Philadelphia will have it’s race!
-
- April
- 30
Here’s an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer by my friend Christopher K. Hepp. It’s good news for pro cycling fans.
The race is on.After 10 days of uncertainty, organizers of the TD Bank Philadelphia Cycling Championship announced yesterday that they had secured two new sponsors needed to assure the event’s 25th running.
They declined to identify the sponsors, but they said they would cover about half of the $500,000 budget gap that had put the professional cycling race in jeopardy.
“We will name the sponsors at a news conference next week,” Dave Chauner, cofounder of the race, said. “But we wanted to let everyone know now that the race was on so plans that have to be made can proceed.”
Even with recently increased ticket sales, Chauner said his group still needed to find $100,000 to $150,000 in funding, but he said he was confident that would happen between now and the June 7 race.
“With the new sponsors and the momentum we have had with VIP ticket sales, I think we are going to be all right,” he said.
The annual race is one of Philadelphia’s signature public events. It is considered the premier single-day professional cycling race in the United States. It also is a free festival that draws hundreds of thousands of fans and revelers to a daylong block party running from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Manayunk “Wall.”
First held in 1985, the race was threatened this year by the global fiscal crisis.
First, organizers lost a number of sponsors, including two that had provided $225,000. Then the city, facing its own financial troubles, announced it could no longer subsidize the race by waiving the cost of police and sanitation services. That amounts to nearly $250,000 in additional expenses.
To read more of the article click here.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 10:44 AM by Randall Wolf. 
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