Report finds horse racing is on a slippery track

[Bruddah]

Originally Posted by MikeH

Was anyone on this Board interviewed by McKinsey?

"The report was prepared after interviews of more than 120 industry officials and stakeholders."

This should tell you the biggest problem facing the industry today - they don't know, or care, who their customers are.

Mike, you are spot on! However, I would disagree on this point.The Industry Management does know who it's customers are, We are the cash cows and yet they prefer to ignore us at their own peril. We patrons may pull a Marie Antoinette on them and "let them eat cake". Probably sooner than later.

[trigger]

Horse racing will not flourish until the total number of tracks in North America is reduced to 9 or 10 with only about 3 running at the same time. This will increase individual track handle tremendously (also purses) and facilitate an 8 to 10 % takeout making horse racing competitive with other gambling options.

[takeout]

Originally Posted by trigger

Horse racing will not flourish until the total number of tracks in North America is reduced to 9 or 10....

Interesting co-inkeedink: I perused the HANA takeout chart and tossed any tracks that had over a 20% rake on any 2 horse bets or over 25% on any 3 horse ones and up.

I was left with 10 tracks.

California was gone, Florida was gone, New York was gone except for Finger Lakes.

Why do so many so-called major venues have to gouge their customers in at least one if not more pools?

Here are the 10 that were left. In no particular order:
1. Keeneland
2. Churchill Downs
3. Monmouth
4. Delaware
5. Prairie Meadows
6. Atlantic City
7. Charles Town
8. Mountaineer
9. Finger Lakes
10. Fonner Park

[Jasonm921]

I like the idea of the television coverage but like someone posted earlier...racing better get their act together before we pushed it to the masses. This is probably racing's last stand to be a recognized entitiy nationally with television exposure. If they screw this up it's over. NBC has provided racing with a golden opportunity that we all thought was long gone.

Once the people do decide to come to the track to bet they are met with high takeout (relative to other gambling options), high food prices and lousy customer service. These tracks keep recycling "horsemen" to fill their top executive positions which may be good for the "horsemen" but is lousy for the bettor. We need vegas casino execs to come in and show the tracks how to handle the customer service aspect.

If anyone has MSG plus (a regional network in NY) Fran Healy on the Game365 profiled Saratoga. It's been on continually running for the past few days. Check out the Charles Hayward portion of the interview when he is talking about Secretariat losing to Onion in what he says was "either 1979 or 80". That was proceeded by him describing Secretariat's Belmont win as "some 32 lengths". I don't like to disect TV interviews because ofcourse some people may be uncomfortable in front of the camera but Secretariat is our Babe Ruth. If Bud Selig said Ruth was an icon because the Korean War was in full swing and set a record for homers with 63 he would be lambasted by the media but in our case there is no media so it's all good.

[On Spec]

Originally Posted by Jasonm921

We need vegas casino execs to come in and show the tracks how to handle the customer service aspect.

This.

[elhelmete]

I took three friends to Del Mar this past weekend, none of whom had ever been to a track before. I made sure to really sort of ham it up...we took a limo down (I called in a favor), I printed out PPs for them, brought cigars, etc. I was really eager to get their impressions.

It was interesting. They seemed perplexed at first by getting around the 'physical plant,' i.e., "where can and can't I go based on the ticket I have?" I actually understood that and it did occur to me that racetracks, due to their age, are less well laid out than a modern football stadium. Never bothered me but now I understand it from a newbie's perspective.

They took to the betting right away, but really got into it when I laid out the exotics, particularly wheels, part wheels, and boxes. Then they went nuts on that. They were a little shy to use live tellers so a few minutes getting used to the SAMs was necessary.

We didn't hit too many exotics so I didn't have the chance to say that $80 trifecta should have paid $95....

The eye candy at DMR helped A LOT.

As an aside, I have to say the folks Santa Anita treat me (and the groups I bring) real well, and I'm by no means a big player. Fantastic service. My one trip to Churchill was terrific too, very nice people.

[jorcus]

I think either you are genetically imprinted to be a race tracker or you are not. I have brought over 100 different people to Saratoga over the years and not one that I know of to date has ever become a full time fan. We have had many fun days and many people want to come back with me but very few if any would go back on their own. None follow it on a daily basis. A few follow the big races but most are just day trippers that have little interest in learning more about the sport. You also need to have that Ah Ha moment, a big win or an exciting race that let's you understand what being in the moment is about. Exposure is everything though, Threre is no way someone becomes a fan without it.

Originally Posted by elhelmete

I took three friends to Del Mar this past weekend, none of whom had ever been to a track before. I made sure to really sort of ham it up...we took a limo down (I called in a favor), I printed out PPs for them, brought cigars, etc. I was really eager to get their impressions.

It was interesting. They seemed perplexed at first by getting around the 'physical plant,' i.e., "where can and can't I go based on the ticket I have?" I actually understood that and it did occur to me that racetracks, due to their age, are less well laid out than a modern football stadium. Never bothered me but now I understand it from a newbie's perspective.

They took to the betting right away, but really got into it when I laid out the exotics, particularly wheels, part wheels, and boxes. Then they went nuts on that. They were a little shy to use live tellers so a few minutes getting used to the SAMs was necessary.

We didn't hit too many exotics so I didn't have the chance to say that $80 trifecta should have paid $95....

The eye candy at DMR helped A LOT.

As an aside, I have to say the folks Santa Anita treat me (and the groups I bring) real well, and I'm by no means a big player. Fantastic service. My one trip to Churchill was terrific too, very nice people.

[jorcus]

Originally Posted by Charli125

http://jockeyclub.com/resources%5Cselected_exhibits.pdf

There you go. It has some pretty interesting comparisons of us to other industries actually. Most of it is no-shit type stuff, but there are a few pearls.

The take home lesson from this report is that most fans would rather take a comfortable dump at the track than to win a few extra bucks because of lower take out.

[Valuist]

I like this one; re: track environment, the study claimed that the leading cause of a poor fan experience was dirty bathrooms........

I have never been to a track that had bathrooms worse than Wrigley Field, and that stadium is considered a shrine.

[Robert Goren]

I took a lady friend to the track once. She was having a good time until she made visit to the "powder room". That was all I heard about for the next week. It is a small thing, but it doesn't cost that much to the restrooms looking nice. It just plain laziness on the part of track management. I want lower takeouts as much as the next guy, but this not an either/or situation.