The Race Shirt

 Race-shirt from the Rev3 Quassy Triathlon last year

Have we given away enough free shirts?

According to the Running USA Stats page, in 2011, roughly 13 Million runners completed a running race of some kind in the Untied States that year. If you add in Canada, as well as all the triathlons in North America you might get to 15 million total participants in running and triathlon events in 2011.

There is a good chance that many of those 15 million race participants got a fee shirt of some kind for entering each of those races. This has become the standard or default, give-away for almost all running and triathlon races. That's 15 million free shirts given away. I am trying to imagine what the pile . .  err . . mountain, of 15 million t-shirts looks like!

Many of these shirts in terms of their look, follow a similar pattern - some form of of design or art on the front that's in keeping with a given events logo and look and feel, and then often some array of sponsor logos on the back.

At one time, these were cotton shirts. Now many of these are the so called,"technical shirts" or "tech-T's". I recall a meeting that I convened, when I was the Marketing and Communications Manager at Sugoi back in the late 90's. Polyester technical t-shirts for running were new then. Hard to believe that prior to about '97, most runners ran in good old cotton t-shirts. Anyway, the meeting at the old Sugoi office in Vancouver was between the key people at the Vancouver Sun Run, and the marketing team at Sugoi. We were trying to come up with formula even then, to get a Sugoi technical T-shirt on the backs of the then roughly 35,000+ Sun Run, participants. We couldn't crunch the numbers to make it work. then - the wholesale cost of the fabrics at the time was prohibitive. However, now, the costs of have been reduced to a point, that giving away a polyester technical shirt has become the standard.

When anything becomes this big a default action, it's a wise course of action to at some point start to look into the reasoning behind the action. So - why do races give away so many t-shirts? There is a cost to this, somewhere along the line - either a hard cost for the event or for one of the events sponsors. Someone is paying for all these t-shirts.

The most common answer amongst race directors as to "why", is typically twofold:

1. Adding value and differentiation to the event.

2. A place for sponsors logos to be displayed, with  the assumption when that the t-shirts are worn,  there's ongoing exposure for those sponsors and those brands. Race participants become human bill-boards when they wear the shirts after the event.

However, if every race is giving away a t-shirt, that getting a t-shirt is the default thing, how is that adding value and differentiating the event? To some races credit, they will try and differentiate here and there, by offering some difference, with long sleeve shirts, or a better quality garment, or different style and design etc . .

As for point #2 - this is obviously dependent on if, and how often the race shirts are actually worn in public. Some casual sampling that I did, on the Slowtwitch Forum, via my Facebook page, and at some public speaking engagements that I recently have worked at, race shirts were actually seldom worn in public by the recipients! In many cases, the shirts were dumped, passed on to Goodwill or some other clothes donation organization, or used as cleaning rags for bikes( popular with triathletes). Whatever the end-point or use, I am not sure this is what the event organizers or the sponsors had in mind - that the shirts would end up in the trash, on the back of some unfortunate, poor homeless person, or used as a bike rag!

In my sampling of specifically veteran endurance sports athletes - who compete in multiple and many races in a calendar-year, an overwhelming majority of these athletes, saw no use or value in getting a race shirt - many already had closets full of them or gave them all away, as noted. Typically this crowd, would say, "Give me something else, or give me a reduced price on my event entry".

However, I also know that for many first time participants or very occasional participants in many events, the race-shirt is a prized memento, and is possibly worn with a great deal of pride, many times after the event.

With the costs to put on running and triathlon races starting to mount, many race directors and race management organizations are starting to look at all costs associated with their events and looking where they can cut back. More than a few events are having a hard look at the the "free" race-shirt that they have given away for years, and are looking at ways to somehow get around that line-item cost. Some are asking a specific sponsor to pick up the whole cost of the shirt, while others, possibly with some progressive thinking, are making the race-shirt an option - giving race entrants, the choice at the time of online registration, to buy the shirt, or take a pass completely on the shirt.

The very popular and successful ( it's one of the largest in North America) Recharge with Milk Triathlon Series, produced by Multisport Canada, is considering making the race shirt for their events this year, something that participants can purchase at the time of  pre-event online registration

Other events are eschewing, the race-shirt completely and going with different lower cost give-aways - socks, hats, pint-glasses, coffee-mugs all seem to be popular stand-ins for the race-shirt, and hopefully at a lower cost.

Meanwhile, many other events still believe quite strongly, often based on surveying of event participants that, the race shirt, is a key to the "success" of their event.

The whole endurance sports event business is growing at a healthy pace right now. This year, that 15 million figure sited earlier, will more than likely be over 10% more, and that means more and more race-shirts given away.

What do you think about race-shirts? Have we given away enough free shirts or is this something that is here to stay?

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Open Letter To Lance Armstrong

Dear Lance,

Welcome back to the sport of triathlon. It's good to see you back to your roots!

You don't know me at all. However, we did share a few laughs over a beer at the Bermuda International triathlon back in the late 80's. Good times!

I noticed last night on Twitter that you and your Nike brethren Simon Whitfield had a bit of  "discussion" about drafting in triathlon. Since you have been away from the sport for many years, I sense that you have missed many of the great drafting debates that has lead us to where we are today.

After you left triathlon for cycling, triathlon grew tremendously, particularly at the Elite/Professional level. The International Triathlon Union( ITU) was formed and the first World Cups and World Championships were held. It was becoming apparent that the gentleman's and sportsman's agreement to not draft on the bike, and to treat it like an Individual Time Trial in cycling, was not working out so well any more. This was due mostly to the size of the race fields and the competitiveness of the athletes. It was becoming harder and harder to enforce the no-drafting rules. Self policing was not working. Putting a number of Drafting Marshals on the course was also having limited impact.

The situation reached it's nadir in the early '90's, when with penalties, disqualifications, appeals to deal with after each big race, it was hard to know who won and who placed where. The arguments and discussions after-the races were over would seem to go on for ever. We would not even know who won or who was on the podium, until well after the race was over( hours!)

At the time, Triathlon had started a quiet campaign to be included in the Olympic Games. Then President of the ITU, Les MacDondald had been advised that if the sport were to be taken seriously by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), one thing thy had to do was to clean things up so that the athlete across the finish line first in most circumstances, was the race winner. The IOC does not like messy things and triathlon at this level had become a bit messy. So the the ITU, in their wisdom, after much discussion and consultation, said, fine: swim, bike and run however, you want in all three sports and the first athlete across the line is the winner. That's simple, clean and easy to understand.

Obviously, this meant that drafting on the bike would now be allowed, in ITU level racing for Elites/Pros in their races. It did change the dynamic and the strategy of the racing. The swim became much more important - a few seconds now mattered. The bike, was admittedly different in philosophy, but became more strategic. Physiologic demands were not that much less, but again different now - it became more like a bike road race. And the run was always the same - of high importance, if for no other reason than it was last!

It did simplify the racing and the officiating for this level of racing dramatically. The IOC liked what they saw and by the late '90's, the sport of triathlon was accepted into the Olympic Games, and as you and just about everyone knows, Simon Whitfield won the Gold Medal that first Olympic Games triathlon in dramatic fashion in Sydney, in 2000.

The previous is obviously all about Elite racing at the ITU level. All Age-Group racing and Pro/Elite racing in longer races, particularly the World Triathlon Corporation's world wide series of Ironman and 70.3 races are still contested under the "old" rules of no drafting allowed on the bike. In the Pro ranks, which are now for the most part separated from the Age-Groupers, the old gentleman's agreement with a bit of "help" from race officials, still seems to work. Field sizes are small, and there is often lots of road and room to work with. I have worked with your good friend Jimmy Riccitello as a Drafting Marshal in the past, and today's Pro Triathletes get the rules - they push the limits of the no-drafting rules right to the edge, as the best athletes tend to do in any sport, but they rarely go over. It's actually beautiful thing to see at a race like Ironman Hawaii with 20 - 25 of the best triathletes all strung out with exactly 10m between them in a 250m long legal pace line out on the Lava Fields

The story back in the Age-Group ranks in many big triathlons is a bit muddier, and less clear. Back there, it's really a question, of numbers and physics. If you stood at the exit to T1 in any big, 2000+ athlete Ironman at about the 60 - 70 minute mark of the race ( something that I would urge you to do when you have a chance), when massive numbers of triathletes are literally flooding onto the bike course you would know what I am getting at. The no-drafting rules are clear, but at times and places on the bike course, the rules are asking the athletes to do something that is physically impossible to do! There is simply not enough room on the road, for them all. Drafting back here, can be a real problem. Officials try and do what they can, but they can't be everywhere on the bike course all the time. Back here there needs to be some give-and-take on the part of both officials and athletes to try and work it out and make it a fair race for everyone, but it can get messy. It's accepted now that passive or inadvertent drafting may happen. Good race officials like Jimmy, know what to look for - for the athlete, who is purposly drafting to gain advantage. It does go on.

The great drafting debate in the sport of triathlon can get quite heated. Just go to the Slowtwitch Forum and put the word, "Drafting" in the forum's search function, to get a sense for this. It's almost as lively a debates about what's better, clinchers or tubulars, or which frame is more aerodynamic!

It's not about which format or style of racing is better. There is room, a reason and respect for both in Triathlon. Perhaps, not exactly the same but in cycling - you were a Stage Race specialist, who re-defined the approach to the biggest stage races like the Tour de France. Whereas, say, a Tom Boonen, will focus on one day cobbled classics of the spring. Both of you are great cyclists!

Hopefully you have found this helpful. Again, welcome back. Best wishes with the training and the racing on your road to Kona. It will be great to see you on the starting line there in October.

Best regards,

Steve

P.S. If you are considering adding another Ironman race to your resume this year, I would highly recommend Ironman Canada. It's one of the original five Ironman races and is truly iconic in the sport. The bike course is a beaut, and the course record for it is one that I am sure only someone with your credentials could bring down!

The Business of Ironman Hawaii

This is not so much about the actual business of Ironman Hawaii itself, but about the businesses that are focused on the triathlon business and how they make use of Ironman Hawaii to advance their businesses.

It's pretty clear, that within the sport of triathlon that the #1 race and event each year that most triathletes pay attention to is the Ford Ironman World Championships, aka Ironman Hawaii (IMH). Therefore, it makes sense that there is so much focus on this one event from a marketing and promotional perspective for brands and companies, that work within the triathlon market or brands and companies that want in, and want a part of that market.

In yesterdays blog I talked about how Quintana Roo bike founder, and now Slowtwitch Publisher Dan Empfield, in a very grass-roots and basic manner went about promoting his new triathlon specific bike at Ironman Hawaii many years ago. This is how I first met Dan - with bare QR frame slung over his shoulder, at the pier one morning, pumping me up on this new frame geometry that he had come up with that would make me cycle faster and run faster off the bike. He was very passionate about this. I was convinced right on the spot!

The triathlon crowd at IMH is somewhat unique and novel in that trying to market and promote to them is a bit of a mixed blessing:

1. This is for the most part a best-of-the-best group, who tend to be set in their ways, have their favorite gear, and brands, might already be "sponsored", and are sophisticated in their choices. In other words, it takes a lot to move them one way or the other.

2. The best that could be said about many of these folks is that they can be major influencers and ambassadors back home in their own communities. So if you do get them on board, you have a great mega-phone at a local level.

Many companies continue to do what Dan did years ago - just show up and informally, start to spread the word of their brand or product. The Pier at the morning swims is the perfect location for this, because within a couple hours each morning all week long, you'll have 500 - 1,000+ athletes and the many other folks in town converging on the Pier. It's a rare morning when you do go down to the Pier and not walk away with some promotional literature, possibly a little give away shwag, or a sales pitch on something. In fact, I am drinking my coffee this morning out of a coffee cup that was part of a cooperative marketing effort on the pier at the morning swim two years ago between TYR , and Java-On-The Rock, a coffee shop along Alii drive.

A slight step up from this would be the companies like Coffees-of-Hawaii who to the best of my knowledge have no official status with IMH, other than that company owner Albert Boyce is a regular competitor at the event - but they know that triathletes love their coffee! Coffees-of-Hawaii promote themselves in a very unique way by mooring a large catamaran about 400m out from the pier and anyone out there swimming can swim-up and get a shot of Coffees-Of-Hawaii espresso, and if you are very nice they might put an extra shot of something really nice in it for you!( If you know what I mean!!) That's me in the picture at the top downing an espresso + Baily's two years ago!

Another level up from this is the more aggressive guerrilla marketing that can go on amongst the bigger brands and players in the business - typically with brands trying to move on in, on the space that a WTC or IMH sponsor has. I recall years ago, when Gatorade was about to launch their new energy bar. The launch location was Ironman Hawaii and at the time Gatorade was the official sports beverage. PowerBar had had an informal relationship with IMH for several years. The exact details of which I don't really know. I just know that in 1993, PowerBar was suddenly not given any formal allowances with IMH, because IMH wanted to do everything it could for Gatorade in helping them get this new energy bar off the ground. This prompted the marketing team at PowerBar to shift into high-gear and they immediately signed up a bunch of the top Pros in the month prior to IMH and then they also went room to room at the King Kam Hotel and gave people( probably in exchange simply for a box of PowerBars) a PowerBar banner to put over their balcony. When you came along Alii drive right by the finish line and race registration all you could see was about 100+ PowerBar banners flapping on people's balconies of the King Kam Hotel.

Gatorade dug deep and it got a bit nasty - at the Pro Meeting that year, they went so far as to say that, some of those neophyte PowerBar sponsored athletes would get limited, or no camera time for the NBC show - even if they were placed high up!! Of course years later, this is all moot as the Gatorade energy bar never caught on and now PowerBar/Nestle is a world-wide partner of WTC/Ironman and Gatorade is no longer involved!!

Another perhaps not as dramatic or guerrilla-type of marketing, we have been witness to just this past week - but no less impactful based on the strategy and some good fortune that fell in a key players lap.

Specialized started to build up hype about a new super triathlon bike, a month ago at Interbike. "Top-Secret - wait till Kona", the promotional material said. At exactly the same time, two time winner of IMH Craig Alexander decided to part ways with his bike sponsor Orbea. At the WTC's 70.3 World Championship four weeks ago, Alexander was riding on a Cervelo P4 with the logos blacked out! Alexander won that race, in convincing fashion and had perhaps his best bike leg ever against this level of competition. Speculation was starting to build. Then a grainy, "spy-photo" of Alexander came out, of him training in Kona two weeks ago - It was hard to tell from the photo what bike or brand he was riding. The the speculation and rumors shifted into over-drive. On the Slowtwitch Forum several of the threads with the biggest page-views of the year, where on this topic - "What Bike is Craig Riding". Specialized had their launch a few days ago of this new triathlon specific bike - the new Shiv in Kona, and then a day later, it's announced that Alexander's new bike sponsor is . . . . Specialized!

Specialized was savvy about this. They knew that for many triathletes, it's all about the bike. I am sure they also knew that, with the new media, and the social networking tools that are out there now, that word and news, spreads very quickly ounce you plant those viral seeds. Then of course, the #1 favorite for the most important race in the sport, literally falls right in their lap, and BAM - well, you could not have planned it any better! Or might this have been part of some grander master marketing plan??

Of course, if we are talking bikes and IMH, we need to talk about Cervelo. Ironically, in both triathlon and in road racing, Cervelo has been very successful. They have won just about everything. The one "major" that they have not won is the mens race at IMH - and it may have just slipped through their hands for this year! But does it really matter? Cervelo dominates in the one category that really matters - the most bikes in transition at IMH and many other big triathlons around the world. They crush it in the bike counts. Strangely, Cervelo arrived at this point a number of years ago, by doing things in a somewhat non-traditional manner, with far less traditional marketing than normal. Does who wins IMH riding a Cervelo matter to Cervelo these days?

Finally, there are all the real IMH sponsors. It costs a lot of money to be formally and directly associated with the WTC and IMH as a sponsor, partner or licensee. These relationships can be hugely successful - think of the Timex Ironman watch. The Timex/Ironman relationship is generally speaking regarded as one of the most successful co-branding relationships of all time. And it all started at Ironman Hawaii. And Ford seems to be getting good value for it's title sponsorship of not just IMH but almost all the Ironman races in North America. But there are many other smaller brands that so have a relationship that we rarely hear about. Is it worth it for them?


How influenced are you, by who the sponsors are of Ironman Hawaii and by the marketing that other companies do during Ironman Hawaii race week?

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What Now For Ironman?

"I just did an Ironman"! I heard these words two years ago from a man seated behind me on the shuttle-bus that was taking us back to the car parking area after the inaugural Muskoka 70.3 race. The fellow had been going on and on to his friends how he had quit smoking, lost 40 lbs and trained for a whole year for this, "Ironman" race. It was an impressive, inspirational, and in truth a really great and genuine story. Was I to turn around and tell the guy that in reality, he had only done half an Ironman. No, I just sat their, listened, took it all in, and then as the bus came to our destination, stopped and we all got up to get off, I congratulated him on what he had done. Had the venerable and legendary Ironman just reached a tipping point?

It started off as a drunken bar-room challenge back in the late '70's between some U.S. Navy personnel stationed at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. Who was the fitter athlete - the swimmer, the cyclist of the runner? What if they bolted together Hawaii's best known endurance challenges - the 2.5 mile Waikiki Rough Water swim, the 112 mile around Oahu Bike Race and the 26.2 mile Honolulu marathon. Surely the winner of this crazy challenge would be the best all round endurance athlete. The winner, as Captain John Collins, the acknowledged leader of this challenge said, would be called an Ironman! As Collins wrote right on the race instructions, "Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life" And so it began, as a quirky and obscure challenge and race that back then few knew about, beyond a small circle of endurance athletes.

The Ironman really started to come into it's own 10 years on in the late 80's when Dave Scott started to own the race and set performance standards that were starting to be eye-openers for many. The famous "Iron-War" between Scott and his nemesis Mark Allen in '89 was a high water mark for the event in terms of performance and how fast humans could go over these crazy distances. The Ironman race by this time had spawned a small group of Ironman races around the world, but it was still, relatively speaking small group of serious endurance athletes who took part and raced these races. Each Ironman race had the feeling of a meeting of this endurance club. Everyone knew everyone else!

From the get-go many of the participants and racers beyond the top Pros such as Scott and Allen, were classic type-A sorts of folk - very driven and very passionate about their training and about Ironman. I first became aware of this passion when in the late 90's the Ironman Canada race, dealing with a onslaught of entries that was starting to overwhelm the event, floated the idea of having people qualify for it ( Note: starting in the late 80's Ironman Hawaii the so called World Ironman Championships, had been for the most part a qualify-only event). There was mass outrage on the triathlon newsgroups - remember those - about having to qualify for Ironman Canada! It was a testament to the passion that many of the Ironman race participants felt for their race.

Which brings us to this year and the last few months. The World Triathlon Corporation(WTC), has been in change and in advancement mode now for several years, but a string of changes in the last year with an aggressive corporate expansion policy has many asking, "What happened to Ironman?" Obviously, it no longer refers to just the original 2.5/112/26.2 distance as the WTC has branded races half that distance, their so called 70.3 races, Ironman as well. Can you brag about doing a 70.3? The WTC has also gone shorter, buying up a bunch of known "Olympic" distance races and series and branding them 50i50 races. With this latter move they have been careful, to not associate these shorter races with the Ironman, but people in the know, know the association, and they do have the now iconic "i" short for Ironman the name of the event.

What's behind all this? My guess is three things: the first in the most obvious - money. There is a mis-conception that these big Ironman and 70.3 races are huge money makers. I have heard the opposite - that they are not the profit centers that everyone thinks they are. Therefore, more races, of whatever length means, more money. Second - is simply the age-old exercise in the business, of brand extension. Once a business and a brand have tapped out one market, and the possibility of growth in that market is small or nothing, you need to expand into other markets and extend the reach of your brand. Finally, in many businesses, ounce you have X-number of customers/users/participants, your challenge becomes not so much finding new ones, but keeping the ones you have! Hence affinity programs of some form to keep the masses on-board.

Of course, there are still those very passionate folk within the sport who don't like any of this and the WTC and the Ironman brand has been getting a bit of a rough ride of late. On the very popular Slowtwitch forum recently , at one point 1/2 the subject threads on the first page were devoted to discussions about the WTC, many with a negative tone, about various moves the WTC has made of late regarding, race expansion, rule changes, miss-management of races, extraordinary revenue generators through affinity programs and other changes.

It must be said that over all this time, the WTC have been an outstanding steward of the Ironman brand, and of marketing the sport of triathlon in general. Races sell out quickly now, but it was not so long ago that this was not the case and the sport of triathlon was in the doldrums. Kudos to the WTC for keeping the flame alive and the lights on through some previous lean times.

Clearly when you say the word "Ironman" these days, it has a different meaning, to different people. The guy on the bus at the beginning of the blog, has a different idea of it than I, and many others do - but he's still right. The people railing against the WTC getting all corporate and expansionist perhaps yearn for the days when, one time race owner, Valerie Silk, used to send out personal Christmas cards to all Ironman Hawaii finishers. Back then, when mine would show up in the mail every year, I thought that was pretty cool! The problem is, once you go forward these days in the world of business and sport, it's hard to go backwards and the WTC is trying to expand it's business in a big way and has taken the word Ironman and it's original and iconic brand along with it.

The really big Irony, no pun intended, to me is that while there is a heavy over-emphasis on all-things Ironman in the sport of triathlon, the real growth action in the sport is far away from the Ironman. The Danskin, and Trek Women's tri series are huge women-only events that dwarf most of the WTC's events in participants and are the key front door to the sport of triathlon for many of these women. Might some of these women go on to do a full Ironman, or 70.3 race someday? Perhaps they will, but for now, they are happy to put a short swim/bike/run together and feel the accomplishment and garner some bragging rights, much like participants in the first Ironman did, all those years ago!

Where this all goes over the next few years will be rather interesting.

How do you feel about the direction the WTC is going in?


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