Upload a Photo Upload a Video Add a News article Write a Blog Add a Comment
Blog Feed News Feed Video Feed All Feeds

Folders

 

 

Mary Wittenberg Talks the Future of the NYC Marathon

Published by
RunnerSpace.com/RoadRacing   Oct 27th 2014, 10:29pm
Comments

New York Road Runners CEO on What's Next For the NYC Marathon

Published by Forbes on October 27, 2014

The New York City Marathon on Sunday is likely to be the largest 26.2-mile foot race ever, with more than 50,000 runners expected to finish. The marquee event of the New York Road Runners, a local non-profit organization, has grown enormously in recent years, both in terms of the size of the field and how big a business it has become under Mary Wittenberg, NYRR CEO since 2005. This year, NYRR has landed some new sponsors, including title sponsor Tata Consultancy Services, an Indian tech company, and Airbnb, the controversial but growing website for short-term home and apartment stays.

This builds on previous efforts to grow what started as a local race in 1970 with 55 finishers into an event that pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into the New York City economy and is now a major international event. For instance, in 2012, Wittenberg secured a five-year television deal that brought the New York City Marathon back to live national television for the first time in almost 20 years. But that same year, NYRR went through its darkest days: the devastating Superstorm Sandy forced the cancellation of the race for the first time in its history. The marathon, and Wittenberg herself, became a lightning rod for many people’s anger at how the city handled the recovery, with many finding the club’s initial plans to go ahead with the race insensitive.

The NYRR and Wittenberg have bounced back from that setback, but not without learning some lessons. Wittenberg, who in 1987 won the Marine Corps Marathon, recently spoke with Fortune about a number of topics, including what’s next for the New York City marathon, why she’s putting so much effort into building up intra-year races in all five of New York’s boroughs, the changing role of sponsors, and why she thinks Airbnb’s support makes sense.

Fortune: The Chicago Marathon just had 40,802 finishers, its biggest field yet. How important is it for you that the New York City Marathon remain the world’s largest?

Wittenberg: “The way we look at the size of the marathon is mainly as a desire to accommodate people because they want to run, and the demand is much higher.” [There were 135,000 applications for the 2014 NYCM.] “If we wanted to be a lot, lot bigger and change the course and the like, maybe we could do that, but that’s not our goal.”

After the 2012 cancellation, there was widespread speculation that NYRR had grown too dependent on the marathon financially. NYRR has been building up its 5-borough series of races throughout the city along with the New York City Half—why? And why not do a half-marathon too on marathon weekend as many organizers elsewhere do?

“When you look at the New York City Half [in March], that race can be as significant as the marathon—already Brooklyn [in May] was the largest half marathon in the U.S. this year with 25,000 finishers.” [Wittenberg thinks the Brooklyn Half Marathon could eventually have 50,000 runners.]

“Now the Staten Island (half-marathon in October) and Bronx (10-mile race in September) races that we’re just building to the next level have over 10,000 applying to each of those. So our growth strategy is all about building the major events in each borough as an anchor to the year-round programming, more than piling more distance running into marathon weekend.” (NYRR puts on a 5-km race the day before the marathon.)

“In our minds right now, we’re growing the borough series to be the equivalent of a marathon in each borough in terms of impact.”



Read the full article at: fortune.com

More news

History for TCS New York City Marathon
YearResultsVideosNewsPhotosBlogs
2023 1 7 10    
2022 1 2 11    
2021 1 2 12 357  
Show 16 more
 
+PLUS highlights
+PLUS coverage
Live Events
Get +PLUS!