In professional sports, the conventional thinking is that on-field performance results in off-field attendance. If a team is struggling at selling tickets, many would hypothesize that winning will solve the problem.

In fact, the correlation between winning and attendance isn’t nearly as strong as one might think. A recent study (Take Me Out to the Ballgame: Attendance in Baseball, statsinsights.com) looked at baseball attendance over an eight year period and found that while winning is a factor, it is not at the top of the list when predicting how many people will come to games.

“Team record seems to exert some influence over attendance figures, but it’s not enormous,” the study reported.

The common sporting claim that winning cures all problems at the box office sounds very familiar to the assertion in horse racing that adequate purses will cure all ownership, investment and horse supply issues. Ask at a horse sale why there aren’t many new faces in the crowd. Likely many of the answers you’ll receive will focus on the economics of horse ownership, or actions of a government.

In reality, factors like whether purses are high or low, or costs are huge or not, are really not relevant when it comes to the task at hand. It is our job as an industry to promote horse ownership and investment – period! Most of us have fallen in love with aspects of this game that extend far beyond the financial side of horse racing, and we should hail our sport as the most enjoyable expenditure on earth.

Last season, the Houston Texans, of the National Football League, finished with the worst record in major professional sports, winning two games and losing fourteen. Do you think the people who work in the ticket office in Houston have turned off their computers and shut down for the year? Think the marketing staff has left town, or the corporate sales agents have phoned in sick for the season?

The truth is that the Texans employees, who have no control over the score on the field, will promote all of the reasons why people should spend hundreds of dollars per game to see the team play. Last season, the Texans averaged 71,000 fans per game, and the marketing team are responsible for ensuring those numbers rise – period!

I am not minimizing the need for an economic model that makes sense in horse racing. It is vital to the existing investors who need a reasonable return on investment to stay in the game. But, at the same time, different people will spend money for different reasons, and when someone spends $50,000 and gets a $30,000 return, that $20,000 loss will churn several times through this industry, creating numerous benefits.

Need convincing that there are people willing to spend money for entertainment – win or lose? Toronto Maple Leaf platinum ticket licenses are currently being sold for around $120,000 for a pair of seats. On top of the license, the owner gets invoiced close to $25,000 per year in ticketing fees. All of this is for a team that has made the playoffs once since 2004. Oh, and if you want to order season’s tickets directly from the Leafs - there is a twenty year waiting list.

Maybe we should set up “Horse Ownership” booths in the lobbies of our sports stadiums! At least with us, it doesn’t take two decades to get involved.

Darryl Kaplan
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