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Originally Posted by King Glorious
It's sort of like with Tiger Woods. Before him, I didn't watch golf. Now, I do. Only when he's playing. When he missed the cut at the British Open, I didn't watch the weekend. When there's no Tiger, there's no me. And the ratings show that I'm not alone in this.
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The ratings for the Buick Open over the past weekend were up 167%... that's insane. Tiger has power. Stars have power. No stars = less power. It's pretty basic.
The debate whether or not Rachel Alexandra running in the Breeders' Cup is good/bad for horse racing is a moot point. No one in a million years can argue that Rachel Alexandra in the gate would have a negative impact on the success of the Breeders' Cup, whether you define success as viewers, fans on the rail, programs sold or handle dollars.
The bottom line in all of this is racing has created, through various evolutions of its racing calendar and schedule, a distorted and lopsided approach to promoting its racing on a daily/weekly basis, and in turn, has eroded the ability to market the basics of our game to the general public.
Back on point, the best thing for racing is Rachel Alexandra in the starting gate for the Classic. But the Classic is on synthetics, and right now, she's a superstar on dirt. So therefore the best thing for racing is not to have the Classic on synthetics, but unfortunately it is. So therefore the best thing... this is all a slippery slope.