Cork BHAA numbers down 16% so far in 2016....Are there too many races???

Last week, the Cork BHAA held their annual Novartis 5k road race in Ringaskiddy on what was a dry overcast evening, perfect for running. With a dry fit top on offer for the first 500 finishers, it might have been expected to get big numbers. Instead of the 537 of 2015, this year it was down to 392. That's still a good number for a road race in Cork but it is still down 27% on 2015.

So why the drop? I had a look at the first 13 Cork BHAA races of 2016 and see how they compared to a year ago.

Of the 13 Cork BHAA races so far in 2016, 12 were down compared to 2015 with only the Pfizers 6 mile race recording a plus of 13.7%. I added up the total number of finishers for all 13 races and it came out at 5291 for 2016 compared to 6330 for 2015, a drop of 16.4%.

At the start of 2016, the Cork BHAA increased the entry fee for non-registered runners from €8 to €10. I was wondering if that was a factor so I had a look at 20 other races in Cork (outside of the Cork BHAA and Ballycotton Summer Series). These ranged in dates from the start of January to the end of June 2016 and these included only 5k to 10k races, not the longer ones. All the races were within a reasonable distance of Cork City.

Of the 20 that I picked, there were 6738 finishers in 2016 compared to 7762 in 2015, a drop of 13.2%. Four of the 20 had larger numbers while 16 were down. I could have picked different races but because of the large overall sample, the overall result would have been roughly the same....a drop in the region of 10 to 15%. That's in line if not slightly better than the Cork BHAA races.

So the next question is why the drop? A lot of people suspect that there are too many races but are there fewer people running as well? There is a theory that as the economy improves, more people are working and people are busier leaving less time for races.

So I had a look at the numbers for the first 3 races of the Ballycotton Summer 5 mile Series...Ballyandreen, Shanagarry & Churchtown South. Over the three races, there were 1724 finishers in 2016, a small rise of 3.8% on the 1661 of 2015.

While the 2016 numbers might be down on 2014, they are up on 2015 in contrast to the other club and Cork BHAA races.

Surely if the overall number of runners in the Cork area was down, wouldn't the numbers at the Ballycotton Summer Series be down as well? My own conclusion is that the number of runners out there is about the same if not down a small bit on previous years. The main reason for the drop in numbers by far is that there are simply just a lot more events to choose from.

Perhaps another thing that is being lost at present is the 'sense of occasion'. About 10 years ago, there used to be roughly one race per week. People knew what was on and you'd see the same people at every race. Contrast that to now when there are several races per week and some are even going head to head on the same day.

Financial.....The biggest impact of the lower race numbers for now is likely to be financial. Some races with a lot of expenses or with small numbers are likely to struggle.

For example, the Grant Thornton 5k is a commercial race in the heart of Cork City and would be expensive to hold. They had a drop of 23% this year which would have meant a reduction of €4,800 in revenue.

Some of the smaller races that are used to raise funds are going to find things more difficult as well going forward. If the drop in numbers continue then it's hard to see them all surviving.

Parkruns....Another factor in the race numbers are the ever increasing number of free 5k parkruns. If anything, these are likely to increase in number and they are bound to have an ever increasing impact on race numbers as well.

Looking forward.....I think that in time, the number of races may well reduce but not to the extent that the numbers in races will recover. I suspect the era of peak numbers at most road races is behind us.