"This is the country that has gone gaga over pet rocks, pro wrestling, Olympic curling, mixed martial arts, televised poker...and, er, a lightly talented show-off named Lady Gaga. You bet we can sell racing
. Given racing’s very low visibility among the American public, doubling the popularity of racing is doable. Double the interest and double the handle. Double the handle and many of racing’s problems are ameliorated."
On the eve of his retirement as publisher of The Blood-Horse, Stacy Bearse penned a poignant editorial some 20 years in the making. Titled, "Racing, Promote Thyself", Bearse suggests that horse racing adopt a similar model to what the milk and producers adopted nearly two decades ago: "Take a little piece of nearly every transaction and invest it in a professionally run marketing campaign to expand the popularity of the sport. It was a great idea that was suffocated by the narrow-minded status quo."
Bearse feels that a program instituted stateside with "modest tariffs on starts, handle, concessions, registrations, sales, and other transactions could easily raise an annual marketing fund of $100 million...A budget of this size would be enough to attract the attention of world-class marketing firms and significantly change consumer perception."
To conclude, Bearse states that racing desperately needs to invest in the fan base or else racing will cease to exist. "Bottom line: If we each bleed a little bit, we can heal this sport. The consequences of ignoring a national marketing initiative won’t be pretty. The declining fan base is depriving the industry of essential capital. Without ambitious fan development, racing and breeding will remain trapped in an ever-tightening spiral that will lead to a catastrophic end."
Bearse retired from his post as Blood-Horse publisher on Friday, October 29 after 20 years with the publication.
A great idea which could go
A great idea which could go a long way towards saving the industry - BUT, John Carter is absolutely correct. If they are not willing to compete with other forms of gaming (that are now so readily available) they won't attract sufficient numbers from the younger generation - which they so badly need to keep Horse Racing viable.
Although Mr Carter is
Although Mr Carter is repetitive you can't deny he is 100% accurate!!
The sport can promote itself
The sport can promote itself all it wants, it may slow down the bleeding but it will never stop it. Until the sport understands that they now have to compete with other forms of gambling that they did not have to compete with 20 years ago they are doomed to fail, no amount of advertising will save them.
They need to reduce the track takeout to a maximum of 10% in every pool if they want to retain there customer base and have any chance of attracting young people who are much more savvy about house take then my generation was. The race game stopped competing a very long time ago and they are now paying a heavy price for it but amazingly they still have not caught on to this. If the race game doesn't get it soom yes there will be a catastrophic ending but not because of a lack of marketing but from there unwillingness to be competitive. They need to get competitive and then market itself with this being the main focus of the marketing campaign.