Do we have a $ figure of how much NYC makes from the marathon?

[cthulu2016]

Both directly, and how much taxable business it generates in the city.

I have no idea.

But hypothetically, if the city said, "We would lose $80 million if we canceled the marathon so instead we will hold it and that $80 million will go to Staten Island relief" would that play differently?

I ask because whatever money the city takes in will, indeed, go to relief because the city is surely going to be deficit spending in the short term. Every extra dollar they take in from any source this year will, in fact, go to relief.

But if one of those giant prop checks for $80 million was produced at the end of the Marathon as what the Marathon "raised" for disaster relief people would probably think it was a good thing. With the money going into a fungible pool of resources, though, the connection is not seen.

PR always counts in public affairs.

I don't know the facts and figures of the thing. I assume the city wants to hold the Marathon because of some downside to canceling it, but I don't know exactly what that downside is. But I do know that everything involving government funds and allocation of resources is complex.

[frazzled]

1. $340 million in economic impact

I'm not sure the city itself makes anything on it, aside from sales and entertainment taxes that come in. And it costs them a lot to clean up and provide security and stuff.

ON Edit: the City does not run the marathon; it's run by New York Road Runners.

[MANative]

2. I heard on local news (WNBC-4 - NYC) that it brings in

"hundreds of millions" of dollars in revenues. This was in context of live 24/7 coverage/discussion of the Sandy disaster just a few minutes ago, so there is no video clip available now, and probably won't be. I know that there are tens of thousands of runners, most of whom travel to the area, spend on meals, hotels, etc., and hundreds of big-business sponsorships, i.e Nike, who do massive advertising. It would be a huge financial hit to the city to cancel it, without a doubt. I just question the timing and "appearance" of the whole thing when they are still finding bodies in Staten Island. Tough call. If it were mine to make, I'd postpone it for two weeks, but I recognize that the issue is that the storm happened so close to the event, that many of the runners or sponsor/participants had already started to arrive or were en route.