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Why is Triathlon so Expensive?

Tuesday, 06 March 2018 23:10

By Professor Multisport (Erin Beresini - triathlete.com)

For the same reason Beyoncé tickets cost a fortune: because it’s an awesome, bragging-rights-for-life experience. With secondary market ticket prices averaging $353 a pop for her 2016 Formation Tour, the Beyoncé experience is valued right up there with a 70.3. And tickets in major metropolitan areas cost more than twice that, just like Ironman can get ridiculously expensive the closer you get to tall buildings. (Remember when Ironman New York was going to cost $1,200!?)

Seriously though, it does tend to be more of a money suck to race tris in the U.S. than in other places. We know this because we talked to triathletes from other places and they told us of magical things that occur in their native lands that make a tri addiction more of a cute tick than a potentially intervention-worthy spending problem....

Let’s jump to Australia. Our tour guide is five-time sub-nine-hour iron-distance badass Rebekah Keat. On this jumbo island, you can expect to pay comparable entry fees, she says. However, your travel likely won’t cost as much—you don’t need to get anywhere long before the race because the time change among many of the major costal cities is only half an hour. And you won’t have to acclimate to altitude. The country’s highest mountain peaks at 7,310 feet, and unless you sign up for the Australian Alpine Ascent—a race that goes 6,443 feet up that mountain and bills itself as the “World’s Toughest Daylight Triathlon”—your blood won’t need time to get on board with your athletic aspirations.  READ MORE