For race organizers, one of the problems is the cost of putting on a race. For most small town races, an organizer needs a minimum of around $2,500 in sponsorship for the cost of t-shirts and awards. The bigger races need almost $5,000 for t-shirts and awards. The cost of t-shirts depends on if the shirt is a cotton blend or a hi-tech material and if it is short sleeved or long sleeved. Then the awards are also a decision that needs to be made as to how many age groups and overall awards. The added expense comes with the quality of the award. If a runner paid an entry fee of $35, and they get a cheap cotton tee shirt ($10) and one of those junior high track medals ($3 - $5) the chances are this will be the last year of that race when the word spreads amongst the running community of how cheap the shirts and awards were at the race.
Estimating how many runners are expected is a tough call. Since the organizers need to order tshirts a few weeks in advance this is a guessing game. If the race is an established race the organizers can look back at previous races and get a close estimate of how many tshirts and what percentage of sizes for S, M, L and XL to order. A person would think that runners are smaller in stature and the need for XL shirts would be the lowest number. But there is always that runner that is very tall – 6’7” – and needs the XL or even an XXL shirt. Add a few extra sized shirts to your order.
For awards, the standard is usually either five-year age groups or ten-year age groups. The Overall Awards range from the Champion for men and women to the Masters category (40+ years), the Senior Masters category (50 years+) and even the Grand Masters category (60+ years). With ten-year age categories, the organizer is looking at 42 awards if the age category goes to 60 years and over. The Overall awards go from two (Champions only) to eight (Grand Masters). The cost goes up with each award. If the race organizer thinks including five-year age groups will bring in more runners hoping to get an award, the number is now 72 age group awards (6 awards for each age category) plus the eight Overall Champion awards. And lately more races are adding an extra 70+ age category for the increase in senior age runners. Putting on a race can be a costly project if the organizers are hoping to raise money for their charities. For sponsors to put money into your race, they want to know what charities are you donating the proceeds to. And many runners also like to know where their entry fee is going. If it is a charity they like, they will enter your race.
One of the problems for the race organizer is what happens to the awards that did not have enough runners to fill all six places? This is always a certainty. And what about those extra shirts left over because there were not enough runners for your order. One of the most frequent solutions that most organizers come up with is we will just use them next year and save some money. Once the runners from last year’s race see that t-shirt is the same as this year’s race that will probably be the last time you see them at your race. It is best to try to sell them at next year’s race. The same attitude is true for the awards. The award winner looks at the award and notes that, “I already have an award like this.” I have large bins of race shirts and boxes of awards left over from races. That is what sponsorship is for. Hopefully the organizers had enough funding to pay for that portion of the race, so it is already paid for. You can look at the cost of a race two ways. One is the entry fee from the runners will cover the cost of shirts, and awards and sponsorships are the profit. The other is the sponsorship covering the cost of the shirts and awards and the entry fees from the runners is the profit for your organization. Still want to put on a race?
