Los Angeles Company Withdraws as Organizer of Marathon

San Diego’s annual city-wide marathon, an event whose 12-year history has been marked by several name and sponsorship changes, is about to undergo yet another shift at the top.

The Los Angeles company that operated the race the past two years as the San Diego International Marathon has informed the city it is not interested in staging this year’s event. The B&P; Group, a sports-management company whose projects include the Los Angeles International Marathon, told the city of its decision in a letter received Tuesday.

Bill Burke, president of B&P;, said his company lost $260,000 on last year’s race but that that was not the key factor in the decision. He said negotiations with the city on a contract went on too long to make it possible to organize the event this year.

But Ruth Ann Hageman, the city’s director of citizen assistance, said the decision should not mean the cancellation of this year’s race. She said the San Diego Track Club (SDTC), which last conducted a marathon in 1987, is interested in taking over the event, currently scheduled for Dec. 9.

Keith Jeffers, a past president of the SDTC and member of its board of directors, said the club expects to enter formal discussions with the city shortly.

“The runners of San Diego deserve to have a marathon, and we are prepared to put one on,” Jeffers said. “There is no question this will be done.”

Jeffers said no decision about the date or course has been made, but the club preferred a December date, and a course would be established in talks with the city. Last year’s race started and finished on East Mission Bay Drive. The marathon and a half-marathon held in in conjunction with the race had a combined 6,000 entrants, race organizers said.

Hageman said the decision of B&P; to pull out came as a surprise, because discussions on a five-year contract to conduct the race had gone well. Hageman said the city recently sent B&P; a draft agreement that would have required B&P; to pay the city a $50,000 fee and up to an additional $25,000 for reimbursement of city services for the 1990 race.

But Burke said the fees were not the problem. He said he wanted negotiations to be concluded within 60 days of last year’s race Dec. 10.

“We went in with the assumption we needed 10 months to put the event together,” he said. “We extended it once, then it was three months, then it was four months, finally it was five or six months. At that point, we just had to get out.”