Demise of Port Triathlon Shatters Many High Hopes

C.J. Olivares Jr. remembers the night last January when the Port of Los Angeles unveiled plans for what Mayor Tom Bradley predicted would become “the world’s pre-eminent triathlon.”

There was a slick video about the proposed race course, professional triathletes on hand to talk up the event and a $10,000 spread of food and drink for about 100 invited guests and potential financial backers.

Olivares, editor of Triathlete magazine, was so taken by the presentation that in April his magazine selected the Oct. 2 event as one of six “international extravaganzas” in 1988. The Worldport LA International Triathlon was the only U.S. event on the list.

“The mayor was there and there were some heavy hitters from the port,” said Olivares, a triathlete himself. “It was certainly the most impressive reception that I’ve been to.”

Another Story

Last month Olivares and his Santa Monica-based staff were preparing another story on the Los Angeles triathlon, this one based on a terse two-paragraph press release mailed by the port June 20. Citing sluggish fund raising, the port had canceled the race--just five months after its ceremonious launching and less than four months before its scheduled debut.

“We got burned,” said Triathlete magazine reporter Richard Graham, author of the April article. “We thought it would come off.”

Reaction to the cancellation in the triathlon community as well as in San Pedro and Wilmington has ranged from disappointment to disbelief. How could the mighty Port of Los Angeles--often touted by the city as the most profitable port in the nation--allow such a marketing fiasco? What about grand predictions that the event would make Los Angeles synonymous with the triathlon in much the way Boston is with the marathon?

An Embarrassment

“It should be an embarrassment to the port,” said Rick Gaydos, a San Pedro accountant and president of Tri-Sports, a nonprofit corporation set up by the port to stage the triathlon. “They should have made a decision earlier.”

Scott Tinley, considered one of the top professional triathletes in the world, said the cancellation dashes hopes of Southern Californian triathletes who had been looking forward to a “major, highly visible” race in their back yard.

“It was definitely a race that people had on their calendars to race in,” said Tinley, who was hired to attend the January ceremony. “It leaves a big hole in a huge metropolitan area where there is a large concentration of triathletes.”

Added Herb Massinger of Race Pace Promotions, an Orange County company hired to plan the race: “It is very frustrating. We are all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

Door Open

Port officials said they, too, are disappointed by the cancellation, but they have downplayed its significance. Lonnie Tang, the port’s director of commerce, said the door is not closed to future triathlons, and Ezunial Burts, the port’s executive director, blamed his decision to dump the race on its lukewarm reception.

“It was certainly difficult because we had committed to that event,” Burts said. “We wanted to certainly do this kind of event, with the port’s initial sponsorship getting it off the ground. . . . But we simply were not able to put into place the kind of financial support that would give us a highly visible, truly successful, effective triathlon. . . . It was an issue of support. It wasn’t strictly a financial decision.”

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden, saying the port “just blew $100,000” has called for a “thorough review” of the port’s role in the effort and suggested the City Council may want to look more closely at how the port spends its money.

Council Motion

In a motion to be considered by the City Council next week, Holden last Tuesday called on the city administrative officer, the city attorney and the chief legislative analyst to “prepare a detailed report” of the port’s involvement in the proposed Oct. 2 triathlon.

The port triathlon--a three-event endurance race featuring swimming, bicycling and running--had been in the works for more than two years. It was the brainchild of Steven Resnick, the port’s director of marketing, who saw it as a glamorous way to attract international attention--and potential new customers--to the port as well as tourists to the harbor area.

In early 1987, the port set up a committee of port officials and local business and community leaders to explore the triathlon idea and hired Race Pace to look into it. In August, the Board of Harbor Commissioners, encouraged by the committee’s findings, agreed to set up Tri-Sports, the nonprofit corporation, and to provide $100,000 in “seed money.” Several months later, Stoffel Worldwide, a marketing and fund-raising company, was hired to raise an additional $200,000 from corporate sponsors.

Plans Took Off

From there, plans for the event took off. The port sponsored the January reception, and although it gained little notice in the local press, the coverage in Triathlete magazine sent phones ringing off the hook at Race Pace. Massinger said he received entry requests from about 1,000 athletes in 24 states and four foreign countries. Port officials pledged to stage nothing short of a “world-class” race.

Meanwhile, dozens of harbor-area residents were offering to help. Several of them, including Julie McKinney, a San Pedro attorney and an avid runner, became key players at Tri-Sports. McKinney volunteered to handle the corporation’s legal matters. She processed the group’s incorporation papers last fall, and on June 23, she advised the board of directors as it voted to dissolve the corporation.

Inadequate Funding

It was not until early March, board members said, that it became clear that the fund-raising was not going to be as simple as they had hoped. Chuck Stoffel of Stoffel Worldwide had mapped out a marketing strategy that concentrated on “big-name” donors that he hoped would contribute $50,000 or more. Once one or two of those contributors was on board, he said, it would be easy to attract smaller companies.

But by March, Stoffel had been unable to land any big-name donors, and he was far short of the $100,000 cash goal set by Tri-Sports for the end of February. Large Japanese companies that use the port, reeling from the impact of the plummeting dollar, had little if any money for new promotions or endorsements, he said. Honda, for example, offered to donate automobiles but not cash.

Other companies, meanwhile, were already locked into their 1988 budgets. In an interview last month, Stoffel said he uncovered “a great deal of interest within the corporate community” for a triathlon--but not for this year. Budget decisions for 1988, he said, had been made in 1987.

The Tri-Sports board voted to give Stoffel two additional months to raise the $200,000, at which point Stoffel changed his tactics. He brought together a consortium of well-known fund-raisers in Los Angeles to help get access to high-level executives at several large companies, and he began to concentrate on sporting goods and other mid-sized companies.

Even with the new-found connections, the word from the high-level executives had not changed: Wait until next year. As for the smaller companies, Stoffel said he did not have enough money (his company was paid $4,000 a month) to conduct a nationwide search. Some local companies that provide equipment for triathletes are “operated out of people’s garages” and did not have promotional budgets, he said. Some large American companies, moreover, said they did not use the port and saw no need to promote an event there.

Assurances Offered

Despite the problems, Stoffel remained optimistic. According to minutes kept by the Tri-Sports board members, he assured them that “deals were in the works” and that he was making significant progress in getting “in-kind contributions”--non-cash donations such as hotel rooms and billboard advertising.

“We were always being told that things were in the works,” McKinney said. “Since everything was ‘just a phone call away,’ you didn’t want to jeopardize what was already in the works. It was too late to turn back, and I think we all didn’t want to see the truth anyway.”

By the middle of April, Stoffel had commitments for just $30,000 in cash and about $65,000 in non-monetary contributions. At that point, he turned his attention to harbor-area businesses and the port’s 200 tenants.

More Obstacles

But local fund raising ran into obstacles, too. Stoffel said he had strict instructions from port officials not to lean heavily on the port tenants for money. “We didn’t want to look like we were being heavy-handed,” Stoffel said in the interview.

Gaydos, the Tri-Sports president, blamed the port for not coming through on promises that it would help get tenant support. Although Stoffel’s efforts may have fallen short of expectations, he said, the port was equally at fault. In the end, only three port-related groups--Overseas Shipping Co., Princess Cruises and the Foreign Trade Assn.--contributed money to the race, a total of $7,500.

By May, Tri-Sports was fast running out of its $100,000 seed money. Stoffel had raised just $40,000 in cash and $85,000 in non-cash donations. The group had no money to print entry forms, take out advertisements or begin making final arrangements for the race.

At a meeting in April, Resnick, the port’s marketing director, assured the board that the Harbor Department would “fill the gaps” if fund raising fell short, the minutes said.

Announcements Made

Confident that the triathlon would go on, the group in early May splashed announcements on two billboards donated by Patrick Media, one of them prominently displayed near the interchange of the San Diego and Harbor freeways.

Press releases, on paper featuring the triathlon’s four-color logo, were sent by the port’s public relations staff to newspapers and other media May 5 to remind them of the Oct. 2 event. A separate press release sent the same week boasted that the triathlon had received more than $100,000 in sponsor commitments, that 1,000 triathletes had requested entry forms and that Tri-Sports was planning “the best triathlon in the world.”

But a week later, Tang, the port’s director of commerce and Resnick’s boss, all but pulled the plug on the race. At a May 12 meeting, Tang assured Tri-Sports that the port continued to support the event but said there would be no more port money, according to the minutes.

With a cash shortfall of at least $100,000--$30,000 of it needed by June 1--the Tri-Sports board was left with no alternative. The board voted to abandon efforts for the triathlon unless the port came up with additional money.

Too Risky

Burts, the executive director, said he was not willing to take that risk.

“It would have been probably twice our initial outlay,” Burts said. “If you have a project, whether it is $1,000 or $100 million, if you are looking at an incremental increase that is going to double your initial outlay, you really have to weigh that.”

At the Tri-Sports final meeting June 23, several volunteers said they did not fault Burts.

“I am sure he agonized over it,” said Mike Karmelich, vice president of Overseas Shipping Co., which contributed $5,000. “He searched me out in Detroit . . . to tell me about it.”

In separate interviews, however, others accused Burts of giving in to Board of Harbor Commissioners President Jun Mori, whom they identified as a strong opponent of greater port involvement in the race. Mori has not returned phone calls seeking comment. Burts denied that his decision was influenced by Mori or any other commissioner. He said it was an administrative decision, not a policy decision, and therefore did not involve the commission. He said he also did not consult with the mayor.

Visible Event

“Certainly (the commissioners) were advised,” he said. “We are talking about a highly visible event, and one that we all had high expectations about. I wouldn’t want them to read in the morning Times that the thing had been canceled.”

Gaydos, the Tri-Sports president, said the decision should have been made by the commissioners, who originally allocated the $100,000 seed money, and Bradley, who appoints the commissioners to oversee port policy.

“There was no reason to stop the race when we are talking about such a small amount of money,” Gaydos said. “If I were the mayor, I would have called the harbor commissioners and said I want this to go forth. The mayor did not give it his full support at the crucial time.”

Bradley spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said the triathlon was a Harbor Department project and that Bradley “was not actively involved in helping them.” She said Bradley supported Burts’ decision to cancel the event.