The Great Derby Paradox

[MaTH716]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

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.

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.