What happens when you can’t get into one of the nation’s biggest running markets through the front door? Try the back, of course.
When US Road Sports & Entertainment Group was outbid last year by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt for ownership of the Los Angeles Marathon, it didn’t just run away.
Instead, the Dallas-based startup purchased other marathons and created a series of half-marathons in 10 cities, including the inaugural 13.1 Series Los Angeles Half Marathon race Jan. 10.
The race has lots of company among the other local warm-ups leading up to the March 21 Los Angeles Marathon, but US Road Sports hopes to distinguish itself as a premier race through both its route along Venice Boulevard and extra race-day amenities.
“We wanted to create a course that the runner won’t get at any other race,” said US Road Sports Managing Partner Peter Handy, a former radio executive and running enthusiast who owns the company with a partner.
At least 2,000 people have signed up for the race that will start near the Santa Monica Pier and wend its way to Culver City and back largely along Venice. The thoroughfare will be completely shut down for the event – a rare occurrence.
The race also will feature lots of water stations, volunteer help and other assistance not always found in shorter races, Handy said.
US Road Sports expects to lose money on this first L.A. race but hopes to be profitable in the future. The company hopes to draw sponsors and also charges a $70 registration fee. Among its costs are permitting fees, advertising and traffic control.
The 13.1 half-marathon series will kick off this year in January with the L.A. race and the move to other cities, including New York, Chicago and Miami.
“We’ve been fielding calls from convention bureaus who have reached out to us. In 2011, we hope to add three more cities to the series,” Handy said.
As for the Los Angeles Marathon, is US Road Sports positioning itself to take over should McCourt – who is involved in a bitter divorce with his wife, Jamie – decide to bail out?
“Who wouldn’t want to own the L.A. Marathon?” Handy said.
Wardrobe Malfunction
Pro football is back in Los Angeles at the L.A. Sports Arena.
But it won’t be played by the usual cast of hulking linebackers. Taking to the field this season are scantily clad women, stars of the Los Angeles Temptations of the L.A.-based Lingerie Football League, which launched in November.
The team brings the new league’s brand of seven-on-seven tackle football to Friday night home games at the Sports Arena. The lingerie concept was introduced during a halftime Super Bowl game, and the league is expanding the concept. Lingerie-clad players are supposed to make women’s football more marketable to male viewers – and some women, league organizers believe.
The league’s 10 teams play on a 50-yard field at indoor stadiums. Uniforms – bikini tops and shorts – have numbers sewn on the chest and backside. The women wear helmets, shoulder pads and kneepads.
The league was founded by former ad executive Mitchell Mortaza, who serves as its chairman It has a 20-game season and will host its championship game – the Lingerie Bowl – during Super Bowl weekend in Miami, site of the National Football League’s Super Bowl.
“The women are really tough athletes and they play an exciting game of football,” Mortaza said, noting that spectators have been surprised at the high quality of play.
The league won’t draw the kind of crowds that came to Sports Arena events in the past, when the Los Angeles Clippers pro hoops and USC Trojans basketball teams used to play there. The Clippers left in 1999 for the Staples Center and the Trojans left in 2006 for the Galen Center.
Each LFL team has an active roster of 14 women, who were selected at tryouts from among hundreds. They were chosen based on their athletic prowess as well as their looks, Mortaza said. The coaches came from NFL or college teams.
Players and coaches are paid a percentage of box office, with winning teams getting bigger portions.
The league has set up television deals in many of its markets. Locally, games are shown live on KDOC (Channel 56). The league has signed sponsorship deals and has revenue-sharing agreements among teams. The league is structured as a single entity system, which means it retains majority ownership in the teams.
So far, the league has drawn about 6,500 fans to games; some games have seen attendance top 10,000. Attendance figures are about 30 percent higher than Mortaza expected for the first season.
Tennis Time
About 30 million Americans played tennis last year, the highest figure in two decades. Those findings come from a study released last week at a luncheon in Los Angeles by the U.S. Tennis Association.
Of those players, more than 2 million are in Southern California.
Sam Querrey, of Thousand Oaks and ranked No. 24 in the world, said the numbers show that the sport is heading in the right direction.
“This number represents 10 percent of the people in the United States. I hope that after-school programs with kids playing tennis becomes like football and baseball,” he said at the luncheon.
The study showed that participation was up 12 percent compared with 2008 and 25 percent compared with 2003.
Staff reporter David Nusbaum can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 236.
