A RO once revealed to me that his race lost money ie he was subsidising it from his pocket, but he would do this happily as long as people were prepared to turn up to run in his classic lakeland fell race. This conversation led Brian Martin and I to create the Lakeland Classics Trophy.
Today there are other RO who organise fell races, which fall somewhat short of “classic”status, as a business.
Where the money goes from a fell race is usually a mystery, although there was a time when some RO published their race accounts in The Fellrunner!
In my time as FRA Chair the Committee refused to list in the Calendar several proposed new races that we deemed to be “commercial” although my view has generally been that the FRA should be wary of trying to monitor or exercise moral judgement on where the entry fee goes and, more prosaically, recognise that fellrunners will vote with their feet and enter whichever races they choose.
So what has prompted this post?
Well on another thread (Hoofstones - Sat 30th Jan) Dan the RO has revealed that nearly 2/3rdof the Hoofstones entry money will go to good causes including Calder Valley MR. Initially I had thought £7 was marginally high for a low key fell race but now I know that Dan put his race on just for my pleasure and that of others, and that 2/3rds of the entry fee is going to eg Mountain Rescue : the entry fee suddenly seems very cheap and I would have willingly paid more.