Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I think you are missing my point, but I do understand your point about the value.
IMO, most people don't wake up one day and say to themselves, I think I'm going to start gambling on football, baseball, boxing etc... They start watching a sport, find themselves enjoying it, and eventually start forming attachments and opinions on the participants. Then they start betting on the events.
The value of the wagering event certainly means a lot long term, but you have to get new people in the door too.
When Got Stormy won yesterday, my twitter feed lit up. That's because everyone knows Got Stormy, has followed her career, and she beat the boys again. Not surprisingly a lot of tweets were from women who now follow the sport. It seems to me that WAY more women follow the sport now than years ago. It would not shock me if horses like Zenyatta and Rachel had something to do with that in the same way Forego, Seattle Slew, and Ruffian did it for me. Some of these women bet too. That's what we want. We need more horses like Got Stormy.
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I'm not missing your point...I understand completely what you are saying. I just can't see how the sport of horse racing can possibly compete with the more popular team sports, as far as "attachment" is concerned. The particular teams play on a regular basis, and the games last a long time...whereas the horses run very infrequently and the races last a minute or two. There isn't any real fanfare that such an entertainment venue can generate...IMO. I was as big a fan of Zenyatta as anyone else on this board...but I would be lying if I said that the existence of that horse has had any real effect on how I view and bet this game. And I feel that the majority of the horseplayers out there would say likewise..."nostalgia" notwithstanding.
Some years ago, an article was posted here in which the CHRB declared that they didn't feel that they were in competition with the other legalized forms of "gambling". The LAKERS were their primary competition...the article reported them saying. It's an advanced case of lunacy such as this that has the game in the dire straits that it finds itsef in...IMO.
