Full Ironman races disappear elsewhere

Coeur d'Alene isn't alone in cutting back its Ironman diet.

In fact, several North American cities and Ironman have discontinued full Ironman races the past four years because costs have outweighed benefits.

On Tuesday, the Coeur d'Alene City Council voted to amend the city's Ironman agreement with the Chamber of Commerce to continue hosting the Ironman 70.3 race for three more years, but the full Ironman will be discontinued after the race this August. The amendment came after the Chamber of Commerce's contract negotiation with Ironman's parent organization, the World Triathlon Corp.

Steve Wilson, CEO of the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce, said Friday it was an “easy decision when all partners involved agree” that the changes would be mutually beneficial. With participation declining to about half of what it was four years ago and a phenomenon Wilson calls “event fatigue,” referring to the lack of volunteers in recent years, keeping two races in Coeur d'Alene didn't make financial sense.

“The World Triathlon Corp. is a business... They're trying to make money,” Wilson said.

But Coeur d'Alene isn't the only Ironman host city to discontinue the full Ironman race for financial reasons. St. George, Utah, canceled its full Ironman event in 2013 after participation numbers began declining. Triathlete.com said the difficulty of the course, paired with unpredictable weather conditions, played a part in the lack of participation.

The regional municipality of Muskoka in Ontario, Canada, discontinued its full Ironman race and switched to Ironman 70.3 in 2015 because of the expenses to the town and lack of profit for Ironman Canada. 2015 was the first and last year for the full Ironman race in Muskoka because the city lost $100,000 and attracted only 1,500 participants, when Ironman wants at least 2,000, Mayor Steve Aitchison said. Aitchison speculated that a challenging course contributed to the lack of participation, citing hills as a part of the difficult terrain, as did St. George. While Muskoka canceled its contract with Ironman for the full race, the community entered into a new one-year term contract to host Ironman 70.3.

Wilmington, N.C., had a rocky start with Ironman after Hurricane Matthew forced the race to be shortened in 2016. Wilmington originally planned to host both the full Ironman and Ironman 70.3 in years following after the World Triathlon Corp. bought Wilmington's Beach2Battleship triathlon in 2015. However, Ironman posted on its website in November that the full race would be discontinued, but Ironman 70.3 remained on the calendar for 2017. Ironman did not say why it canceled the full race.

Subaru Ironman Canada, hosted in Whistler, B.C., angered residents and business owners in the Village of Pemberton, where Ironman's bike course is located. Mike Richman, mayor of V.O.P., told Ironman officials in a meeting on May 25 that a survey of Pemberton residents revealed 75 percent of respondents saw no value in hosting the race in July and 80 percent don't support Ironman's return in the wake of Whistler's contract renewal with Ironman. Various council members and stock holders took issue with Pemberton's lack of representation in Ironman's marketing along with the fact they have to close businesses, even though they enjoy none of the revenue from the event. The Whistler Question, the area's local newspaper, reported in May that contract negotiations for 2018 are still up in the air.

Ironman was not available for comment on why there's been an uptick in full Ironman cancellations in the last few years. A leaked email from Ironman CEO Andrew Messick, posted on trstriathlon.com, revealed the organization intended to make several changes after 2015. In order to put on more “high-profile” events, Messick said Ironman moved points and prize money to different locations and concentrated the money into a smaller number of races.

Another notable difference is Ironman's rejuvenated global presence after the Dalian Wanda Group Co., a Chinese multinational corporation, bought the World Triathlon Corp. from Providence Equity for $650 million in 2015 with the intention of securing assets in the global sports industry, according to Business Insider magazine. Wang Jianlin, CEO of the Dalian Wanda Group, told the South China Morning Post that his four-pronged approach to making Wanda Sports Holdings Co. a profitable company included “expanding partnerships with international sports federations, overseas mergers and acquisitions,” and “importing major international sports events.”

The expansion of Ironman globally, particularly in Asia, might explain the decline in full races in North America. The South China Morning Post reported Wanda Sports “will strive to reach a profit margin of at least 10 percent by 2020.” However, Bloomberg reported on June 21 that Wanda Film Holding Co. shares plunged by nearly 10 percent before they were suspended from trading in Shenzhen, and Wanda Properties International Co.'s 2024 notes fell as much as 10.7 cents on the dollar, the biggest drop on record. The sudden drop sparked rumors that banks had been ordered to sell off Wanda bonds due to Wang's faltering political standing, a rumor Wanda regards as “malicious speculation.”

Then, on June 22, Bloomberg said the China Banking Regulatory Commission asked banks to provide information on overseas loans made to Dalian Wanda. The request came from government officials' concerns that some of China's largest companies may pose a systemic risk to the country's banks, according to the New York Times. Dalian Wanda's surge in business purchases internationally in recent years increased officials' concerns that the company could pose a risk to the banks that lend them money for the transactions. China's foreign exchange reserves fell sharply in recent years due to the increasing flow of money out of the country, according to the New York Times.