GEEKNOTE: Athletic Events

GEEKNOTE: It is good to occasionally push back from the keyboard and head outdoors and check out what's going on. This can be as simple as jumping on your bike and cruising around town for a couple hours like I did Saturday or as challenging as signing up to participate in one of many athletic events we have in our area.

There has been a shift away from big festivals and toward athletic events over the last eight or ten years. The problem with big festivals is that they are at the mercy of Florida's notoriously fickle weather. If things are good, folks show up to watch and if the weather turns bad, nobody shows up and the organizers lose their financial shirts.  Bad weather has washed out more than one festival, including the Chasco Fiesta on multiple occasions (eg. the "No Name Storm" of 1993 and multiple nights during the 2011 Fiesta).

Perhaps the first example of the shift from festivals to athletic events was way back in late 2004, when the Odessa Rodeo committee ran the numbers and figured out that, if they were lucky, the rodeo might clear 15-20k and if they were unlucky, the event could drop $100k. The organizing group, the Rotary Club of Seven Springs, wisely agreed to cancel the 2005 event and concentrate instead on taking a little off-road triathlon the Starkey brothers had been doing and making it into a signature on-road event. The rest, as they say, is history.

I was the race director of the Longleaf Triathlon for the first five years, and we grew it from a modest first year into a very popular event which continues on to this day with both sprint and international distances and hundreds of participants. The event is much more financially viable than the old rodeo ever was. This year's event will be on October 12th and, since I'm not running it, I probably ought to start training now so I can run IN it.

After five years as race director, I turned over direction of the Longleaf Triathlon in early 2010 and not two weeks later, was asked to take over the role of race director for the fledgling Chaotic Coteeman Triathlon. My one condition was that we lose the "Chaotic" in the name... I had participated as an athlete in 2008 and 2009 and the 2009 Chaotic Coteeman had lived down to it's name with torrential rain (the bike part of the event was mercifully cancelled because of safety concerns) and street flooding that I found the hard way as the water poured in over the tops of my running shoes during the rain.

We actually made a little money in 2010 and last year, we made enough to sponsor 25 youth scholarships to the rec. center. 

This year marks the fifth year for the event and it promises to be the biggest and best yet. Registrations are running way higher than last year and we've already got our first international entry. The Coteeman will be held on August 11th and complete information can be found at http://www.coteeman.com

Another event in it's fifth year is the Rap River Run this coming Saturday. Rumor has it that there will be upwards of 2000 athletes participating.  I will be one of the volunteers out on the course.  If you aren't up to doing a 5k run, there is a 1 mile fun run/walk, and I'm positive the Youth and Family Alternatives folks would love extra hands to help as volunteers.  Rumor has it that YFA expects the event to clear well into six figures.  More info on this event can be found at http://www.rapriverrun.com

There are a bunch of other athletic events each year in our area. I'm the race director for the Law Week 5k (the first Saturday in May) and I'm planning on running in the first Healthy Start 5k this September 22nd.  

The one thing all of these events have in common is that they are less subject to our weather.  Running and swimming in the rain is not a problem so long as there is no lightning.  If the weather turns really bad like it did for last year's Tarpon Springs Rotary Triathlon, the event can be rescheduled for a few weeks later. 

Another thing they have in common is that they are a lot easier to staff with volunteers.  Not to minimize the hard work that the Rap River Run folks are doing, but they will be "all hands on deck" for Friday evening and Saturday morning with pretty much everyone home and relaxing by lunch time on Saturday. 

This compares favorably with the number of hours the hard working folks with the Chasco Fiesta have to dedicate each year in order to pull of what is essentially a three week event by the time you count setup and tear down. 

In the day, it was considered routine for the Odessa Rodeo chairman to have some major adverse life event immediately before or after the rodeo  Families and jobs were put at risk pretty much every year as the event consumed the chair and other key committee members.

So from the event organizers' standpoint the choice is clear: A couple of days hard work with a guaranteed solid financial return or weeks of hell and then betting on the weather cooperating so that people will show up and buy tickets on the day of the event.

The Pasco County Tourist Development Council had a bit of an epiphany earlier this year. It has become apparent to the Council that the sporting events and tournaments we've been having over the past few years tend to generate more hotel room nights than festivals. 

Don't get me wrong  There are still plenty of good reasons to have parades, street parties and concerts in the park, but the day of festivals being the alpha and omega of fundraising and tourist development are over.

Pasco County promotes tourism with the catch phrase "It's only natural."  I believe the shift we are seeing toward eco and athletic tourism is a healthy change for our community.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek, Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.

http://www.gulfcoastnetworking.com

(Rob also serves as deputy mayor of the City of New Port Richey. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the position of the city.)