The Super Bowl kicks off Sunday, but for now, The Conversation looks at a sporting event closer to home.
The Honolulu Marathon broke records last year with nearly 45,000 participants over the marathon weekend, and a new economic report says the $200,000 invested by the state was a good gamble.
Jim Barahal has been president of the Honolulu Marathon for nearly three decades. He says the event generated more than half a billion dollars in total economic output and generated over 7 billion social media impressions around the globe.
HPR spoke to Barahal about what the numbers tell us as the state tries to grow sports tourism.
Interview highlights
On numbers from the 2025 Honolulu Marathon
JIM BARAHAL: Last year, in terms of numbers for the Honolulu Marathon was by far the biggest ever. We had over 43,000 participants, so just incredible growth coming from all over the world. And so last March, when I saw the early numbers coming in for the marathon, I realized that they were going to be quite big, and we hadn't done an economic impact study in a number of years, not since 2012 and so in a lot of the interviews I was doing, I was throwing around numbers that were based on the previous study, and I didn't want it to go too big, because I didn't have the data to back that up. So we did do an economic impact study, and it just came out, and the numbers are quite staggering. The total economic output for the Honolulu Marathon in 2025 was $532 million generated, I think $32 million in taxes. I mean, up and down the board on these numbers are just astonishing.
On study, social media impressions
BARAHAL: They received over 2,000 questionnaires filled out. This was done on-site. That's a huge sample size for a study, which I think helps confirm its accuracy. But the number of people that came with the participants is really quite remarkable. So it was 170,000 people, I think, actually came for the marathon. This is a scale that's really unprecedented in Hawaiʻi. It’s very different, too, than a spectator event. I think all the events have value. I think losing The Sentry on Maui was a big loss, and, in fact, may have been a bit of a catalyst to put the Sony Open in jeopardy. But those are not events, really, where that many people come. I think it's more impressions and eyeballs on television. The Honolulu Marathon is very different in the sense that the participants are the ones that generate the content that goes out on social media. We had 7.7 billion impressions for the Honolulu Marathon. So people come and they participate, they take pictures, they share it around the world. And the kind of viral effect of that is astronomical.
On direct spending
BARAHAL: We're at least three generations in on this event, so it's really become a huge part of the fabric of the community, while at the same time, it's developed into this huge international event, this huge economic engine. That's a bit of a balancing act, but I think the study indicates that it's working. The number of people that come from all over to Waikīkī mainly, and also a number of the people that come here also go to outer islands. The study shows that the direct spending was about $430 million on Oʻahu, but there's another $100 million on the outer islands as well.
On growing sports tourism
BARAHAL: I think the participation events, getting people here to have an experience, as opposed to just watching somebody else do something, is probably where the future is, and understanding how to use that to get the social media and all the impressions out there. And I also think it's important, when taxpayer money is spent, to make sure that the taxpayers are getting return on investment. So some sort of report is probably not a bad idea, like we did.
Find the Honolulu Marathon Economic Impact Assessment here.
Early entry for the 2026 Honolulu Marathon is open for Hawaiʻi, the U.S. continent and Canada residents.
This story aired on The Conversation on Feb. 2, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
