The Big Apple is gearing up for runners from all over the world to converge for the iconic TCS New York City Marathon on November 3, 2024. The marathon usually attracts more than 50,000 runners, 11,000 volunteers and over 1 million spectators 1. Beyond the pounding feet and roaring crowds, an invisible force will be at play – one that will spark economic activity throughout the city, driving energy and excitement far beyond the finish line.
As part of Mastercard Economics Institute’s ongoing exploration into the intersection of major events and economic trends under the series Eventful Economy, we uncover the economic impact of the NYC marathon, focusing on last year’s event.
Using a “synthetic control” methodology, we constructed a scenario to estimate what spend activity would have looked like without the marathon. Leveraging high-frequency, anonymized Mastercard transaction data, we isolated the incremental spend boost directly attributable to the marathon, including spending specific to small businesses.
Just as the runners journeyed through New York City from the starting point on Staten Island to the triumphant finish in Central Park, we’ll explore the economic impact of the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon hour by hour, and neighborhood by neighborhood, to see how this iconic event supported local businesses. We are measuring spending at restaurants and bars that qualify as “small businesses” based on our proprietary methodology and are located within 1,000 meters of the marathon route. Henceforth, throughout the piece, we will refer to these businesses as “small restaurants”.
Lift in spending between actual and synthetic series for small/medium restaurants around the marathon course