When did races become so pricey?

While doing some booooring online training this morning (all morning, rather, which is about to morph into an all-day) I again failed to find the end of the internet but I did register for another race from the Running in the USA online race calendar.

During my search for local races, I stumbled on the San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon and Half, scheduled for November 17 and I was all ready to sign up until I found this nonsense:

And now I have many questions.

Most of all, when the $&@!*$ did road races become so expensive?

I know nothing about race direction or organization but I am very curious about how the race fees are broken down.

Let's do the math: if I signed up today for the half, that's $120/13.1 miles or $9.16 per mile. Does this seems prohibitively expensive to anyone else?  I measure everything in plane tickets these days, and that's a plane ticket home for me.  Roundtrip.  

Or maybe those are fair prices nowadays and I've just been lucky enough to stumble on races that are more inexpensive.

I ran my first marathon (Cleveland, OH) in 2002 and I solidly remember the price in the $40 range.  Today, it's increased to $95 for the full and $80 for the half (if I register two to three months out).  We all know that the RNR series is more expensive than other races, but $120 for a half marathon is too steep for me.

So to satisfy my urge for another morning race I signed up for the Gruene 10K instead of the RNR Half.  I love Gruene Hall and the environs.  And I like the $30ish pricetag, which is $5.65 per mile, not that that's a useful measure of anything other than my inability to register for a race early, ever.  Cost aside, I'd really rather support a local club than the megawatt Rock and Roll series anyway.  And the race is next weekend.  

Happy Saturday running...back to my online training...zzzzzzzz