Belmont Attendance

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by hockey2315

Well. . . The Belmont Attendance was MUCH lower than projected- They got around 45k and were expecting more like 65k. . . What a shame in my opinion- why wouldn't people want to see a classic American race like the Belmont? What does this mean for the sport, NYRA, Roger Clemens, etc? How much do people think that 20k costed NYRA today? I'd say between 1.5-2 million. .

Not sure how you arrived at that figure, but the turnstile count barely 'cost' anything at the windows.. Pool was $8.8MM, just $100,000 less than last year when there were 61,168 in the building. And ISW Pool totaled $54.4MM, up more than $10,000,00 from 2006 ($42.5MM) and 2005 ($45.2MM). In term of revenue from other expendatures at the track, 20,000 less in attendance than anticipated represents about $500,000 in unseen revenue.

So, to answer your question, the 20,000 less than expected was pretty much a non-starter financially with the big ISW increase. It was a perfect day at Belmont Saturday with enough people there to produce a fun atmosphere while making trips to the windows or concessions painless. And given Friday's news regarding the franchise, nothing was going to dim the successful tone of the afternoon.