Backlash is an interesting point. One would think they care about such things, I have no way of knowing if that is an issue for the BAA and their new sponsor Bank of America. My overall feeling is that they feel that all went pretty well in 2024 so they have justification to do as they feel fit to do for 2025. As for field size, it is not a unilateral decision. That has to be approved by all of the municipalities along the route and so far they have not yielded to that pressure. In fact it isn't even a strong argument - with a field size of 30,000 last year there were only 25,530 finishers. Hard to argue that they need a larger field when nearly one-sixth of the field doesn't finish it. I agree that Tokyo is not a big player in this - despite it beging a Major and a very large race, they never finish in the top 5 of qualifiers that the BAA announcers and I imagine they aren't even in the top 10.