The Great Derby Paradox
 

I'm sitting here and reflecting upon yesterday. Great story lines, the winning connections, etc. and all that despite a horrific weather day. I digress....kudos to those here who scored big. MMSC and Point come to mind with the Oaks/Derby punts. I believe I'm one of the many who said after the race, "if I only put Golden Soul in the 2nd position, as well as 3rd and 4th."

Today the data has been pouring in. Second largest handle ever (good weather would have pushed it to a record). Best NBC ratings in 21 years. Good pub earlier in the week from two 60 Minutes segments. You know where I'm going with this. Why then does the sport continually have challenges throughout the year? Obviously I'm not including BC, Saratoga, Del Mar, and I guess Keeneland to some extent. The marketing of the Derby has certainly helped widen the appeal. The purists may not love the celebs, red carpet, the mansion, etc...but it is sure working to the event's advantage. Apart from this, I guess the derby is part and parcel to what's become an ADHD society. The need for star studded events with a splash of instant gratification. Who knows if that's it?

Because the sport is on 7 days a week 365 days a year and wipes out the folks who love it enough to engage it daily.

I'm not sure this is a paradox. The Derby is mainstream Americana. A lot of effort was made to publicize it. People are attracted to things that celebrities are doing. Handle in horse racing has been going up ( despite the cries to the contrary by the ill-informed naysayers ).

We still need to educate the public about what is fascinating about this great game if we expect to create viable new fans. I'm not saying I have the answers as to how to do this, but I would say that identifying your potential new fans correctly, or responsibly, is probably a good place to start. I do, however, think ignoring the gambling aspect of the game is not likely to allow you to turn the casual viewer into a productive participant in the game.

I should hope that the marketers behind major productions like the Triple Crown races know how to attract peoples' attentions. My question is whether or not you think the celebrity/human interest stories are being effectively counter balanced with some sort of productive fan education elements. I can't offer any specific thoughts in this instance, as I did not see any of the NBC coverage. I am actually curious.

Despite some of the usual fluff, I thought NBC continues to improve the telecast. Racing regulars must keep in mind that the network has to keep it real simple (dumbed down) for the general public. Their informational graphics, for instance, are always improving. Example...A side by side explanation of who has run in the slop and who's pedigree favored off tracks was very clean and easy. Hammond, Bailey, and Moss look very comfortable. Although some may find her annoying, Michelle Beadle's piece on race calling was great. Folks got to see the perspective from Larry's booth where they actually had him calling a live race. I do agree that a little more gambling education, incorporated into the broadcast, could be a facilitator for potential players.

I also enjoyed the NBC coverage (sans Costas). My mom, wife and son didn't even bitch about it being on every TV in the house :-) and were invested in the races all afternoon. I noticed several Facebook friends that I never thought would be interested that also enjoyed/commented about the race. Some even said my posts and also the wife's posts peaked their interest. One actually opened a Twinspires account and hit the exacta. Not to jinx it, but if Orb can make a Triple Crown run, it will really peak the interest. Hell I sit on an isle at work with a lot of traffic and I get people who stop by that I don't know who want to talk horses. The interest is there in a lot of folks, we just have to mine it.

I thought Bailey was better this time around.

I do not remember seeing much of Randy Moss until the actual Derby telecast, which was surprising.

It seems to me NBC is moving further and further away from the handicapping/gambling aspect of the game and focusing on the pageantry of the event.

Even in Fridays telecast they spent much less time covering the races than in the past, it would be all Derby stuff, then two minutes before post they would go to the upcoming stakes race.

We have an Irish pub in town that became an OTB about three weeks ago. Owner told me that it had been very quiet until Saturday. People were outside waiting at 10am and stayed/wagered all day. Tellers were having to explain how to bet to a lot of people but he said they did about 24K over 6 hours. Not too bad for a city where almost no one knows we have a track!

It was a huge plus that they actually showed the Woodford reserve Turf Classic this year.

The big minus was not playing up the fact that the current horse of the year was participating. That was a real missed opportunity to show casual fans that racing exists at a high level beyond just the Derby.

Paul

I think that on marquee days the everyday issues that plague the sport just aren't apparent. We have big crowds, big pools and big, competitive quality fields. Most days we have small crowds, small pools and small, non competitive lacking in quality fields.

Some of the underlying issues in the sport that aren't being addressed are we have track ownership in many area's that is looking to marginalize their racing operations to the point where you have to question how long they until they try to separate themselves from it. Ironically CDI is one of those companies. Greenwood and Penn Nat'l gaming or Delaware or MNR have no love for pari-mutual gambling or racing. Hollywood is already doomed. Who knows what the plan for the Stronach tracks are post-Frank. This is a core issue that the average viewer watching the Derby telecast would find hard to believe.

The day to day fields in most locations are just not that good. There are a number of reasons for this and foal crop seems to be the favorite excuse but of course that is a weak argument being that this trend started long before a huge drop off in the numbers.

Takeout/pricing is still out of whack compared to competing forms of gambling.


I think that racing made huge mistakes in the late 80's/early 90's when simulcasting took off. What full card simulcasting did was take racing from a regional sport to a national sport and the truth is that the game never really learned how to adjust.

What mistake was that? What do you think they should've done?

Pretty much nails it. I'm not sure what the fix is, other than less racing. There aren't enough horses, and the horses we have don't run enough, to support all the race dates we have. Takeout is bad, but could probably live with it IF fields were better and more competitive.

They completely underestimated it. The bigger tracks stupidly more or less gave away their product for close to nothing and the smaller tracks were naive enough to not think that their fans eventually wouldnt rather bet on the better product rather than the inferior live product.

That is the obvious flaw. What is less obvious is that at the point when it became inevitable that simulcasting was going to change the game, the tracks and horsemen and regulators failed to adopt similar rules and regulations so that the same $ increments were used universally, that stewards were using the same rules in making DQ's, that wagering rules regarding scratches, late scratches, shoeing changes, etc. were basically the same. It would have been easier to do it then than now and a lot of these things still aren't fixed.

In 1985 it didn't matter for the most part what happened in other jurisdictions. Now 90% of the handle coming from places other than the actual racetrack.

I don't think the issues are as in-depth as some might suggest. It's really pretty simple. The takeout, combined with the perception on the part of the public that if you don't know who is cheating you are at a disadvantage to those who do know, give the casual gambler the impression that there are easier ways to win money.

I 100% disagree with the highlighted part. NBC chooses to dumb it down. In my opinion, this is the exact opposite of what we should be doing as an industry. John Madden explained football to the masses. We could do that as well. A ten minute segment, with a telestrator, taking apart key points of the Derby preps, would have greatly enlightened viewers, and enhanced their viewing pleasure by making them understand what was going on. The most interesting part of our game are the actual races, which is especially true of a 20 horse KY Derby, yet we don't even give the audience a chance to understand what they are watching.

Is the concept that a fast pace hurts the horses up front, and thus helps the horses from way back, too difficult for viewers too understand? I don't think so, but unless we take the time to explain this, and demonstrate it, we won't even get the audience thinking about it. In my opinion, we waste a lot of time by both incorrectly identifying our potential audience, and failing to take any advantage of the opportunity to educate them. We will never truly grow our fan base in a meaningful way by continuing in this direction.

I dont buy the less horses matters that much. There are certainly less owners but there are a lot of horses out there.

Less racing doesn't work on its own. Racing Secretaries have painted themselves in a proverbial corner by writing far too many conditioned claimers. They know it too but all say the same thing (at least in the mid-atlantic) hat they would change it if the other tracks would too.

This allows claimers to be campaigned like allowance horses which is not how it is supposed to be. Rather than race the horse and move them up and down in class based on results, everyone wants to wait for their condition. When you have 5000 nw2, 5000 nw3, 5000 nw4, 5000 nw1 in 6 months, 5000 nw2 in 6 months, 5000 nw1 year going short and long for colts and fillies divides up a huge class of horses that used to be known as 5000 claimers. In effect you have created 24 classes of 5000 claimers. The same thing exists for higher priced claimers as well. Is it any wonder why they don't get full fields? Owners and trainers will wait for the exact condition they are eligible for. It might come in a week or it might come in 5 weeks depending on what fills. When your cheapest horses are waiting 5/6 weeks to run, you will have issues. The claiming ladder is gone because the higher claimers mostly have conditions attached as well. So if you claim a 5000 nw3 horse that gets beat a nose you are either going to wait out jail (30 days) or try a 7500 nw3 whenever that race may go. By dividing up claimers into so many different classes it dilutes the pool as a whole which really makes their jobs harder.

As for the big tracks the disparity between haves and have nots grows wider every day. Until that is addressed I can't imagine how the cards could possible improve.

Very true. Football is anything but dumbed down on TV. I would argue football is even harder to understand than horse racing when you factor in the terminology the analysts frequently use.

I agree with alot of what you are saying but my question is how much control of the content of the show do racing people have and does NBC (or another network potentially) care enough about racing to consider trying it? It isn't like they don't have 1 1/2 to kill anyway.

While I totally understand your point, I feel like there is a huge segment of the audience that just doesn't care about the nuts and bolts of the racing. They pick their favorite names, jockeys and colors. They play their kids birthdays, addresses and favorite numbers. These people just want the fluff pieces and pagentry. Even if someone paid attention and picked something up, there is no way that they can capitalize on it because their bets are already in.

Maybe NBC should dedicate 2 channels for the pre-race show. One could be the nuts & bolts handicapping, with pace discussion, track bias talk other race on the card talk, etc. Then you have the fluff show for the people who bet their dogs name and are at a party watching the race. You would think that this would be a win win situation for everyone. The bettors/people looking to learn, might pick something up and still have the ability to get a wager in. While the fluff crowd could learn how to make the perfect mint julip.

It wouldn't be the first time that some people didn't pay attention to part of a television broadcast, but you might be surprised how many in a captive audience might have their attention grabbed.

Once again, I completely disagree with this mentality. In fact, I basically base my professional life, which every day seems to be more of my entire life, on this concept. If we want people to become more interested in our game we need to at least offer them the opportunity to understand it.

I probably don't pay enough attention to this situation but your post makes some sense.

I agree with you in theory. The Madden analogy is right on. But the reality is that this is NBC. The programming on the major networks is geared toward a "low brow" population. Look at these reality shows. The celebrity judges can barley speak coherent sentences. I know that football does a good job, but there's nothing that comes remotely close to the popularity of the NFL in this country.

The only people my age who like to go to the track and bet horses are people who care about sports.

They're usually deeply into fantasy football, they're always general sports fans, and they always have a job, and most of them dislike Poker. The rest are poker players who get bored with poker.

Most of them that show up a few times a week at the track redboard stories of success in some fantasy site called 'Fan Duel' more than they ever redboard on tickets they've cashed the last few days betting horses.

My girlfriend just hasn't gotten into racing at all. She enjoyed Saratoga, and even Mountaineer, and likes hanging out with me at the track here for live racing.

She has no interest in betting or handicapping.

My brother Dave is a year younger than me, same parents growing up (both trained thoroughbreds for fun) same grandfathers growing up (both bet horses for fun) -- he doesn't care about general sports and doesn't care about horse racing. When he goes to the track a few times a year, it's to drink beer and screw around.

The focus needs to be on attracting people like the ones I see, who gamely show up and try to figure out the game and take a beating.

If you're marketing to people my age who aren't into fantasy sports or poker, you're wasting your time and money. You're going after people like my girlfriend and my brothers.

I agree that the television audience is smarter than the network thinks; the catch is that the thrill of horse racing is gambling. Unfortunately, the average viewer is not going to set up an online betting account and play along. Horse racing doesn't get to benefit from the tribalism that being a fan of a team gives; the lure is making a pick and being right. If a network was unafraid to encourage that they'd set up a mock online betting thing on their own website so people watching could play along with pretend money and see how they do.

The other big challenge is that a horse race is only 2 minutes long, while a casual fan has a fair amount of time to watch a football, basketball or baseball game and get the hang of the sport. So yeah, more and better segments on understanding the race would go a long way toward making the race exciting for a non-racing fan. I think ten minutes is long for a single segment, but say, 5 two-minute segments, each on a different bit of information, could hold an audience (and keep them watching the entire broadcast). So that then if the first quarter then goes in 22 and change, they know what that means.

I haven't watched the full NBC broadcast yet, but I know a lot of my friends really liked the bit about which horses might run well in the mud, because it made them feel a bit smarter about the race. Doug's post on here about Derby races that give the illusion of a can't-lose horse was really interesting and that kind of thing could make for a great discussion in post-race analysis, and get an audience eager to come back for the Preakness.

I thought the NBC coverage was good.

The Human interest stories weren't annoying like they sometimes are. The girl who interviewed celebs and talked about fashion wasn't annoying. Her piece with Itsmyluckyday, Oxbow, and Lines Of Battle was cute.

The coverage by Randy Moss and Bailey was good.

Some of their announcers weren't on top of their game ... Rosie Naprovnik didn't give Bob Costas a pass when he told her she "would be riding Mylute in a race for the first time"

Bob Costas has huge prestige, but he always seems to bring his F game to the Derby telecast. Other than that, I think they did a fine job.

Donna Barton had a few good moments. They showed all of the right replays after the race. I'm not sure you could have asked for a lot better.

I agree with Doug that they need to market to other sports fans from ages 18 and up. I have been at the Derby the last few years and the people you meet,that are actually gambling, are all fans of other sports. Although fantasy sports never came up I'm sure many where involved in them. Most people you talk to are eager to learn more about how to wager. Over the course of the weekend people sitting or standing around me heard me discussing what we were wagering and later asked me questions. Most had no idea about how to play multi race tickets, what a Beyer or Tomlinson number etc... Everyone was eager to learn and to wager something more than win/place. I recommended Rich Eng's book to a couple of them while telling them not to be insulted by the title. People who like other sports and play fantasy football are definetly the correct target market. You need to educate them so they get the intrigue of the sport and so they can have some success.

I'm not sure why fantasy sports and poker have by far the best crossover to horse racing for people in their late 20's and early 30's.

Fantasy sports (and Poker to a lesser extent) is information driven, both require some basic skill in probabilities, and both are betting oriented games.

The people who play these games are generally much gamer than the ones who don't.

Anytime you bet horses, you're going to have some terrible days and you'll catch cold streaks ... I've seen these young guys lose $800 to a thousand dollars in a day betting horses, and they'll come back...even though they know their handicapping skills aren't good enough and their chances of winning long term are very low.

Those casual once or twice a year fan isn't going to bet nearly as much, and they won't bounce back from the beatings as well.

Seems to me that a vast majority of racing fans are into the game because of the gambling aspect. Even relatively casual fans go to gamble as much as to party. I don't think very many people go to a racetrack or simulcast facility to see celebrities. On the big racing days there are obviously many people who attend/tune in for the social/party atmosphere. Most casual fans watching the network coverage on the big days don't have online accounts ...they may have dropped a buck in an office pool or are using the event as an opportunity to socialize/party. They are not likely to become serious fans of the game unless they have a desire to gamble. The lure of potentially making money along with the challenge of picking winners is what seems to keep the majority of actual race fans coming back. Educating the the casual fan and marketing the potential money making aspect along with the handicapping challenge aspect seems the most likely way to turn a novice/casual fan into more than just a big day fan.

I hate sports and have never gambled on anything else in my life.

Racing is an interesting puzzle and requires a lot of research that can potentially pay off if you're right. You don't only have to be a sports fan to appreciate that.

I don't think I said that people other than sports fans could not become interested in horse racing. When you are spending marketing dollars you are trying to get the most potential new customers for your money invested. I think luring people from casino gambling, fantasy or other sports betting is probably the easiest conversion.

Derby Box Fights
 

I can't comment on NBC TV coverage because I was freezing in my barely undercover seats at Churchill. But I believe they missed out on the biggest entertainment story, people squatting in someone elses seats and the fights that nearly erupted trying to evict said trespassers.

[QUOTE


I think that racing made huge mistakes in the late 80's/early 90's when simulcasting took off. What full card simulcasting did was take racing from a regional sport to a national sport and the truth is that the game never really learned how to adjust.[/quote]


keen insight. it was rude awakening for those of us who dominated the local scene, and then started betting the big tracks, The competition is much tougher. when you're betting the local product mook money is all over the place. when you start competing against the likes of Mr. Byk and some of you guys, you get beat up. You become the mook money. It's a tough pill to swallow. Betting the local product is still profitable, but you have to be there, and it's tough to go everyday when you're the youngest guy in the track. I always want to be the oldest guy wherever I am. I miss going. Thank God for Saratoga.

Thanks.. I laughed coffee through my nose and am hurting right now :(

keen insight. it was rude awakening for those of us who dominated the local scene, and then started betting the big tracks, The competition is much tougher. when you're betting the local product mook money is all over the place. when you start competing against the likes of Mr. Byk and some of you guys, you get beat up. You become the mook money. It's a tough pill to swallow. Betting the local product is still profitable, but you have to be there, and it's tough to go everyday when you're the youngest guy in the track. I always want to be the oldest guy wherever I am. I miss going. Thank God for Saratoga.[/quote]

Started long before that. Off Track Betting was one of the key starting points, especially in New York.

Started long before that. Off Track Betting was one of the key starting points, especially in New York.[/quote]

i agree, i think opening otb's was a good intention, but it's been a bad thing for tracks. i'm one of those who bets when i go to the track, seldom bet away from it, and have never been to an otb. and when i'm at a track, typically don't fool with other tracks-i limit my bets the vast majority of the time to the live card.
but, so many go to otb's instead of the track, which is why everyone sees the daily attendance and says racing is 'dying'. and the tracks don't benefit from the betting, because they have to share with otb's and others. plenty of money from bettors, but it's not all going to the facility who is providing the product and putting out the purse monies and other expenses.

woe is me
 

I'm glad I've finished mine. Mike Welsch was the king at suffolk, well actually The Fox. Then he went to Calder to be DRF's man there. J Stone hit a big pick 6 and left. That left the disciples of JJ Kelly. We kicked ass for years, believe it or not. When simulcasting came, we were basically betting against a bunch of people sitting around Beulah park or Thisledown who look up at the TV and see 3 minutes to post at Suffolkand bet. If you are at the track on the rail everyday, for every race, you are supposed to know more than people just betting on TV. It was great while it lasted....then came the dime super, and it was over.
Betting against the best will make one crazy and broke. Kind of where I am after the bloodbath over the weekend. Sane and fat knot of dough was way better. Stay on the good foot !

Started long before that. Off Track Betting was one of the key starting points, especially in New York.[/quote]

Not nationally it didn't. Off track betting was pretty much restricted to NY in those days

i agree, i think opening otb's was a good intention, but it's been a bad thing for tracks. i'm one of those who bets when i go to the track, seldom bet away from it, and have never been to an otb. and when i'm at a track, typically don't fool with other tracks-i limit my bets the vast majority of the time to the live card.
but, so many go to otb's instead of the track, which is why everyone sees the daily attendance and says racing is 'dying'. and the tracks don't benefit from the betting, because they have to share with otb's and others. plenty of money from bettors, but it's not all going to the facility who is providing the product and putting out the purse monies and other expenses.[/quote]

I dont think the concept of OTB's is bad. Obviously the set up in NY was terrible but allowing people to bet without being physically present is not bad.

Allowing 3rd parties to come into the equation and basically leech off of the business wasn't a brilliant move.

:tro::tro:

what andy wrote is spot on..imo

Not nationally it didn't. Off track betting was pretty much restricted to NY in those days[/quote]

I didn't say nationally, but you could make a case that in the 70's New York was the racing capital, and whatever reason they could not work together, the result (along with other factors) effectively chopped down racing's largest tree.

Article regarding NBC's coverage of the Derby and going forward:

http://www.drf.com/news/jay-hovdey-b...ething-new-fan