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Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind
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.
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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.