Therefore, from this point on, the Marathon became a business. On the other hand, the money raised from sponsorship deals and contracts, together with different donations and profits were used in part to ensure that each participant to the race receives a reward for his or hers desire to take part in the event. Thus, despite the fact that the rewards were merely symbolic, small medals and race t-shirts and they represented a poof of each man's striving for personal fulfillment.

Nonetheless, there was another major player whose support had to be acquired that of the media. A Sunday morning event would have indeed a wide coverage as there are little events that would challenge that air time; still, the increasing proportions of the marathon attracted the interest of the media, and the sponsorship contract that immediately followed encouraged the television and newspaper...

On the one hand it is the biography of an extraordinary man who managed to overcome the obstacles life had raised for him, and on the other, the story of the modern transformation of one of the most important events in the worlds today. Lebow saw the interactive relationship between financially related matters and morally correct statements and combined them as to exploit the former in order to address the latter, and in the end offering the perspective that now places the New York Marathon in top of the sporting events of the year.
Bibliography

Rubin, Ron. Anything for a T-Shirt: Fred Lebow and the New York City Marathon, the World's Greatest Footrace New York: Syracuse University Press, 2004.