Competitor Group, Inc., which puts on the Rock ’n’ Roll half-marathon and marathon series, will no longer pay appearance fees or travel expenses for elite runners in its North American races, effective immediately.

"With the dramatic increase in competition with more races than ever before across all distances, we are making a strategic decision in the U.S. Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon Series to increase our investment in the runner experience and entertainment, shifting resources away from our historical support of elite athlete participation in several of our races," Competitor said in a statement. "[W]e intend to maintain our commitment to amateur road racing and the promotion of the sport as we have over our 16-year history in every Rock 'n’ Roll Marathon Series event, both domestic and international.”

The news was first reported on Friday by RunBlogRun.

Competitor will still pay prize money at its races; many offer $1,000 for first place. Competitor will also retain its relationships with a handful of well-known elites, including Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher, Competitor CEO Scott Dickey told Runner's World Newswire.

"We have always been about the back of the pack," Dickey said. "The Rock ’n’ Roll series is more about the lifestyle than the sport.

"From time to time we will bring in runners who have some of the highest profiles," Dickey said. Dickey said the well-known runners Competitor will continue to work with will not only appear at races and race expos, but also meet with sponsors, develop training plans, and/or develop content for Competitor's media outlets.

"Some are multi-year, some are by the project, some are single-year," Dickey said of Competitor's arrangements with elites. Dickey listed Hall, Goucher, Kastor, Meb Keflezighi, Frank Shorter and Rod Dixon as current and past elites who Competitor will continue to work with.

One near-future race affected by the decision about appearance fees is the Rock ’n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon on September 15. Competitor has told runners' agents that they will be reimbursed for travel already booked to the event, and that already-invited elites are welcome to seek the event's prize money, but that appearance fees already agreed upon will not be paid.

Dickey said that the series' next race, a half-marathon in Virginia Beach on Sunday, is unaffected by the new policy.

In recent years, Competitor had moved toward a system of paying relatively modest prize money and bringing in a few high-profile elite runners to some of its races, reportedly for substantial appearance fees. The Rock ’n’ Roll New Orleans Half Marathon in February, for example, was won by Olympic and world champions Mo Farah and Meseret Defar, and also featured Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher.

In March, Competitor announced a new half-marathon grand prix, with $75,000 for each of the male and female winners of the two-year series. At the time, Competitor also announced that it would pay time-based prize money--for example, $1,000 for breaking 1:05 (men) or 1:15 (women) at a half-marathon, regardless of finishing place--at most of its half-marathons and marathons.

Dickey said Competitor hasn't "made a decision about the specifics of the two-year series." Speaking about the various aspects of Competitor's announcement, Dickey said, "This decision is not a fundamentally black-or-white decision. This is a process."

Competitor said it will continue its elite runner program at its European races.

Competitor grew out of the California-based firm Elite Racing, which launched the Rock ’n’ Roll series in San Diego in June 1998. Last December, Falconhead Capital, which formed Competitor in 2007 when it bought Elite Racing, announced that it had sold the company to Calera Capital, a private equity firm.

The Competitor news comes in the same week in which the Baltimore Marathon announced that it will not pay prize money at this year's running on October 12.

Proponents of not devoting race resources to elite fields say the average runner doesn't much care about how fast the winners run. Proponents of having professional runners at races say that elite runners are integral to running being perceived as a sport and that they're the main way that races attract media attention.

Toni Reavis, a veteran running broadcaster who has done work for Elite Racing and Competitor, was saddened but not surprised by Competitor's decision.

"I don't blame them," Reavis told Runner's World Newswire. "Instead, it is the stakeholders in the sport who have allowed the every-event-a-universe-unto-itself mentality to take such deep root, requiring nothing of the elite athletes other than a quick run on race day, that slowly eroded public interest. So by the time [Competitor] came into the game as strictly business people, the seeds of our own destruction had already been sown."

Scott Douglas Scott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times.

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