Where is the sport headed? (Page 2)

I think Dan Empfield's article was cited already but in that piece and some others that he wrote he mentioned overall adult participation in the USA isn't down that much but that participants per race is down dramatically.  Too many races sprung up out of the heyday from 2008-2011 because everyone thought they could make a buck.  You're seeing the market correct itself this year (and to a degree last year) with a lot of races going under.  That's a good thing in the long run.

My thoughts for the future are:

• We will see the continued loss of a lot of local races until the market settles on a sustainable number.
• Youth triathlon will continue to explode.
• WTC will rule long course with an even larger Iron Fist.
• Challenge will be gone from the North American market before 2016.  Penticton and Atlantic City numbers are just pathetic.  I think they expect about 600 individual racers in AC this weekend.  There's 100 million people that live within a short drive from there.  I can say with 100% conviction that Challenge will not succeed in North America at all.
• HITS will be gone as well.  Their numbers suck and they only continue to exist because the owners are willing to personally bankroll the venture.  They will smarten up at some point.
• Rev3 will carve their niche but in no way become a real competitor to WTC.
• If you opened a triathlon specific store, you won't be in business long.
• Universal and unified rules are coming.  WTC, ITU, and USAT are meeting about this.

Yeah up from $30 just a couple years ago.  The USAT numbers show growth *despite* that price increase.  And many casual / occasional racers are just going to pay the 1-day license fee instead of getting a full USAT membership.  So I think the OP's premise is false.

I don't know about that.  I think that may be true for someone doing their very first race.....but I'd say quite a few people decide to do more races after the first one and go ahead and buy a full membership.  I'd like to see some statistics one way or another, because that's just a guess on both our parts.

Yes, it's good to be a card-carrying member of this crazy community. Membership has it's privileges

It's not a cheap sport. That being said, my club has done a try-a-try for new members, and everyone pitched in to get people what they needed to get started. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate. 

Honestly, to a great extent the sport is immune to economic fluctuations. Go look at the transition area of any triathlon and you'll see what I mean. With 1400 people at Philly Tri (Oly distance) last weekend I bet there was well over $3MM in hardware. I know I did my part!

Why are "many races shying away from USAT sanctioning"?....if that's true.

Is there data to show how many races they have lost sanctioning of?

Well, according to USAT, 2013 was a record year for number of sanctioned events. Other than swim club events, I can't think of a single triathlon in my area that isn't USAT sanctioned. 

Yeah, so where does the idea coem from that races are shying away from sanctioning?  I can tell you this....I've done local races, WTC races, 3 Discipline races, Ultramax races, blah,blah,blah.....the races under the USAT banner at Nationals in draft legal and AG Nationals are top notch....some of the best races I've ever been to/participated in.

Don't ask me, I agree entirely with you. I took care of getting my tri club sanctioned, and we got our insurance through them, can't imagine not going through them. You ever ask them a rules question? You get a personal and detailed answer back quickly. USAT is a well run organization.

Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

I'd sort of agree with the AGer trend toward the longer stuff.

Part of it is def the WTC marketing with the Kona IM brand, but honestly as well, when you do a 5-6hr HIM or a 10-15hr IM, just saying you did that length race is a 'big deal' to most nonathletes.

Racing a sprint for an hour, or an Oly for 2:30-3hrs, while often even more agonizing in terms of pain intensity than the long stuff, just doesn't have that 'wow that's a crazy distance' sound that like it or not, a lot of AGers want when they say they're triathletes. It's simply too obscure to expect a nontriathlete to know the significance of a "2hr olympic distance triathlon", but any nonathlete knows that doing S/B/R for 14 hours sounds ridiculously hard (even though the 2hr Oly result is orders of magnitude superior.)

Until short-court racing is popular in the US and more well known in its own right, I don't think it's going to change. 

There are two tri specific shops in Houston.  One has been around for a long time.  The other just three years or so.

Neither will be in business this time next year.

Maybe it's a regional thing, but I disagree. Sprint and Olympic distance races are enormously popular around here. There are 3 or 4 companies running events, primarily short course but also half distance. WTC wasn't even a factor until they decided to launch IM 70.3 Princeton this year, and they are doing that in partnership with a local company, CGI Racing.

I'd argue the sport is the sport is growing because short-course races are so accessible. Nearly all of us got started because someone talked us into doing a sprint, and we fell in love with the sport. There is at least one race within an hour's drive every weekend during the season. They are always full. How is that not popular?

And honestly, who cares what a non-triathlete thinks about the sport? Are we here to have fun and challenge ourselves, or to impress others? Yes, IM Kona is THE prestige race in our sport, but again, you ask most non-triathletes about it and you'll get a blank stare.

I don't know why race companies aren't having them sanctioned, but I've raced races that are non-USAT sanctioned.  Not many, but they're out there.

Just about all my non-triathlon friends think ANY triathlon distance is crazy.  All that seems to matter in their mind is the word triathlon.  They have no idea of the different distances.