ING: Done with Bay to Breakers

The Bay to Breakers marathon is turning 100 this year - if there is a 'this year'. Sponsor ING has dropped the Bay to Breakers race, eliminating the funds needed to run the 7.5 mile event. It's guessed that the sponsor paid over a few hundred thousand dollars to fund the race in previous years.

Why would a sponsor back out of such a big race? Runners gone wild.

The Bay to Breakers event is notorious for bad behavior. Nudity is common, with some runners running completely naked for the race. Alcohol is in abundance. Residents have reported runners urinating, defecating and causing disturbances all along the route.

Which leads to the real issue: publicity issues due to the race. ING doesn't want to sponsor a race that will just hurt it's image. ING is, indeed, a business, and businesses depend on their public image for consumers to want to invest in them. Defecating runners is hardly what the business wants people to think about when they see the ING logo.

In the past, ING has tried to take measures to control the madness. The past two races, race organizers banned kegs and glass bottles from the Bay to Breakers event. There were more portable toilets to try to eliminate the runners going to the bathroom in public on the route. The measures didn't work, as complaints from residents still poured in.

There are even more problems associated with the race, including a vast array of runners who ran that didn't register for the race. There were 60,000 runners last year, and over half of the runners didn't register. That number means less revenue from the race, which means more money from the sponsor is eaten up trying to cover expenses.

The most famous Bay to Breakers crasher? San Francisco's own Mayor! Yes, Newsom decided to line up last year without registering, and ran the entire race with his security guard. Add those two to the list of non-registered runners. The Mayor himself set an example by his actions: why register when you can just get up and do it for free?

ING isn't including the race's problematic history in it's statements, but ING is hardly denying it, either. According to the SF Gate, "ING spokesman Joseph Loparco said in a brief statement only that the company had reached its goal with its sponsorship, and that it wishes the event "many more years of success.""

With ING gone, San Francisco better hope for another sponsor to jump in, or the Bay to Breakers run will never see 100.