupon a fee is paid to the race. Although few of the other big marathons offer this option, most now allow deferment of an entry to the following year, with the requirement that the runner pay the entry fee for that year’s race and meet all of the entry requirements. Such policies help mitigate the underground selling or giving away of bib numbers, at least to a certain extent.

On the race-management side of that equation is the looming possibility of personal running licenses, similar to popular professional sports teams for which rights to stadium seats, known as “personal seat licenses,” are sold or auctioned. These are not tickets to get into the games themselves but simply the right to buy tickets to certain seats. ““PSLs,” as they are known in the industry, can generate millions of dollars of income for team owners, while angering fans who are forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars simply to gain access to tickets. The tremendous popularity of some sports franchises has created such intense demand for tickets that it has allowed owners to institute the PSLs, however. The rule of thumb has always been that if the market will bear it, team owners will charge it.

Could entries into major marathons eventually be headed in that direction? “We were watching it (a recent auction of PSLs by the New York Jets football team) the same way anybody in sports marketing would watch it,” ING New York City Marathon race director Wittenberg said recently. “You always have to look at other sports’ initiatives and think how you could apply it to yours.” She was quick to add, however, that creating such a license program for the marathon was “not even on the drawing board.”

The best recreational sports experience money can buy?

Entry fees are only one part of the sum of costs incurred by runners budgeting for destination marathons, which for many runners have become more difficult than ever to justify in struggling economic times. The cost of airfare and lodging can quickly escalate, and hefty entry fees further inflate the bottom line. Still, if you can rationalize $1,000 or more in airfare and lodging, a $100 entry fee can be viewed as a necessary annoyance rather than a deal breaker.

Marathon runners are nothing if not resourceful, however, and many have found ways to minimize these costs. Using online tools—such as bidding for airfares and finding sites that combine hotel and airfare—can reduce travel costs significantly. Other measures, such as staying in the suburbs (where lodging is normally much less expensive) at city marathons and using public transportation (instead of more expensive cabs and shuttles) can also help save money. Some cost-conscious runners head to the airport right after a marathon to avoid an extra night’s lodging. Others simply grin and bear it, saying that, after all, destination marathons are simply another form of sightseeing travel, which they would have to pay for anyway, so what is a little extra to run a marathon in the city in which they are vacationing?

Comparison offers perspective in economics, and in some ways the costs incurred in running destination marathons can seem reasonable compared with other sporting pursuits, such as golf or skiing. Greens fees for an 18-hole round

Ten Money-Saving Tips for Cost-Conscious Marathoners

1. Register early. Many marathons offer discounts for early entrants.

2. Register early only for races that you are sure you will run. If you are an impulse buyer or are injury prone, signing up early for marathons may not be the best way to go. One race you miss will cost you an entire entry fee, which can easily wipe out any savings you might have accrued by signing up early for other races.

3. Bea savvy flight finder. Discussing all of the secrets of finding deals on flights would take an entire column. Suffice it to say that in this day and age, you can act as your own travel agent because of all of the Web sites devoted to finding the most inexpensive flights. Most sites now offer their best deals midweek. Even more than race registration, you will pay a steep premium for procrastinating on booking a flight. If you are sure you are going to do a race, book the flight early.

4. Don’t overpay for lodging. Sleeping in the back of your pickup truck in the race parking lot is not the only way to save money on lodging. In big-city marathons, look at out-of-town locations that are accessible by public transportation. I stayed at an excellent hotel in southwestern Connecticut for the ING New York City Marathon for a fraction of what a Manhattan hotel would have cost. It was just a short train ride into the city. Hotel rewards programs, like frequent-flier miles, can also offer significant savings. Room sharing will greatly reduce lodging costs, but make sure you know your roommate well; otherwise, it might have a less-than-positive effect on your race.

5. Gocarless where possible. Some marathons, especially those in exotic, out-of-the way settings, simply require a rental car. But many city marathons can be accomplished without one. It’s easy to get around Boston and New York on public transportation, and you might even meet other runners or have your ego stroked by nonrunning passengers who look at you and say, “Wow, did you run the marathon?”

6. Travel in packs. Making a journey to an out-of-town marathon with friends is not only more fun, it can also be a money saver. Shared cab rides and hotel rooms can reduce costs for all of the runners in your group.