February 11, 2025

Marathon’s Cancellation Sure to Carry Huge Costs

“Few things in life match the thrill of a marathon,” read a quotation from Lebow on a poster placed beneath his statue.

Few things in New York life, however, have matched the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. And no matter how the city’s officials and marathon organizers tried to soften its impact to preserve this year’s 26.2-mile race through five boroughs, its end came abruptly Friday.

Earlier last week, in the face of mounting criticism, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stood firm in defending the marathon, saying it would lift the city’s spirits and fill its coffers. Mary Wittenberg, the president and chief executive of New York Road Runners, the organization that directs the race, championed the event as a symbol of resilience.

Now the city, along with Road Runners, will be forced to reckon with significant losses, ones officials could not even begin to calculate in light of the natural disaster.

“This was a difficult decision, but the right decision,” Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson said at the cancellation news conference in the elaborate temporary structure near the finish line. “Next year it will go back to being a wonderful, unifying, celebratory event.”

The marathon generates an estimated $340 million in spending, thanks in part to more than 20,000 runners from overseas who spend money at hotels, restaurants, theaters and shops.

“The marathon is an enormous economic generator for the city,” Wolfson said, acknowledging that the taxes helped to “pay our police officers and our fire officers and our teachers.”

“It helps businesses,” he added. “I am sure there will be a lot of businesses in Brooklyn that will be feeling the absence of the marathon on Sunday. People won’t be buying things as they watch.”

Nor will they be buying as much beer in Manhattan on First Avenue north of the Queensboro Bridge, probably the most boisterous, fan-packed stretch of the course. “It’s our busiest weekend of the year,” John Teevan, the owner of the Baker Street Pub, said outside the bar late Friday. “I wish the mayor had made the call earlier because we brought in extra food for Sunday.”

But Teevan, who has owned the bar for 12 years, said he understood the outrage that led to the cancellation. “It’s a tough call,” he said. “You have so many people out in Staten Island who have no water, no basic necessities, and you’re catering to all the tourists coming to the city? I think I would be peeved, too.”

With some runners staying home or leaving the city early, resources like hotel rooms were made available to local residents without power or shelter; marathon officials said they would donate water, blankets and portable toilets, as well as at least $1 million in cash.

But as the city took initial steps to heal, just how long it would take Road Runners to recover — financially, and in terms of reputation — was in question.

Road Runners, a nonprofit organization, relies on the marathon for more than half its $60 million in annual revenue, which officials say goes into financing its programs and conducting races. This was the first time in nearly 20 years that the marathon was going to be broadcast live on national television, and officials had adjusted the script to be sensitive to Sandy’s aftermath.

“This was going to be our version of a telethon to raise funds for New York,” Wittenberg said.

According to tax returns and interviews with officials, Road Runners has a relatively slim cushion, generating a couple of million dollars more than it spends each year.

Now Wittenberg’s organization will still have to determine how much to pay the television sponsors and the race sponsors, as well as the elite runners who came from as far as Africa and Australia, some of whom would have earned the bulk of their income from appearance fees in the race.

Richard Sandomir contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/sports/marathons-cancellation-sure-to-carry-huge-costs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss