Bay to Breakers Pisses Away Sponsor ING

Joseph Schell

Images like this don't exactly scream 'Buy our insurance'

​Perhaps you could say ING was pissed off. After all, Bay to Breakers runners urinated on everything else.

In a bit of news interestingly first reported by the Chronicle -- and not the Examiner, owned by Philip Anschutz, whose Anschutz Entertainment group puts on the race -- Bay to Breakers is losing its principal sponsor.

As you'd expect, corporate explanations have been very terse. Everyone wishes everyone well. Our calls to race spokesman Sam Singer have not yet been returned.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told KTVU this morning that "these are the financial times. I assume ING is dropping out of a number of races across the United States." Well, they haven't pulled out of the ING Hartford or  New York Marathons yet. And yet, "a number of races across the United States" haven't morphed into booze-fueled bacchanals that transform vast swaths of the city into an open-air cesspool.
Mirkarimi, incidentally, has also formally fired off "letters of inquiry" to the San Francisco Police Department, Department of Public Works, and Recreation and Park Department querying how damn much this cost and how damn much money the taxpayers are out.

The long and short of it is, when you punch "Bay to Breakers" into a Google image search, you discover things that may not behoove a staid insurance company.

Next year's race, incidentally, would be the 100th. Whether that race will occur is now no sure thing. Whether participants could be made to behave more moderately during a centennial celebration is also doubtful.  

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