They Hear Footsteps
With every footstep pounding along the 26-mile, 385-yard course, with every pump of the pedals on the 22-mile bike tour and every turn in the wheelchair race, the Los Angeles Marathon will move closer to a crossroads Sunday.
Launched to sustain the civic pride born during the 1984 Olympics, the L.A. Marathon has become more a celebration than a competition, raising $16 million for local charities and becoming the fourth-largest marathon in the U.S. Sunday’s event will be the 20th, and it’s expected to draw 25,000 runners and about 20,000 bikers, wheelchair athletes and run-walk participants to a course that will traverse a universe in a few hours, touching Koreatown, Little Ethiopia, Beverly Hills, the Crenshaw District and Museum Row.
But despite occasional earnest efforts to lure elite athletes, it’s not a blip on the map of top-notch marathoners.
Probably the cream of the women’s field is Russia’s Lyubov Denisova, who recorded the world’s 16th-fastest marathon time of 2004 in finishing third at New York. She also finished sixth at Boston. Yelena Burkina of Russia was third at Rotterdam last year, and Kerryn McCann of Australia was 10th at New York, none in fast times.
No one in the men’s elite field ran one of the 100 fastest times of 2004.
This year’s event, however, is the first under the ownership of Devine Racing, which bought Los Angeles Marathon Inc. from co-founders William Burke and Marie Patrick in November for $15 million.
Chris Devine, chairman of Devine Racing, must decide whether to enter the financial race that would allow L.A. to compete with Boston, New York, Chicago, London and Rotterdam for world-class runners, or whether being a world-class community event is distinction enough.
“Here’s a down-and-dirty analysis,” he said last week in a telephone interview. “We’ve been talking to a couple of potential additional sponsors in order to expand our runner base and enhance the community feeling and do things within California.... But that requires capital.
“There are several, meaning more than two, sponsors that have indicated their desire to have elites participate because it has the potential to give them more national exposure. They potentially are willing to make an investment well beyond what it will take to bring elites, so they’re able to bolster the race for the community.”
He would focus on elite runners “only if it’s supported economically,” he said. “If it makes sense to build on the community feeling Bill and Marie have established, we’ll follow that course.”
Burke and Patrick, who stayed on as the L.A. Marathon’s president and executive vice president, respectively, had tried to up the competitive ante but never found a consistently successful mix.
“I think the guts of it is money,” Patrick said.
The L.A. Marathon’s purse is $301,800, which includes a car each for the men’s and women’s winners, and a $75,000 bonus to the first runner across the finish line, up from $50,000 last year, with a still-undetermined head start.
The Boston Marathon, to be run April 18, will pay $575,000 in prize money and performance bonuses. Chicago’s LaSalle Bank marathon last year paid $650,000 in prize money. The New York Marathon paid $820,000 last year, including time bonuses and has guaranteed at least $500,000 for this year’s race on Nov. 6.
The L.A. Marathon never has paid the appearance fees top performers command. Women’s world-record holder Paula Radcliffe of Britain reportedly will get a $1-million appearance fee to run in the London Marathon on April 17; Olympic marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi of the U.S. will get $200,000 and world-record holder Paul Tergat of Kenya will get about $500,000.
“What’s different about marathon runners is that they’re not like Andre Agassi or Tiger Woods, who build up name recognition and are in the public eye for years,” Patrick said. “These elite runners race once or twice a year. They don’t have the same broad star power. That’s been the case for many years in this business. That’s been a good reason for us to focus on the other 25,000 runners.”
The key occasion Patrick and Burke altered that focus, it backfired.
A few months after Rosa Mota of Portugal had won the 1988 Olympic marathon, Burke and Patrick paid her a $100,000 appearance fee to run in Los Angeles. Mota lost to Zoya Ivanova of Russia in an unspectacular 2 hours 35 minutes 27 seconds, souring L.A. organizers.
“She was a big name. I just didn’t feel she came running to win,” Patrick said. “That definitely burned me, but we continued to pay appearance fees until maybe four or five years ago because our competitors were paying astronomical fees, and we didn’t want to compete anymore. We held firm that this is a race for the city and the runners and not for just a couple of dozen at the top end.
“If you can get it, go for it. Our pockets were not that deep.”
Devine also questioned the value of offering big appearance fees.
“Would we pay as the Los Angeles Marathon exists in its current form? No,” he said. “If a shoe company says, ‘We’re willing to pay $500,000,’ we’d love that. If not, we would continue as a community event.... It all really does come down to economics.”
The caliber of the field is also affected by the date of the race, which is close to major races in London, Boston, Paris and Rotterdam, and by the course, which is considered too slow and uneven to produce spectacular times.
The men’s course record of 2:09:25, set in 1999 by Simon Bor of Kenya, is 4 1/2 minutes off Tergat’s world record of 2:04:55. The women’s course record of 2:26:23, set in 1992 by Madina Biktagirova, is well off the world record of 2:15:25 Radcliffe set in London in 2003.
“One year we thought it was prize money that would make the difference, so we had $650,000,” Burke said. “But Los Angeles is either blessed or cursed with Beverly Hills, Cheviot Hills, the Hollywood Hills. Before I got in this business I didn’t know that really meant hills.
“Most elites run two events a year, and they want to run a marketable time so they’ll get a greater appearance fee. We’ve changed the course two or three times and now it’s about as good as we’re going to get it.”
Devine said he would leave the course and date to Burke and Patrick, whose expertise he plans to tap in enhancing other marathons he owns in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He anticipates making “a little money” on Sunday’s event but not getting a return on his purchase for probably five years.
“One of the reasons we made an investment in the race is to grow it,” he said. “We’re going to do 45,000 aggregate [participants]. Why can’t L.A. go from 25,000 to 45,000 or 50,000 actual runners? The difference between running in New York and L.A., with all due respect, is, it’s L.A. Look at all the potential we’ve got. L.A. is L.A. The environment is just perfect.”
