How is it possible that the industry keeps promoting Fred Pope's ideas?

[InsideThePylons-MW]

In a previous discussion on the Paulick report where he basically said he had all the answers to fix racing, his ideas would have immediately cut handle by 30%-40%. He had no idea how much handle came from ADW's.....No idea how much the racetracks charged for their signals. He wanted to raise takeout and raise fees on signals to ADW's in which every one of them would cease to operate.

Now he is promoting a racing league that is designed to compete with professional sports.

Some of the stuff he writes is just hilarious.........

The ability to package and present a superior racing product on-track, in our major markets, can once again make racing popular as a national sport. Think about a Breeders’ Cup World Championships-style racing event, with the equivalent of nine graded stakes every weekend. That’s how a major league would operate.

Yeah....that would be nice.....a Breeder's Cup every week.....are you serious?

In every major league, it is the owners of the talent who are in charge of the highest level of the sport. That is true in all sports except racing, where the racehorse owners have no role in how the highest level is packaged and presented.

Pure genius.....obviously Pope was in a coma when the owners of Mine That Bird and Pioneer of the Nile were conspiring to keep Rachel Alexandra out of the Preakness. I don't think the owners being in charge is the answer.

Based upon Breeders’ Cup and Triple Crown race-day handles, we could project an average handle of $100-million per weekend day, with revenue to the major league being 10% of that handle. The average major league weekend would thus gross $10-million for purses and operations

52 weeks a year where $100 million is bet on one card each weekend.....Does this guy have any idea about betting, takeout or the customer? Obviously Mr. Pope thinks that horseplayers have an unlimited supply of cash and will never go broke or bet less as their bankroll dwindles.

One thing I have learned about Mr. Pope.....every idea he has is based on fictional projections in which he seems to have no idea about the topic his projections are based on.

If the league can then use traditional major league revenue sources and achieve a level of success similar to the smallest one, the NHL, we could add another $2.6-billion. Combined with the revenue from handle, this would deliver revenue of more than $3-billion. After operational costs, an average purse for the 500 races could be as much as ¬$5-million, providing a $45-million race day.

HUH????? You have to read the whole article to appreciate this one.....I can't even explain this or how he reaches this number......500 races a year with an avg purse per race of $5 million? I'm overmatched......can anybody say "magic mushrooms"

http://thoroughbredtimes.com/national-news/2009/June/01/Pope-Racing-must-form-major-league.aspx (http://)

The article almost seems as if he is promoting this idea to a desperate industry in hopes that somebody will believe it and hire him to be savior.....kinda like the foreclosure specialists who prey on desperate people that are losing their homes.

This article coupled with his ideas and comments published on The Paulick Report are let's just say.....sad but funny.

[Indulto]

From the article:… David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, said he was wrestling philosophically with the issue but noted how the soccer leagues in England are allowing betting in the stadiums, and it has been very successful.

… So, what are the prospects that the major sports will eat Thoroughbred racing’s special lunch? Do you think the American public will demand Thoroughbred racing be allowed to keep its monopoly on sports gambling, or do you think the people will want to start wagering legally on the major leagues’ products?

… You may feel these are already hard times for racing, but to date the major leagues have left racing alone. Competition for sports wagering could be the fatal blow to racing, because our sport is not structured to compete. …

… Success in sports today means organizing the highest level of talent. What does that mean to Thoroughbred racing? Let’s go slowly and break the news gently: The highest level of racing in America is not organized.

… Our graded stakes are mixed on the race card with lower-level races. It is painfully established that the public has rejected this packaging of racing’s product. What is being done is the exact opposite of what makes the major leagues successful.

… There are 488 graded stakes in 2009. That means we have sufficient quality in the sport to package and present a full race card of nine races at the highest level for 52 weekends a year.

So, if the public only buys the highest level of a sport, how do we change and give the public what they want? We need to think nationally. As racing has moved from an on-track focus to off-track distribution, the ability to reach our customers with a major league product is not only possible but already a reality.

The ability to package and present a superior racing product on-track, in our major markets, can once again make racing popular as a national sport. …

While the distribution of our racing product has evolved, the way we package racing has not changed in 50 years. Tracks still run graded stakes in the middle of the week when very few people are at the track or are wagering off-track.

… In every major league, it is the owners of the talent who are in charge of the highest level of the sport. That is true in all sports except racing, where the racehorse owners have no role in how the highest level is packaged and presented.

… Racehorse owners are the only ones in racing with the commercial rights to establish and operate a major league … and establish a national schedule for the highest level of the sport …

… We currently have more than 55,000 races each year. A major league might initially involve only 500 races, just about the same number as graded stakes. The rest of racing would continue to be conducted as is. We could then have 48 weekends of major league racing (none on Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup weekends).

… The sweetest, lowest-hanging fruit for racing is the upside-down, off-track business model, which currently favors off-track bet-takers over the host event that puts on the show. When we correct the 1978 Interstate Horseracing Act, live racing revenue to tracks and purses will double with the stroke of a pen. …The entire article covers a lot more and is well worth reading. The idea that the owners of top quality horseflesh could bypass the existing jurisdictional constraints and run their own dates just like the Breeders’ Cup is intriguing.

I’d be interested in hearing some professional player’s take on this besides ITP's. Would there remain sufficient interest in non-stakes weekday racing with full fields?

If Pope learned something from his encounters at the Paulick Report, and included lower direct takeout for all and uniformly low exotic wager minimums in his concept, it would be the weekend warrior’s dream come true.

Perhaps his league would have no problem dealing with a not-for-profit player-owned ADW.

[InsideThePylons-MW]

http://thoroughbredtimes.com/national-news/2009/June/01/Pope-Racing-must-form-major-league.aspx

[DeanT]

ITP, I just read that, and he is at it again.

The sweetest, lowest-hanging fruit for racing is the upside-down, off-track business model, which currently favors off-track bet-takers over the host event that puts on the show. When we correct the 1978 Interstate Horse¬racing Act, live racing revenue to tracks and purses will double with the stroke of a pen.

You are often one to say that if you do not bet, you simply can not and should not be involved in decision making in the business of wagering. I am beginning to agree. How someone can possibly keep saying that 'at a stroke of a pen' if we raise prices on ADW wagering by 100%, revenue will stay the same is beyond me. If we flip it around to another business, let's say Pope is a record executive and says "Wal Mart is selling 1 million cd's at $8 and we are making $4M. If we raise the price to $16, we will still sell 1 million CD's but make $8M" he would be dismissed. But in racing he seems to have a forum.

Recently I met with a large group of breeders and asked their help in correcting the Horseracing Act. In the first year, $500-million would be added to purses. Although $500-million is more than all yearlings sold at auction in 2008, they did not seem motivated to help correct the Horseracing Act.

Maybe the breeders are not motivated because they know it will hurt handles? Maybe because they get the Wal Mart example? Maybe because they have a clue that ADW wagering is the only growing form of wagering we have and sabotaging it is insane?

[Indulto]

ITP, I just read that, and he is at it again.

You are often one to say that if you do not bet, you simply can not and should not be involved in decision making in the business of wagering. I am beginning to agree. How someone can possibly keep saying that 'at a stroke of a pen' if we raise prices on ADW wagering by 100%, revenue will stay the same is beyond me. If we flip it around to another business, let's say Pope is a record executive and says "Wal Mart is selling 1 million cd's at $8 and we are making $4M. If we raise the price to $16, we will still sell 1 million CD's but make $8M" he would be dismissed. But in racing he seems to have a forum.

Maybe the breeders are not motivated because they know it will hurt handles? Maybe because they get the Wal Mart example? Maybe because they have a clue that ADW wagering is the only growing form of wagering we have and sabotaging it is insane?DT,
I agree he's still on the high takeout kick which is not good for horseplayers. Is it possible, though, to consider whether the concept of consolidating graded stakes into weekend events, by itself, makes any sense?

[DeanT]

Hey I,

I don't know if it would work or not. I do know a fan (Kevin from the Aspiring Horseplayer) tabled a "Take Back Saturday" idea to the NTRA conference last year which was well received. It involved a similar idea, that seemed to have some merit.

Each of Pope's ideas seem to be focused on owners owning the game. He wants ADW money for horse owners and for them to own that wagering, now he wants to own a racing league for horse owners. It was presented last year at the HTA conference in Vegas from a gambling economist that we have to get out of that mindset; it is completely the wrong thinking. He said that until we change and realize that there is only one person paying the bills (the customer) and figure out that they own the game, we will never get anywhere. He was received as warmly as a new marketing expert who spoke at a newspaper conference in 2003, where he said if they do not get their act together and cater to readers, a third of them wont exist in ten years. However, I hope we fare better than newspapers have.

[eclecticapper]

Pope's league idea is essentially the same one he advocated in the 1990s when he started the National Thoroughbred Association. It has the same flaws now as it did then. As the American Championship Racing Series and the NTRA Champions on Fox series demonstrated last century, there is one aspect in racing which you never see in league sports: the ability to pick and choose your schedule. MLB doesn't let a team skip the games against the Yankees because they don't want to play them, yet this happens all the time in racing and it's not getting any better.

[rrbauer]

Probably fifteen years ago (give or take) in TTimes someone wrote a multi-part article that advanced the notion that the racing condition books should be written so that the best races (stakes, handicaps, allowance, top-level claimers) would be on the weekend and that weekday racing would be relegated to low-level claimers and maidens. This was during the time that racing was being forced to deal with the onslaught of attendance declines and the concept being advanced was that since the weekends are when the most people have free time to attend horse races that the industry should make sure that the best show was being produced on those days to maintain interest for live-racing attendees. This sounds like, more or less, where Pope is coming from. (The author of the article referenced was a horse owner.)

One of the reasons, IMO, that events like the Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup attract the most attention in the game is that in addition to those venues being top caliber racing, they are a very limited special commodity. I believe that the scarcity of those races adds to their attractiveness for regular horseplayers as well as for the general public.

[Indulto]

... I don't know if it would work or not. I do know a fan (Kevin from the Aspiring Horseplayer) tabled a "Take Back Saturday" idea to the NTRA conference last year which was well received. It involved a similar idea, that seemed to have some merit.

Each of Pope's ideas seem to be focused on owners owning the game. He wants ADW money for horse owners and for them to own that wagering, now he wants to own a racing league for horse owners. It was presented last year at the HTA conference in Vegas from a gambling economist that we have to get out of that mindset; it is completely the wrong thinking. He said that until we change and realize that there is only one person paying the bills (the customer) and figure out that they own the game, we will never get anywhere. ...Yes, I also support the "Take Back Saturday" concept. And, yes, once again he proposes the owners OWNING the game. But both owners and players have to stop saying THEY pay the bills when BOTH obviously do. So his 10%/10% split with the tracks + the 5% I assume he is still willing to give ADWs is ridiculous

What I thought was different this time around was greater emphasis on giving the customer more of what they wanted -- at least from a racing product standpoint - and a possible way to avoid the tentacles of the current fiefdom/beauocracy obstacles. One flaw I see is no provision for central industrywide oversight to keep these big-time owners owners honest.

At least the guy is constantly thinking and making other people think. As more and more people are becoming aware of the takeout problem, the less likely any major revamping of racing will occur without addressing that issue.

So yes, let's be vigilant and continue to call him out whenever it's justified, but let's not automatically throw out potentially postive aspects just because he's the messenger. In general, more dialogue between owners and players should be promoted.

[DeanT]

But both owners and players have to stop saying THEY pay the bills when BOTH obviously do.

I pay a vet, trainer and feed man. Those are my expenses. I race for revenue (a purse) supplied by bettors. That is my revenue. Until ten of us pay $500 to enter a race, and race for a purse of $5000, the bettor and fan pays the bills. We have to get that through our heads in this business. It is one of the reasons why we are such a mess.

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/2-5-09/the-industry-is-the-customer.html

A prominent gaming authority today ..............they are failing because of racing's inability to realize that "without customers, there is nothing to save." Bill Eadington, internationally-known gaming authority from the University of Nevada Reno, told the Harness Racing Congress in Las Vegas today that contrary to the general perception that horses, horsepeople, owners and breeders are the foundation of the industry, "the demand from customers is what is essentially important. That is the essence of the argument that must be dealt with or else you are swimming upstream and the current will push you back ultimately."

I know it is not politically correct, and everyone wants to hear they are "important", but that does not fix the mess. We can get together and have a singalong while knitting a peace quilt and worry about each others feelings, or we can decide that we are going to go after customers, who pay the bills and cater to them . Sooner or later we will come to grips with that, but right now people like Pope are standing in the way of progress on that front.

PS: I have paid in my stable well over a half million in horse bills the past few years. I just know that I am paying feed men and employing people, I am not contributing one cent to bottom line revenues. My betting does that, NOT my horse ownership.

[Indulto]

I pay a vet, trainer and feed man. Those are my expenses. I race for revenue (a purse) supplied by bettors. That is my revenue. Until ten of us pay $500 to enter a race, and race for a purse of $5000, the bettor and fan pays the bills. We have to get that through our heads in this business. It is one of the reasons why we are such a mess.

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/2-5-09/the-industry-is-the-customer.html

I know it is not politically correct, and everyone wants to hear they are "important", but that does not fix the mess. We can get together and have a singalong while knitting a peace quilt and worry about each others feelings, or we can decide that we are going to go after customers, who pay the bills and cater to them . Sooner or later we will come to grips with that, but right now people like Pope are standing in the way of progress on that front.

PS: I have paid in my stable well over a half million in horse bills the past few years. I just know that I am paying feed men and employing people, I am not contributing one cent to bottom line revenues. My betting does that, NOT my horse ownership.Didn't it cost something to acquire the horses? Don't you have additional expenses when they can't race any more? Why don't the expenses you did mention constitute a portion of "paying the bills" since racing could not occur unless someone paid for them? How often do you encounter other race horse owners that don't consider their willingness to invest an important factor in making racing happen?

It sounds like the term "bill-paying-customers" is a euphemism for the low-potential-growth 20% of bettors that some say is currently responsible for 80% of handle. Is it possible that improving product quality with weekly multiple graded stakes events might just expand the high-potential-growth 80%, which in turn might lessen the influence and advantages of the aforementioned?

I wasn't advocating talking just for the sake of talking, but rather coming up with new ideas and trying to make them work or at least gaining some mutual understanding of the problems when they can't.

"Singalong while knitting peace quilts" seems like a concept more appropriately applied to the process of procotting. ;)

[Imriledup]

Good stuff Dean.

I think that the biggest problem with racing is that no one is 'fighting' hard to get more customers. Everyone else in racing just takes the bettor for granted while they fight, scratch and claw for every penny. Racetrack owners, racetrack GMs and other higher ups, racehorse owners, racehorse trainers, jockeys and everyone else involved in the game seems to look their nose down at the bettor.

Racetracks view bettors as suckers and not valuable customers, and that is the biggest problem right off the bat.

[Cangamble]

I pay a vet, trainer and feed man. Those are my expenses. I race for revenue (a purse) supplied by bettors. That is my revenue. Until ten of us pay $500 to enter a race, and race for a purse of $5000, the bettor and fan pays the bills. We have to get that through our heads in this business. It is one of the reasons why we are such a mess.

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/2-5-09/the-industry-is-the-customer.html



I know it is not politically correct, and everyone wants to hear they are "important", but that does not fix the mess. We can get together and have a singalong while knitting a peace quilt and worry about each others feelings, or we can decide that we are going to go after customers, who pay the bills and cater to them . Sooner or later we will come to grips with that, but right now people like Pope are standing in the way of progress on that front.

PS: I have paid in my stable well over a half million in horse bills the past few years. I just know that I am paying feed men and employing people, I am not contributing one cent to bottom line revenues. My betting does that, NOT my horse ownership.
Total racing revenues are made up of three sources. Betting, casinos (if applicable) and the difference owners collectively lose owning horses.

[Indulto]

To paraphrase on-line booksellers, "readers interested in the reviewed article might also be interested in the following:"

http://gregcalabrese.blogspot.com/2009/06/racing-does-not-need-commissioner.html (http://gregcalabrese.blogspot.com/2009/06/racing-does-not-need-commissioner.html)
Racing Does Not Need A Commissioner
by Power Cap 01 June 2009Racing's greatest strength is that it does not have a national commissioner. Every other sports league has the same format, uses the same market research and same approach to lure the same groups of masses to buy their t-shirts and plunk down a few hundred to sit and watch an AV show at one of it's games. Racing is the only diverse kid on the block, it is a different type of game, with a distinctive yet authentic appeal. Racing should not try to emulate sports leagues like the NFL or NBA or MLB. These sports leagued peaked in the 1990's and have began their decline. Kids are no longer interested in Baseball much anymore, and as a game it will greatly reduce in popularity over the next generation. Instead of copying a tired formula racing should do what it has always done, but do it better. Let the market forces at work downsize the number of tracks in operation, there is too much racing and most of it is forgettable. Right size, form new racing circuits and accentuate the positives of a great game. Racing's authentic appeal has stood the test of time, we could be one or two years away from a tremendous renaissance, spurred by a return to all things authentic and racing's internet advantage.

This diversification of ideas and management styles keeps the game fresh and surprisingly strong when the death of racing was long ago expected. A national commissioner of racing would have the game controlled by some over educated, under experienced bore, who would employ well worn marketing techniques to all tracks. Racing would expose itself to the same affliction that the banking industry is suffering. Too much consolidation and too many banks all doing the same exact thing, using the same risk models killed banking. …

[InsideThePylons-MW]

ITP, I just read that, and he is at it again.



You are often one to say that if you do not bet, you simply can not and should not be involved in decision making in the business of wagering. I am beginning to agree. How someone can possibly keep saying that 'at a stroke of a pen' if we raise prices on ADW wagering by 100%, revenue will stay the same is beyond me. If we flip it around to another business, let's say Pope is a record executive and says "Wal Mart is selling 1 million cd's at $8 and we are making $4M. If we raise the price to $16, we will still sell 1 million CD's but make $8M" he would be dismissed. But in racing he seems to have a forum.

It is amazing.

Paulick, Cot Campbell, T-bred Times and many others vouch that this guy is a genius......just impossible!

Let me do my Fred Pope impersonation.........

I have a way to save racing and get the horse owners/breeders more money. If we can simulcast our product to China, with a population of 1.3 billion, I project that we can get 20% of them to bet an avg of $20 per day. 260 million people betting $20 per day is $5.2 billion in handle per day. If the takeout is 25% and we give the Chinese bet taker and Chinese government 10% to split (we don't dare want to give them any more than 10% because we, the horsemen, are the ones putting on the show), and we keep 15% for ourselves, we now have $780 million per day to be paid out in purses. If we run 100 races a day, the average purse for each race would be about $8 million. I project that we will have quality racing and owners/breeders will survive with that kind of purse structure.