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Originally Posted by Travis Stone
ESPN is ESPN, not ESPN OTB. ABC is ABC, and not ABC OTB.
They put horse racing on the air to entertain general audiences in addition to racing fans. General audiences could care less about who ran fourth, they want to know who just won the race.
The same argument applies to their camera angles. To a non-racing fan, the pan shot is BORING.
They correctly assume the majority of people who are serious bettors are not on their couch but at a track or an OTB. The majority of people watching horse racing on a day like the Belmont are 3x a year race watchers and they are watching to be entertained, not informed.
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I would say a good portion of "serious bettors" are now watching from home, because they want to have up to the minute access to the pools that computer betting allows. These players do watch the TV feed when they happen to be on, because they are superior to the little grainy feeds you get from an ADW.
I am also going to take the side that those viewers looking to be entertained need to be drawn into the pools.
it could be interesting to see a major race broadcast as primarily a gambling event(complete with
instant approval credit card deposit, network call-a-bet and online ADW), rather than as if this is a sport that isn't created for gambling.
Give them an incentive...
Give everybody who signs up a free $2 bet on the big race...
That is how i could picture a weekly prime time racing broadcast really increasing pool size and growing the sport, however it would be difficult to buck the trend and do it with a major race.
Of course they would still show a beautiful view of the sport, but rather than watching a cowboy limp around or hearing about how Kent Desormeaux found The Lord (or whatever human interest stories they showed) you would have Steve Crist talking about the exacta pool probables and Andy Serling explaining pre race, why Mine That Bird was vulnerable(like he did when he put the belmont website on his back and carried it, in spite of their awkward amatuer video section)...
It could be a total failure and highly unpopular
and it could also result in record pool size.
I think the format would work better with average everyday races to start , rather than mess with tradition.