Comrades Marathon partners with popular board game
A meeting with the Monopoly team in London followed and Sportsvendo obtained the rights.
The Comrades Marathon is the world’s largest and oldest ultra-marathon, and to celebrate the centenary year of the marathon, a Comrades Marathon Centenary Monopoly board game is being launched.
Now all Comrades Marathon enthusiasts can be part of the action as they play this ever-popular classic fast-dealing property trading board game.
This theme of the most popular board game was the brainchild of Leon Swanepoel, Sportsvendo CEO and a two-time gold medal winner, who has been involved in the sports industry for 30 years.
“As a Comrades Marathon runner, it struck me one day that the world-famous Comrades Marathon could be the perfect theme for a Monopoly board,” Swanepoel said.
He said he noticed a few years ago that Monopoly started producing their popular board game with other existing brands and points of interest.
“I was fascinated and immediately became a collector of Monopoly board games. There are over 1 000 different themed Monopoly board games, including movies, artists, history, retailers and strong brands in general,” he said.
“Both the Comrades Marathon and the Monopoly board game include landmarks and after I have done some research, I discovered that no city marathon or road running race has ever been used for a Monopoly theme.”
A meeting with the Monopoly team in London followed and Sportsvendo obtained the rights.
The Comrades Marathon Centenary Monopoly board is designed in line with the traditional Monopoly board where the properties start with less expensive and finish with most expensive.
“As a Comrades Marathon enthusiast, I am so excited about this board game,” said Bruce Fordyce, who holds the record of winning the Comrades Marathon nine times. Bruce challenged Swanepoel to a Monopoly game, which Swanepoel accepted and said: “This may be the only time to beat Bruce.
“For everyone who has participated in the Comrades Marathon, this board will surely also awaken some memories and now everyone. Even those who never participated can experience it in a different way.”
The Comrades Marathon’s direction alternates each year between the up run from Durban and the down run from Pietermaritzburg.
The centenary year was celebrated in 2021 and it would have been a down run. Unfortunately, the pandemic prevented the 2021 run to take place.
Monopoly board game lovers and Comrades Marathon enthusiasts can look forward to the following on the board game:
• Landmarks on the down run.
• Course records for the down run (men/women), as well as fastest foreign runners on the down run as the most expensive properties, were used.
• The two traditional tax locations have been replaced with two cut-off times on the down run.
• For the four traditional travel locations, four of the previous down run finish venues in Durban were used.
• For the two traditional utility properties, the Comrades Marathon House and the Comrades Marathon Wall of Honour were used.
• The Chance and Community Chess cards/questions are branded as Down Run and Up Run, with appropriate “running” references.
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