When a new policy at the recently contested Preakness Stakes banned people from bringing their own beer into the infield, attendance dropped… correction, attendance plummeted.
This year, 77,850 people were on hand, down from 112,222 in 2008. Amazingly, despite the shocking drop in live attendance, handle actually rose by approximately $13 million to more than $86.6 million.
Clearly, those 34,372 individuals (who decided to skip the Preakness because their beers were not welcome at the Maryland track) couldn’t care less about the race or the opportunity to cash a winning ticket.
This one example is not the exception to the rule. The drinking and partying crowd in that coveted 18-35-year-old demographic often fails to translate into horseplayers of the present or the future.
I recall very clearly in university the exhilaration of convincing a few friends to come to the races with me before they headed off to the club district. While some of them were willing to part with $2 or $4, the action was often not their speed and somehow the few bucks they risked losing at the track was a lot more painful than the $75 they’d blow that night at the bar. Regardless, by race five, they had had enough.
So is this group a write-off - too many things to do and too many video games to play? Not by a longshot.
As a gambling sport, horse racing in North America has a long way to go. And while the battle is winnable and extremely important (refer to past articles on betting exchanges, pool sizes, more competitive product, lower takeout etc.), there is another fight worth engaging in – racing as an entertainment spectacle.
When the proliferation of gambling started encroaching on the profitability of Las Vegas, the city and its casinos made a few turns and eventually landed on the entertainment road. Today, Vegas boasts that almost 50% of resort revenues are non-gaming related.
Standardbred Canada’s upcoming Adrenaline Festival – August 20 to 23 in Sarnia – will set out on a bold mission: to invite people to come to the races, to entertain them relentlessly, to charge them to get into the event and to show them a side of harness racing they haven’t seen. The concept is not new.
But the aim to add Adrenaline dates and locations in Ontario, to make the initiative national and generate a self-sustainable Canada-wide brand, paid for primarily by sponsorship funding, gate receipts and government grants – geared toward aggressive tourist attractions – is new.
As for the 2009 Preakness, what can we learn?
Firstly, the 34,372 people who came in 2008 but skipped the 2009 edition would probably have come to the track for the Miss Vera Bars Pacing Series if it had a better beer-cooler policy and more scantily-clad women on hand. Secondly, at $45 per person in 2008, those party goers represented $1.5 million in admission revenues – willingly paid for a day at the races.
We’re three months out from Adrenaline and I’m happy to report that tens of thousands of dollars are flowing in from non-racing businesses and corporations looking to sponsor the four-day event, because attracting young people brings money to the table.
As a one-trick pony, harness racing has a shot with 62-year-old men. Our second trick, slot machines, target 57-year-old women.
Who says an old pony can’t learn new tricks?