Xterra Budget Bonks--Regional Champs Must Pay for Prizes

In all the news about triathlon's growth--even during the recession!--it's hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, some of the race production companies, even the big ones, are actually hurting.

Earlier this year, Xterra announced it was moving the USA Championship, which was held in Incline Village, NV the past 8 years, to Ogden, UT. It was a slap in the face to SoCal Xterra lovers who also lost every race within a 5 hour radius of Los Angeles, including Xterra Temecula, a Worlds and Nationals qualifier.

The reason for the move: The Nevada Commission on Tourism cut their budget, and couldn't help out with Xterra. They previously helped fund the event, the marketing, and the 1-hour tv show of the event.

Recently, Regional Champions have become aware of Xterra's financial woes. If you were a regional champ this year, you might have gotten an email that looks like this:

Aloha Regional Champ! Congratulations on spending all of your money on racing the Xterra circuit this year, pouring your all into training, and kicking ass. (I'm paraphrasing...or something like that...) You've joined an exclusive club, and earned the right to wear an Xterra Regional Champ jersey. You want it? 60 bucks and its yours.

OK, so it wasn't written exactly like that, but that's the gist of it. Xterra couldn't secure sponsorship for the prize this year.

Before getting ticked at Xterra for doing this, we must remember that many other races do the same thing. You must earn the jersey, of course, but if you want it, you must pay. A lot of ultracycling events are like this (like Planet Ultra's Triple Crown jersey).

Xterra, however, raised the bar on itself, providing world-class events all over the place over the past several years, with excellent (free!) prizes. So we expect more from them.

What do you think. Should Xterra have found a way to give Region Champs their jersey's free of charge, or is charging totally OK?