In the early 1990s, ESPN executives sat around a table and struggled with a problem they were having. Young people were not watching their anchor sports franchise, SportsCenter. For a television network that was entirely based on people wanting to watch sports, this presented a major problem.
The traditional wisdom was that while ESPN had the ability to choose what sports it wanted to show, and determine at its discretion how to show them, they had little control over what their viewership wanted to watch. They were seen as passive stakeholders, like so many others.
In 1995, ESPN did what others never thought to do. In 1995, ESPN changed the game – literally.
“ESPN executives, aware they were missing out on ad dollars that could be coaxed from finicky flannel-wearing Gen Xers, launched the X Games in 1995,” wrote Time Magazine.
According to Time, ESPN spent a reported $10 million on the 1995 X Games, drawing 200,000 spectators. The event, which was packaged as the “Extreme Games,” included skateboarding, bungee jumping, roller blading, mountain biking, sky surfing, and street luging. They awarded gold, silver and bronze medals in each event.
The initial reviews came flooding in, and much of it was ridicule. But the television giant persisted, and the undertaking quickly proved to be hugely successful. What was originally intended to be an event held every other year would now be held annually. And, in 1997, the Winter X Games kicked off, also a product of ESPN.
Sports that people had only ever competed in as a hobby, like snowboarding and skateboarding, became sports that people wanted to cheer for. The X Games spurred on a global industry for extreme sports – with some of the events eventually gaining acceptance into the Olympics.
Most people will acknowledge that harness racing can use some freshening up, a new coat of paint and some bells and whistles. But truthfully, we should be open to a possibility – that the sport needs a game changer. Harness racing needs a vision that draws on the traditions of the past but takes the sport to a completely new realm of customer enjoyment.
On page 18, I detailed my ideas for a new Circus Maximus themed racetrack. We’re talking a new facility, a new track configuration, and a sports and entertainment package designed to compete with major theatre productions and world class sporting events – not casino games and lotteries. Yes, this is all fantasy, but in our world of contracts, and rules and regulations, a little bit of dreaming never hurts.
In this issue, we have tried to take you to a realm of possibility and a future that is not defined by “The way things have always been done.” We may not have an ESPN at the ready, willing to invest millions in a new brand of harness racing, but if a vision of any sort is ever going to be implemented, we do need to be willing to design what it would look like, sound like and feel like.
Let’s be honest and realistic about what we have, and open to fantasize about what we could have. Only then, can we even consider the steps to making it a reality, and bringing this sport to its rightful place, on top.