1,400 Orienteers = O-mentum

Posted by Grant on 30. August 2009 21:47

There were 1,400 runners at the orienteering event we went to this weekend.  Read that again: 1,400 participants.  For an American, this is staggering numbers; big orienteering meets I know of in the US might draw 100 people, by comparison.

This wasn't even a particularly big event by Swiss standards.  This was the normal Sunday orienteering that takes place in a variety of locations each weekend.  Supposedly there was a "big" event (by Swiss standards, does that mean 3,000 people?) a couple hours south of us.  Last week there were a couple other events of the same size; no doubt next weekend will have a selection of similiar events for people to choose from.  

This event was set near Zug, on the mountains not far from Mt. Rigi or the Mythens (both of Untamed Switzerland 2008 fame) -- just a quiet little village that you imagine when you think of Switzerland.

It was a beautiful day and I had a clean, albeit a bit slow, run on their "long, open" course.  This is the longest course that people can do without registering a month in advance.  I finished mid-pack out of 20 runners, which makes me feel pretty good considering most everyone on the results list was affiliated with an orienteering club and has all the orienteering paraphanelia like special shoes, thumb-compasses, gaiters, sport-ident cards, etc.  It reflects on how serious they take their orienteering, and the fact that I did OK as an American (who hasn't done a true "orienteering course"  more than a couple times in the last 4 years) makes me feel pretty good about it.  Maybe I'll invest in a thumb compass one of these days, and see if I can keep from breaking it for at least a month -- thumb compasses and adventure racing don't really mix.  Of course, our Swedish friend Staffan beat me by 17 minutes and nearly recorded the fastest time on the course, so I still have lots of room for improvement!  All in all, however, it was a fine day.  And the throng of other orienteers out there made for a really fun atmosphere!

Back to some number crunching now . . .

1,400 runners and we each paid 20 Swiss Francs as race-day registrants.  I suspect pre-registrants pay a bit less, as do children.  We can use a conservative estimate and multiply 15 Francs by 1,400 people to produce 21,000 Swiss Francs (nearly $20,000 US) -- that's some healthy revenue.  There are expenses, of course, as they had 2 big buses shuttling racers from the registration center to the start locations all day long; they rented the sports/community center for the village.  They probably owned the electronic punching system setup for the race (sportident), and there are the costs of the orienteering flags and maps.  They probably also pay for professionals to audit/update the map, so that's an additional cost to them.

Other than that, however, that's the only overhead.  They didn't have race schwag or anything, and incidentally we never signed any waivers (so I wonder if insurance factors in here or not?).  Again, being conservative, I have to think they profitted around $10,000 dollars from this one day event.  Not a bad haul for a local orienteering club, and you can do a lot of investment in building the sport and paying for team travel with a reliable income source such as that.  It looks like each club puts on one or two meets like this per year.

There was other money changing hands, too.  Local youth clubs organized food kiosks setup around the center, selling drinks and hot food as fund-raisers.  Several vendors were selling all the orienteering equipment you could imagine -- wrist guards, gaiters, spikey shoes, compasses, jerseys, everything you can imagine.  It had a carnival atmosphere.

It blows my mind, as an American, to see how successful orienteering can be here in Switzerland.  Or, more accurately, it blows my mind how unsuccessful orienteering is in the US by comparison.  It's clear that families plan their weekends around these events and, just like the competitive soccer from my youth in the US, orienteering teams travel each weekend to compete.  It's not just for kids, either, as there are adults and retirees who come out to the orienteering in Switzerland too.  The O clubs transcend generational lines, with young children wearing the same club jersey for "OLG Bern" as adults of all ages.  Maybe 50% of the participants are under 18, but the remaining 50% are all adults enjoying the time in the woods with map and compass.

I don't write this to criticize American orienteering, but to provide inspiration.  These Swiss clubs are thriving, putting on just one or two events a year, and there are hundreds of orienteering clubs throughout Switzerland.  Getting from point A to point B is the challenge, of course, and if American orienteering is at "point A" I think Swiss orienteering is at more like "point V" or "point W."  There are a lot of incremental stops along the way to reaching the success that orienteering has in Switzerland!  The USA doesn't have the O-momentum (this is "O-mentum" right?) that Switzerland has, and so clubs have to operate in a totally different way.

Where to start building O-momentum in the US?

I'm certain the good folks at USOF (US Orienteering Federation) are more qualified to comment on this than I am . . . but I'll take a stab in my next post.  I'll also post some photos and the map.