.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Project 5)

and moving the Elite National Championships to the upper west coast is just genius from a logistics standpoint. way to make it inconvenient for 2/3’s of the country.
#dumb

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Tati)

$2.50 a person sounds like a good price to me.  I’d pay that to watch the races.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Your numbers only account for the actual weekend of the race. Yet, if it weren’t for Nationals, I wouldn’t be able to find Downers on a map. As it is, thousands of people from Chicagoland and across the US know that there are several good restaurants, a knitting shop, a comic book store, Caribou coffee, gift shops, etc. The whole point of hosting a race like this is to raise awareness. Without Nationals, Downers Grove will fade into another generic suburb.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (xXx Racing-AthletiCo)

Briney’s assessment is spot on both in the $ impact calculation AND the “just another ‘generic Chicago suburb’” subjective comment. And that’s the key - each of these suburbs have for decades ceded revenue to national chain big box and brand processed food establishments in strip malls that line the state highways, often on the outskirts of the town itself, and the core older downtown centers have struggled to survive as a result. The Village managers need to spend money to promote the downtowns, where they get more revenue margin per dollar spent. As such, the difference between the $40 per head to break even and the more realistic $20 actually spent is the cost of marketing their downtown. I can’t comment on whether they’d be better served running a 10K or criterium (runners are notoriously skinflnts?) but the downtown should be getting a measurable effect in the long term, rather than just the weekend. They’ll find that out only when they stop running the race.
To buttress the webmaster’s comment regarding respecting the host town with patronage: I still don’t understand why merchants don’t offer a deal to those wearing a bib number. I’d buy more comic books if I was getting 20% off.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

There is an interesting post about calculating the economic impact of the larger (Missouri/Georgia/California) bike races here. http://bit.ly/7csoGC

While these races are far larger than anything that will come to the Chicago ‘burbs, the author makes an interesting point; that money coming in is so diluted that very few see actual gains from the races.

However, there ARE benefits. A bike race is entertainment. Cities spend money on fireworks, parades, and festivals, all in order to enrich their community. Bike racing does the same thing. Perhaps painting it as an monetary investment is a bit too much, but there is no denying the value a race can bring to a community’s image.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (xXx Racing-AthletiCo)

MJH:
There are several Chicagoland collar communities that have spent and worked to keep the downtown centers vital & viable - I think DG is one of them, perhaps one of the more successful. The changes over 20 years have been positive and there are several independent business with a long and (we hope) prosperous track record. In Oak Park, I pay over $12K in taxes for a 3K square foot home. Some of that tax money has to go to promoting events that bring people into town. I accept that. My tax $ for events has certainly helped DG residents to enjoy the annual 10K race. It’s a very big Chicagoland community & the economies are very much connected. The discussion, at root, is less about DG in particular and more about the negative budget impacts that could threaten local bike racing. Why should any community continue to fork over tax $ for an athletic event? My point was that such spending is part of a community’s investment into their better revenue producing downtown centers. It was not attempt to tell residents of DG what to do for my benefit.

bobw (xXx Racing-AthletiCo)

I don’t know guys I think if I were on the village board, I’d think, “wow we have 10’s of thousands of people running through our streets, how do we use this?” Sadly, as Pat points out, the local businesses miss the point and get agitated and run in the wrong direction over the years.

Are you going to make money off it on paper in the abstract, doing nothing but waiting for something to sit in your lap? How about if you close down for the weekend? How about instead you realize the opportunity and do something about it?

Plant the flag, have some pride and make some money. Jeez.

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Downers Grove cuts payroll, programs in 2010 budget
Village also plugs $4.5 million hole with tax increases

Among the events affected is the annual Heritage Festival, a 28-year tradition, which has been suspended indefinitely. That move that will save the village a half-million dollars, according to Village Manager Dave Fieldman. Funding was also eliminated for the annual ice festival and bike race.