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See Related File
See related pages:
http://www.iditarod.com/
http://www.adn.com/iditarod/
Turns out Monopoly money is real. Mushers in this year's Iditarod will be racing for a record purse when they line up for Saturday's ceremonial start on Fourth Avenue, thanks to annual revenues that were better than projected, including a $30,000 boost from the sales of Iditarod Monopoly games. Stan Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod Trail Committee, said the purse is $450,000 and counting. Depending on how ticket sales proceed in the next several days for the annual Iditarod raffle, the purse may inch all the way up to the half-million mark, something mushers have long dreamed of. "It's wonderful," three-time champion Martin Buser of Big Lake said. "We were hoping things would get better, and it looks like they have." It was only a few years ago that the Iditarod purse was in steady decline, going from a high of $400,000 in 1993 to a decade-low of $300,000 in 1996 because of dwindling revenue, caused primarily by the loss of key corporate sponsors like Timberland and Iams. Now, for the third year in a row, the Iditarod is boasting a record purse. Last year's payout of $425,000 had been the highest in history, Hooley said, but this year's will surpass it by at least $25,000. Buser said the increase is welcomed, but thinks neither the race nor the mushers should be content to see the purse plateau at $450,000 to $500,000. "I think it has even more potential than what they're presently offering," he said. The top 20 mushers will continue to pocket the prize money, and the same formula used last year to divide the money will be used again this year. But even the Red Lantern winner will take home some money this year. Once the top 20 finishers are paid, any of the other mushers in the 56-musher field who make it the 1,100 miles to Nome will collect $1,049 - marking only the second time in the 27-year history of the race that every finisher will earn a paycheck. The increased payouts are happening because the trail committee is projecting a surplus of $90,000 to its $2.1 million operating budget this year, Hooley said, providing the final 500 raffle tickets are sold for $100 a pop. The Iditarod Monopoly games and the Iditarider program produced about $130,000 more than budgeted, Hooley said. The Iditarod Monopoly games, which replaced standard board properties like Park Place and Boardwalk with Iditarod checkpoints like Safety and Nome, brought in $30,000 in royalties. And the Iditarider program, which lets fans buy a ride during the ceremonial start with the musher of their choice, brought in almost $100,000, double the amount earned last year. Add a handful of new sponsors - including Iridium, a global telecommunications business that has become the race's fourth presenting sponsor at the $150,000 level, and PTI Net, an Internet provider that signed on as a $50,000 sponsor - and the Iditarod appears to be in amazing shape considering the rocky trail of the early- to mid-1990s. Back then, a majority of national sponsors, many of them under fire from animal-rights groups, withdrew their support of the race. "We're as (financially) healthy as we've been in some time," Hooley said. "We feel confident that we are going to finish up in pretty good shape." And so at a Friday board of directors meeting, the board voted to dedicate most of the surplus to the purse. Some board meetings in the past have grown heated when the conversation turned to the size of the purse and whether to guarantee them or not, but Hooley said last week's debate was relatively mellow. Mushers will continue their push for bigger purses, but Buser said the climate for such debate has become more congenial. "There will always be debate a between participants and the organizing body, because the participants would like to see every available dollar go to the race, so there will always be room for discussion," Buser said. "But as long as the race is evolving and improving, there's a friendly discussion going on instead of an antagonistic one."
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