The poverty of masters track fund-raising
Every few months I read about some fatcat bailing out a sports program on the verge of vanishing. Today’s news brings a report that a group of students, parents and alumni dove in to save Dartmouth College’s swimming and diving teams with $2 million in pledges. John and Becky Moores (owners of the Padres baseball team) alone have given San Diego State’s sports programs $28.6 million. So how come masters track remains in perpetual poverty?
Good question.
Here’s another: With so many well-to-do adults competing in masters, why is the U.S. national program limping along on a paltry $30,000 a year? Of course, meets break even (sometimes) with entry fees and local sponsors. But the overall fiscal health of USATF Masters is pathetic. We don’t have a national team (as the Under-20 Juniors have.) We force our athletes to buy their own uniforms for world meets. We don’t subsidize travel of our world champions. We barely publicize our national championships.
USATF recently started a foundation. And donors can earmark money for masters. But masters leadership is weak. If we have a marketing apparatus, it’s as silent as snow.
This boggles the mind. Sports philanthropy has taken off like a rocket, yet USATF Masters seems to re-invent the wheel every time it sets out to raise funds. Piggybacking USATF isn’t the answer either. Heck, USATF doesn’t even know how to pick a mascot.
We have a treasurer but not a fund-raising committee.
Over the years, I’ve thrown out several ideas on how USATF Masters can build its kitty. Find a sugar daddy. Squeeze the IAAF. Take your rightful share of USATF membership fee revenues. But the best way to raise money for any enterprise is simply: Ask.
That takes a little human interaction, though. USATF Masters ain’t so hot at that. It also takes some technosavvy –- like knowing how to fill out the TO: line of an e-mail message. But what’s the pet project of USATF Masters Chair George Mathews? He wants to help improve the state of youth hammer throwing in America. Talk about nailing your foot to your mouth. But that’s the state of masters track in America. We’d sooner stress the ball-and-chain game than try to escape the financial prison we’re in.
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Perhaps this is just jealousy on my part, but I’ll share it anyways.
College Park High School in Pleasant Hill, CA recently built an 8 lane synthetic track, all built from private money from one family (who’s daughter attends the high school). Ironically, there is another 8 lane synthetic track, at Diablo Valley College, RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET! (Andy Hecker, are you listening?)
I don’t know about you, but after living in Vancouver, BC, where there isn’t a single synthetic track in the city of Vancouver, I’m quite jealous! (Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, etc. are suburbs outside of Vancouver)
Ken and others,
Out of curiousity, are there any other masters sports that raise signigicant money (that don’t have a spectator/TV base like tennis or golf), or are all masters sports pretty much “pay as you go” like T&F. I’d like to know if others are doing what Ken is suggesting and to what extent.
Yes, I am listening, College Park HS is listed on trackinfo.org/tracks.html.
Tracking the progress of the construction of All Weather tracks I am astounded that small schools can consistently raise 5 to 6 to even 7 figures for track and stadium renewal and construction. Yet these great facilities, that I try to encourage people to use (O.K. sometimes I go overboard and encourage them to use facilities the facility administrators choose to lock the public out of) frequently go unused or lightly used. At the same time, the programs that could use those facilities go un-funded. The cost of one track could run a program for several years, but then the administrators of those tracks themselves inflate the cost of a program through their rental rates. An outsider might ask why we keep having our meets at the same places. Mostly it is because those are the locations where the costs are reasonable. Sometimes a location is chosen because the meet director has a favorable arrangement with the facility (alumni, cherished fundraiser etc.) that no other mortal could attain. So when a USATF organizer comes in off the street, we get rental quotes of four figures for a one day meet . . . then we add the cost of the labor to open the gate, provide security, operation and clean up . . . for a masters meet that will bring in (hopefully) just over a hundred entrants and possibly some family members. Other fees, like the USATF sanction (yes, local USATF has to pay itself for putting on their own meets), officials and the rental of necessary equipment (the FinishLynx alone is a major expenditure) all add up to the cost of operating just one event. I get the feeling everyone has their hands in our pockets. Were you ever wondering where your entry fees go? Of course that sends us shopping for the best deal and that results in “same place/same thing.” We could go digging into the vast USATF money pot, does anybody know where it is? So essentially the start-up costs of our events and risk is borne by the meet director or sponsoring club. If the income from the meet doesn’t make the costs, USATF can’t make up the difference. Even though I have put on meets that have made a profit, I’ve also done too many that have had poor attendance and have lost money. Currently I’m in the hole, over and above the immense time and effort I devote to the sport. Any other administrator will have the same sob story, most I’ve heard are much worse than mine. We are dedicated suckers, but our small local programs are dependent on continually finding another sucker to put up the money to make a program go. Areas that break the chain of fools go wanting for a program.
From an advertising perspective, our numbers are too small to attract real serious sponsors (as opposed to benevolent sponsors). A meet with 125 participants doesn’t generate enough advertising value to warrant painting the poster, much less paying for the right to display it. Without the numbers, ultimately our meets and our program will have to be funded on the backs of our participants. But if you understand the advertising dollar, it can’t be any other way. The advertiser won’t put up money unless they made significantly more than that back from additional sales. That is why certain cities’ Convention and Visitors Bureaus (read that the Hotels and Restaurants that rent us rooms and feed us for their own fun and profit) are the instigators of our aspiring National Championship hosts.
Even that $30,000 budget mentioned doesn’t do much for Track and Field. It supports the airline industry, the hotel industry and even the convention admistration companies. What I am saying is the majority of that $30,000 of national USATF Masters money and the majority of your local money goes to flying people around the country for the annual convention. This is made necessary because our bylaws prohibit us from transacting business in any other place or way. That so we can (as a group) get criticized for the votes for such things as the selection of a host for the National Championships. And yes, all those costs are a very effective way to institute the exclusion of most other outsiders (like interested Masters participants) from being part of this “democratic” process. With this irresposible spending pattern, I guess its a good thing that we don’t have more money to throw around.
We could hope for someone’s benevolence. I don’t see anyone on the horizon willing to put up real money so a bunch of old farts can run around a track. Ken, keep on dreaming and screaming, but I don’t expect it.
So who could provide us some money. How about the people who do directly benefit from our activities? Of course the obvious is the Track equipment (shoes, clothing) suppliers, but most of them don’t have much money. I see our best benefacto as medical from two different directions: Medical and Life Insurance companies because we tend to be (in the long term) healthier thus we would be good customers because they don’t spend much money on us. And (in the short term) the local Orthopaedists who do get our hard earned medical dollars as a result of the injuries we inflict upon ourselves–at some of our meets, they ought to pay for the right to set up a MASH tent in the infield. In short, it is to our disadvantage that we are such a cheap sport ot participate in. We can’t take commissions on things like: green fees, club and equipment sales, lift tickets, ski rentals . . . I hope you get my drift. And relative to extreme sports, if I were an orthopaedist I’d choose to set up my tent at a skate park or jumping ramp.
So after all my rambling, I hate to put a damper on the fundraising efforts, but I can’t fault our leadership for their failure to get outside funding. We will either need to find someone who has a financial need to fund our sport’s efforts (someone who directly benefits from it) or you will need to find a kind hearted benefactor who has nothing better to do with their money. Ideas welcome.
Yes, Andy, thanks, I actually check your site when I am travelling, and it sure comes in handy trying to squeeze my workouts before sunset!
BTW, the track cost $600,000 to build at College Park HS.
Just a few suggestions about WHO might support Master’s Track… What about approaching Pfizer, they have a drug that is er, uh ” attractive” to the Master’s crowd. They even has a NASCAR car and that is expensive. How much tape do we all use and band aids, what about Johnson & Johnson? Compared to $30,000 anything is better than nothing. I am new to the master’s events, my first meet is Sunday Jan 19th, so maybe I am not sure how this is supposed to work. Bitchin’ about it is rarely the solution.
Wes Kersey
why dosent sd state have a mens track team. i wanted to join when i got out of high school
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