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Thanks for overview. I find it interesting that their report has no mention of male or female other than their “Athlete of the Year” page.
When discussing growth, trends, demographics, potential, etc. you’d think there’d be some recognition about who is your customer. Indeed, I played an old public relations game and counted the subjects in the photos. 38 female subjects and 14 male. It would have been MUCH more female if I didn’t only pick subjects, and didn’t include the tons of women in the background of some shots. But even so, most of the male pictures were of medal/award winners so it would have been pretty vicious for USAT to ignore those men. There were only what I’d call two discretionary male photos (and one child male), and the rest of the pics were all female.
Why does this matter? Maybe it doesn’t, but if you’re marketing a sport predominantly participated in by males, that appeals predominantly to males, and you’re wondering how you can grow it and stop it from declining, and you appear to have a heavy female oriented bias in your media strategy… well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re missing a lot of growth potential right under your nose.
Don’t get me wrong, I do my part to support women in triathlon, paying entries, sharing equipment, nutrition, helping with training, even paying for a flight and hotel once for a non family member. But we have to recognize where the strength of the sport is, and it’s very strong and has a lot of potential with men eager to train and go have an adventure in competition. I’m not suggesting suddenly attendance goes up if they did a find and replace with all those photos. But I do suggest the people at the helm might be building an expensive set of scaffolding to pick a few apples at the top of the tree, rather than just use their arms to get the ones a little closer.
What surprised me:
Does a thing like a non-sanctioned event exist in the U.S.? If it does, then that might explain 1&2 maybe, the data being “incomplete”.
Here’s an example of a non-sanctioned (I believe) triathlon in AZ
Live in Madison, Wisconsin. We have many non sanctioned events in the state, although longer distance events have gone away as IM has taken over the 70.3 market (REV3 OOB High Cliff cancelled). We also had a couple sanctioned events Sprint/Oly go away and can’t really explain why (e.g. Elkhart Lake was a great event).
Former RD of running races and it has become expensive to keep these races going since COVID (police, food, race company prices have sky rocketed) and many areas make permitting a PIA.
This stuff is all a joke. USAT for ever has gotten away with not being honest about numbers, and they still are!
But what are the facts. Cal Tri presented real facts and all of a sudden, USAT has anyone trying to give them credit they care?
USAT hid the number from endurance exchange, wanted for to have to go and pay. But someone posted the info in my facebook group.,
and the cat was out of the bag, and boy has USAT been trying to scramble.
USAT says they have 1800 coaches, their website say like 1100.
I could go on and one with examples of things not correct. But, USAT says everyone is not honest about numbers so who cares. Well, some folks care.
Just wait until the second document on the USAT NCAA real data comes out any second. Again, USAT is NOT being honest about the numbers.
I just love how social media can FORCE someone like USAT having to be honest.
This comment is interesting, where is the data.
I have asked in my group tell us one thing USAT has done in the last 5 years that moved the needle? Winter nationals? 100 folks. Gravel Nationals? 100 folks. Womens tri series? ETc Etc. All that came back was crickets. Nothing has worked, they just keep raising the prices, laying folks off, but the top folks keep getting their huge salaries.
So, Kevin, you stated they have identified the one issue on decreasing numbers. I cannot seem to find in the article?
Will USAT be around in 5 years? They have lost millions the last 2 years and all bets are USAT lost money in 2024 also. In business, when things are this bad, folks lose their jobs and new leadership is hired? Hint.
I am not sure if this is what you’re referring to, but there is a chart that shows the number of events - Sanctioned Events Still Consolidating/ Declining Post Covid. That shows the decline in events since 2017, and specifically lists the decline in events in California from 2014 (172) to 2024 (79). That’s all I was referring to with regards to USAT having identified an issue that I assume they will look to take on with the upcoming strategic plan.
This does not answer your statement
“USAT is definitely working to alleviate the information issues, and have identified the issue around the decreasing number of events in America.”
Yep, they are being forced to deal with the false information they have put out for years.
Again, what is the identified issue? Has nothing to do with charts, it is your statement. Where are numbers that can be verified?
IMO, the issue which I have been telling them for years is the age of folks wanting to be competitive is over! This is for old folks like me.
Why are sports like pickle ball growing like crazy? Or 5K run races?
It is because they want social. No real training us old folks are used to!!
First thing I would do as CEO is fire a lot of folks. Then I would kill off these nationals and make them regionals TeamUSA qualifiers. Now, whether it makes sense to have a peacock level nationals, would have to look at data.
But, USAT folks live in an echo chamber and cannot think outside the box, let alone brain storm ideas for changes. It is just their way or the high way.
And having all the focus on DEI at USAT IMO is not where the majority are at anymore.
From a financial perspective, isn’t nationals a big revenue driver for USAT? Both in terms of entrance fees, but also some sponsorship clout they get to charge their sponsors $$$ to be featured at such a large event?
Or are you saying to have smaller 3 regionals in place of one nationals?
From the best folks can figure, no, nationals has not made them money, good chance they have lost.
They have tried doing things like they had over 6000 athletes, but when you look at the finisher data, it is like 3400. For years what they said to the media and what their data show means they do USAT math/marketing. But USAT’s comment when called out is but all business fudge their numbers.
I believe USAT should have integrity, rather than , well, …
Based on how few folks they have been having at nationals, and since they have not for years had a venue the masses will travel too, something new needs to be tried!!! But USAT is stuck in their ways of losing money. But so far, the big salaries keep getting paid. Like over 30% is overhead/ Is this the type of non profit one wants to invest in?
The sponsors are all starting to see the USAT math, they promise numbers but never meet them. Our sport is very small, everyone, and I mean everyone talks to each other.
The identified issue is that there are fewer events than there used to be. That’s all it’s saying. It doesn’t indicate that the cause of that issue or a solution to that issue have been identified.
They should have like 8. Or however many USAT regions there are these days.
Yeah, I’ve always wondered how the southern Wisconsin triathlon events get away with not being USAT sanctioned. They must be insured some other way? But then why don’t more race companies do that?
It was sometimes tricky when I was living there to find a race to qualify for Nationals.
I think that is a fairly unique situation, but it has always made me skeptical of USAT numbers because I knew what a thriving triathlon scene southern Wisconsin had but it was invisible in any USAT analysis.
Starting with race numbers is backwards imo, and a very profit-centric view. The demographic will be in training data from Strava and Garmin - how many people swim, bike and run of a year tells us what the target market looks like. How many of them choose to race will be a smaller portion.
Then you can start asking why, what else they are doing, and then you can consider options on how to address the needs of the multi sport community, and what they will see value in.
Excuse my ignorance (and laziness), please educate me -
a. Is USAT only source of revenue the membership/one day race fee, or are they subsidized somehow (government)?
b. Do they actually organize races, or just provide insurance, regulation, etc? if not organizing, how big can the costs be?
c. Do they have any other monopolizing power, i.e. do they select athletes to the Olympics, or something else decreed by government or similar? Otherwise, why isn’t there a nimble competitor coming in and eating their lunch?