Confessions of a meet director: How Club West got canceled
High-profile October meet bit the dust over money.
Here’s what Andy wrote about Club West cancellation and others as well:
We traveled a long road trying to make the meet happen, but 1) the meet lost $3,000 last year (made up by Beverley finding donors). She didn’t want to go to that well again.
I tried to get it to happen by giving away the gate to a school to host it. We were going to have the meet until an administrator stepped in and demanded a guarantee of $4,000 income. So the club said to hell with that and cancelled the meet.
We are trying a different ploy to revive the meet next year.
The process of booking a track is not fast. We, as outsiders, have to decide who to work with and for a period of time we have to put all our eggs in one basket. If the bottom drops out, it’s a mess.
Politically, we can’t exactly have a backup facility waiting in the wings. Starting over is not easy, nor can it be made to move fast even against a deadline. Frankly, every track person has been nice and cooperative toward masters athletics. But they always have administrators — supervisors looking over their shoulder. And those people could care less about the sport; it’s not their job to be nice or friendly.
They just want to stick their hand as far down into our pocket as possible.
Every Southern California meet is in trouble. I lost money this year because of a poor crowd [at the Southern California Indoor Championships Held Outdoors]. My loss is small because I get the facilities. I was so busy before the meet I did a lousy job of publicity. Blaming myself, I didn’t see the seasonwide writing on the wall. Crowds were down.
And expenses always go up.
Striders [President] Robert [Richardson] was a new meet director. He’s keeping his cards close to his vest, but he indicated he lost money [on the Striders Meet of Champions].
[Southern California Association Masters T&F Chair Mark] Cleary is screaming at the cost of officials, claiming they cost him too much money and that his meets (the Association Championships and West Region) are losing money.
While she doesn’t make it too public, Cynthia [Rosedale] with the [Pasadena] Senior Olympics is always having to negotiate around facilities. Caltech is obviously the most cooperative, but it’s still a lot of work. I think the Caltech arrangement is a legacy to a deal struck by Pete Clentzos “Hubba hubba” (and he’s been dead for a while).
I believe her meet is among the most expensive for the athletes, has the largest participation, has a ton of sponsorship but she’s still closer to the edge than we see publicly.
Trojan Masters revived their meet this year. USC is expensive and the crowd was down, seriously down. I think under 100. [Meet director] Eugene [Driver] lost money the last time he put on the meet and there were like 175 entrants then. He has not communicated with me about money, but I assume the Trojan Masters took a bath.
And Club West.
I know nothing about Santa Ana College (they get the track and meet staff for free) nor have I heard from Bigilita [Eggers] about Self Transcendence [Masters Meet]. But she has been struggling to find facilities and cost was an issue since Long Beach [State] dropped out. Moorpark [College] was at Beverley and my suggestion.
The track at Long Beach State, by the way, is in such bad shape they won’t let people on it any more. Gates locked. It used to be one of the easiest tracks to get. I walked on the track (with a camera crew and a wrestler to shoot) when the gates were open and got thrown out by [Coach] Latanya Sheffield, not for the camera crew, but for the safety of the track. A few years ago [Long Beach State coach] Andy Sythe told me their plans were to build the track on top of a new parking garage on another part of the campus, so it’s not a simple resurface and very expensive.
In related news, LA City College built a track in the confined space of their campus on top of a parking garage. It’s a logistical and financial disaster. Last I saw it, the track had been torn out and not replaced.
Point of this mess: No matter how nice Andy Sythe is or has been in the past, when they spend millions (maybe even ten) to put a track on top of the parking garage, some administrator is going to want to get thousands from us to use it for a few hours.
There are literally hundreds of high school tracks, each of which have some history to how they got the money to build the track. Maybe they have a favorable track coach, but they have an administration that either doesn’t care enough to answer (or return) a call, or they see dollar signs from each track meet (or soccer game or pee wee football) usage of their stadium.
And high schools have limitations. We can’t conduct all of our official masters events at a high school. Steeplechase is very rare, cages suitable for hammer throw are rare (as are landing sights–hammers leave big craters), javelin is at least frowned upon (some people think it is illegal on a high school campus), many high schools do not do pole vault any more (entire leagues drop the event because of fear) and do not have the facilities up to the required specifications of USATF and then most high school tracks don’t have a proper curb (so we have to go out and buy cones).
Many colleges do have the facilities, but they also have administrators who are more savvy to making money. They want the parking, additional fees for the stadium stands (we don’t use but still have to pay for). And unwarranted cleanup fees — they are good at that. You can leave the place spotless and get a $1200 cleaning bill after the fact. They know where to find MORE money.
Here’s an example on the Cadillac end of the spectrum, UCLA is one of very few places that has all the facilities we need inside one stadium, no goofy satellite fields or remote campuses. They wanted $7,000 the last time I checked (probably more now). At $35 per entrant, that requires 200 entrants just to pay for the track, not including cost of officials, timing company, registration, awards, advertising and the other costs of putting on a meet. And UCLA still wants another $12 for parking (in that parking garage that was flooded last month). The number of entrants to break even is around 300. What if only 60 or 80 sign up? And you get a cleanup fee? And . . .
If we raise prices, entrants will think twice about signing up, and crowds will shrink further.
So it’s a dismal situation. I don’t know where we will find the money in the future to put meets on. Organizations, who used to like to make some income from doing meets, will stop signing up if they do it at a loss. Most will lose interest if they don’t make money. So how are we going to do this?
15 Responses
We have no Master Track competition but official French Championship. If we want to compete we need to run with Senior or young athlete.
No track are existing at University.
Each town is responsible for his track, you don’t pay anything when you organize a competition.
My small part is to sign up for every meet I want to continue, even if I can’t make it that year. I miss more than half that i sign up for but my hope is that they are a little bit more likely to be there next year because I do this.
I know that is not the whole answer – not everyone can afford to do that and even if they could, it might still not be the whole answer. But it’s a start.
What about combining a cross country run with the track meet Like Pierce College used to do with the summer all comers meets? Do a 5k cross country charity run at College of the Canyons with the Masters Meet following on the track. It should be asier to get sponsors with a charity involved. Let the people finish on the track prior to the meet, and let their friends and family into the stands for a small fee. Alot more people would show up for a 5k than a masters meet use them to pay for the meet. Maybe allow a dozen food trucks to set up alongside the stands.
Since I don’t feel like looking it up…what are the entry fees for these meets? Ive been in meets where its been so cheap to sign up people enter 10 events and then compete in the ones they’re in the mood for…. or whatever their deal is. CHARGE MORE!!!!
Western States Invitational Masters meet has disappeared too.
Was held in northern CA. Davis for the last couple years. 2013 was cancelled and then no word about 2014.
Sad.
To some degree the situation is similar everywhere, but I suspect that public institutions in California have their hands out to a greater extent than elsewhere because budgets for higher education there have been stripped totally bare and the institutions are in serious financial trouble. It’s well known that students on Cal State campuses often have to postpone graduation because courses they are required to take to fulfill their majors aren’t offered when they need them or fill and another section cannot be added because there’s no money to pay for it. We get the downstream effect by them looking for every penny they can get their hands on.
We’ve run the East Region championships for years by offering the host institution the revenue from the meet. In every case but one they have made a nice profit to support their track program.
What Bob suggested is what all of us can do that is under our control, similar to making a donation towards Masters Rankings. Like Bob, I enter as many local meets as I can afford even though I may not show up. Local Senior Games are in the same situation. If we want to see these meets continue, folks, those little $20 entry fees really help. I sincerely hope that the Club West Meet can get going again, as it is well-run and a great ‘last opportunity’ meet to get a good mark for the year. Beverly Lewis does her best for us, so let’s make sure we do our part to bring it back!
I think the situation is similar in most areas. In addition to the relatively high cost of renting a track and paying officials, facility availibility is often an issue as the school events come first and you compete with camps and soccer tournaments, etc.
I also make donations to meets and always thank the organizers and officials for their efforts. The meet situation needs to improve or in a few years, we may have no meets.
Thanks for the mention. Financially, the Pasadena Senior Games has always been just fine because of our partnerships and the growing number of athletes. We look forward to another great meet on June 6!
When a door slams in your face – over and over – just go elsewhere. That’s no fun. Find a farmer and throw the shot and hammer and jav all over his land.
So what if you have to go run open events on the roads. Twice as much fun. Just ask if you can have masters sprints before the main event. A hoot.
As for the $$$$$$$$ admins and worry-warts, eff ’em if they can’t take a joke. It’s what it is – let ’em be.
Adapt and survive.
GB, age 72
I’ve noticed a considerable drop in athlete participation in California masters track and field meets within the last 10 years. When I first started competing in masters track and field meets back in 1989 it was an all day affair. The vault would take 2 to 3 hours to complete with 15 to 20 vaulters participating. Now we are lucky if 5 vaulters show up. Why do road races draw large participants and masters track and field meets lose participants? It might have something to do with a lack of training facilities for masters track and field athletes and very few athletes and coaches to train with.
I appreciate the efforts of Bob Cedrone, Jim Burgoyne, Jim Chamberas and Jerry Bookin Weiner– and anyone who helped make the National Throws Pentathlon in Worcester Massachusetts a success.
In light of the discussion, I especially appreciate those who made financial donations over and above their entry fee, to give the meet a boost.
The rising costs for the officials have exceeded the facilities costs for the last 2 years for the first time in California. It sucks any profit that would have been made right out of the meet. In a few years from now we will only have all comers meets put on by the colleges in January and February then a drought until our Nationals in the summer. I have been fighting this battle for several years with the officials in our Association the don’t care if we lose our meets they just want their money. It’s ironic that those old guys have no empathy for us old guys.
With all these problems putting on meets it would seem logical that the people putting them on would communicate and avoid having two meets on the same day as happened earlier this month in San Diego and Moorpark . Obviously attendance at both suffered . This isn’t the first time this has happened in S.Cal.
I also feel that we should be willing to spend a little more to enter local meets so they remain viable
San Diego Track Club has a nice summer series that is pretty inexpensive (not full meets). I’d be interested to know how they can do their USATF and other meets inexpensively. I assume that members of their club have positions or relationships with the facility owners. Or maybe the club just absorbs the losses.
This is a sad situation. I got into running as a kid at all-comers meets my dad would take me and my brother. We may be specifically talking masters here, but if meets are not available for all ages, the sport dies a slow death.
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