Why is it that races in NZ are dying off not as many paddlers at the races.
How do we attract NZ top teams/paddles to races Prize money,
Good Prizes?? Cheap Entry Fees??
Submitted by wakalife on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 10:34pm
Why is it that races in NZ are dying off not as many paddlers at the races.
How do we attract NZ top teams/paddles to races Prize money,
Good Prizes?? Cheap Entry Fees??
Submitted by wakalife on Fri, 03/16/2012 - 10:34pm
Page loaded in 0.183 seconds.
Are the races fun, with a great party after or was it getting too serious and only one club always winning?
#1 Sat, 03/17/2012 - 6:46pm
They're not dying off.
#2 Sat, 03/17/2012 - 9:56pm
i thought the races were smaller too! but according to taka beach cup organisers and aito organisers the numbers are the same or slightly more, they said padddlers are just distributed different across categories. paul and conan can tell you about their races. maybe we are all just gettign older, haha
also teh new government isnt doing much to make nz feel like its booming, with all the strikes and union action, theres definitely slow growth
#3 Sun, 03/18/2012 - 9:55am
I think there's a number of factors.
More races mean that we don't have to travel to what used to be major events to get our fix.
More interest in overseas races such as Raro means less money to travel all around NZ to get to all the races
Some races just not seen as being "fun" any more. Tauranga could be an example, harbour based, battling tides and shallows
#4 Sun, 03/18/2012 - 8:06pm
Well not dying just not that many races where all top teams all race against each other you really only have sprint Nationals, Takapuna Beach Cup and sometimes Long Distance Nationals singles are good you have Bhutty Memorial, Bo Herbert where all top teams/paddlers NZ needs a solid year round Calendar with a couple big races like Takapuna Beach Cup a year we need more races throughout the year that's all.
#5 Sun, 03/18/2012 - 8:14pm
I agree that if you look at our calendar then there isn't a huge amount of races which you would say are the ones to aim for and which have a huge prestige to win. Different events have held that position in the past but it seems that all events have a certain life span. It would seem that the thing that makes an event ‘good’ or ‘big’ would be prizes. If there is some thing up for grabs then you will find it is worth everyone’s time and effort to get there and then since everyone is there it becomes the one to win or at least race at. Takapuna is prime example. Tauranga Harbour used to have a 2man up for grabs for a club, so guess what, everyone came. Now they don’t everyone is thinking “why are we racing this one?”.
Bhutty’s race has grown every year and is now one to be at to either to challenge yourself or try & win.
But yes it pretty thin pickings out there.
Things that make a good race.
Good Event location. Not at the end of the country. It makes it too hard to get everyone there.
Good Water/Course. Something that paddlers are going to enjoy paddling or give them a new challenge.
Good awards/prizes. Something for the top teams to chase and something for all the other teams to have a chance at.
Hopefully come March next year we will have us a new 9man event on the calendar. The country needs one and we think we know where it should. Ah Mean DnA. We will see if we can’t bring you something with a twist, with new waters and a great challenge. Just need some prizes ah. Ha.
#6 Mon, 03/19/2012 - 2:33pm
also i know the NKOA are working on a sanctioning document which might help to bring some structure to our race calendar. It might mess things up even more too. 8)
#7 Mon, 03/19/2012 - 2:35pm
It's an unfortunate state of affairs that it's the quantity of prizes are the draw card rather than the event itself. This is an amateur sport and in line with other sporting codes if you accept a prize then you should forfeit amateur status and go professional and leave the rest of us to have it.
The sponsors who used to provide prizes such as a W2 or a set of paddles were/are local companies that supported the local events with the expectation being that this would promote their future sales. So of course most of us ran off and bought off-shore sourced paddles and waka. It's hard enough for mainstream sports to garner sponsorship for their events let alone for 2nd or 3rd tier sports like ours. The best way to get more sponsorship dollars is to show a return on the sponsors investment. This means more of us turning up to these events and then supporting the sponsors by buying their products.
#8 Tue, 03/20/2012 - 10:24pm
Spot on J, thumbs up.
#9 Wed, 03/21/2012 - 11:57am
well said j, like me i do most of the races all year round because i love paddling. also abit lucky to do a couple of races overseas a year. got a good bunch of guys that love paddling like me no matter the result. Even though i like winning! ;-)
#10 Wed, 03/21/2012 - 6:16pm
Awesome new 9 man race sounds good and when you look at other countries at the moment starting Aito races in different parts of the pacific also with the 3 day race in tahiti Hawaiiki Nui and Hawaii Olamau Race that's what NZ needs to look into maybe over 150km would be something different in NZ but if we want to keep up with the best in the world.....
#11 Thu, 03/22/2012 - 12:04pm
Paddlers make any event. Without them, there is no event, the more of them you have the better the event is. The question then is ‘how do we get paddlers to an event’. The answer is to have the paddlers’ best interest in mind and to give back to the paddler as much as you can. That is our philosophy with James race. We run the day based on what we would normally do, we keep it as cheap as we can without relying on sponsors to run it and then we try and get as many sponsors on board to give everyone even more. So far it is a winning combo, we get great feed back.
I think when there are a heap of events to choose from and a paddlers pocket is only so deep they do pick and choose which ones they will do. I don’t believe that it is unreasonable for them to weigh up cost (entry and getting there etc) and what they may or may not get in return. This doesn’t mean that this is the only reason for them paddling it is just part of the equation.
#12 Sun, 03/25/2012 - 6:03pm
bhutty is not an amateur race. has cash for top spots and top paddlers come. tops it off is the venue, conditions and the people you race. Seems to be a good formular. go back 15 years Tga harbour was huge. now people are wanting more ocean racing i think. I raced it this weekend and loved it. Great location people and the sun was out. sure i like open ocean but i will always do this race. looking next on the calender there is marathon nationals and raglan. Raglan is closer and half the entry fee. but also world sprints are on so both events will lack teams i'd say.
There are also the smaller local races like Roto Hoes, Mauao Series and Maungatapu dash. The dash is huge. but yes mainly for begginners. Need the ocean series to start back up in whakatane coast and thats lots of races. Also with laws these days its just easier to run the smaller races in the harbours amd lakes. And race organisors can make more money by attracting amateurs rather than elite.
NZ aint ready for a a huge event like Hawaiki Olamau. Hauraki hoe dont exist anymore because everyone was afraid of 72km. 40km sound much easier for them.
#13 Sun, 04/01/2012 - 1:45pm