I had a conversation with a few other trainers this morning about a variety of topics including slots and the pros and cons. We are very worried as a group about what is going to happen once the tracks start raking in huge profits from the slots despite the raise of purses. I personally feel that the tracks will even be more independent and instead of coming together to solve some of the industrywide problems they will just try to throw money at them. Tracks in general have treated horsemen as a necessary evil when we were their only product so you can understand how we feel we will be viewed as we are marginalized. However if casinos are allowed in our markets without us being involved, it would surely lead to the rapid demise of the tracks. Being a gambling venture, we need to compete on the same level as the casinos. I personally have no problem with slots players not playing the races as long as we are seeing a portion of their revenue. Instead of going after slots players we should go after people who have not yet become gamblers and stress the positives of betting on our sport. Make them horseplayers before they become slot players or poker players. I would say the typical slot player is not smart or lucrative enough to become a sucessful horse player any way.
I think that horseracing in general has done a terrible job with the TV networks. We should give all our big races to ESPN when the contracts expire. Let them promote the sport year round and stop whining about overruns from little league baseball and such. Remember before last year ESPN was covering the BC preps in a half assed manner because another network covered it. If we were to give them the Triple Crown and BC I am sure they would do a much better job of televising the preps. Make ESPN and their family of networks the horse racing channel. ESPN gives you great demographics and really can help "make" a sport. Look at Poker. The current TC situation is a sad joke. The 1st 2 races on one network and the Belmont on another. I know one thing, if ESPN had the Derby we would have gotten a whole lot more coverage of races like the FL Derby and AR Derby. Maybe I'm wrong but as the networks fade ESPN will only get bigger.
I also think ESPN can help us in another area where racing is missing out badly. That is promoting the sport to the increasing hispanic population. There are so many prominent hispanics that are key players in our sport why are we not actively promoting to these people? If you watch ESPN sportscenter in the morning you see them promoting ESPN desportes every day. Racing could be a natural fit for this portion of the network which is looking hard for content.
But of course there are great ideas like the jockey cam and free t-shirts.
|