Thursday, January 16, 2025

In the Horse Racing Casino Revenue and Land Asset Bubble, All KPI's Lead to Bad Places

Bacon is covering the Gulfstream Park mess, and he provided an excellent summary here.  

Since AI is the new fancy version of Cliff's (Coles in Canada) Notes, the AI version of the above is that Gulfstream will probably be no more come 2028 (or sooner). 

In a presentation made by Keith Brackpool (there's a blast from the past in California takeout hike lore; these people seem to just move around), it was detailed the land was worth over $1B, which is a lot of scratch. Stronach bought the track for $95M in the late 1990's. 

Further to that, and this is most interesting to me, is the casino revenue. 


Look who tops the list - Pompano Park. The old time historic track that closed a (de)couple of years ago. Yes, the one with purses that rivalled a county fair, with horses (no offence) to match. 

Unpacking that disconnect: The entire sport of Florida harness racing (including the breeding industry in the state) was at a track that brought in $132M of revenue and no one could save the place. Even as it was receiving what many would consider scraps. 

If the sport of horse racing mattered to important people, Gulfstream would be racing, along with Pompano (with some of the highest purses in the world), Hialeah and Calder. But it doesn't. 

If your racing venue brings in tons of casino money it doesn't matter. 

If your racing venue is a storied track patronized by Andy Williams, Ed Sullivan or Colonel Sanders himself, it doesn't matter. 

If an entire industry, including racing and breeding, depends on your track, it doesn't matter. 

If your track has Pegasus races, and Pegasus statues, and is a staple of the sport's wagering make-up for the entire continent, it doesn't matter. 

This is nothing really that new. Balmoral Park in Chicago was quite a successful place in year's past and the home for Illinois racing. They'd do over a million a night, with purses most nights totalling less than $40,000. If we add $20,000 in cost to run a card, their handle revenue to cost ratio was probably in decent shape, but it went the way of the dodo bird, too. 

Casino revenue, check. 

Good horses, good trainers, a good place to watch a race, check. 

Storied races, historic venues that host Breeders Crowns and Breeders Cups, check. 

Big handles, check. 

You can have all of those things and still end up a parking lot or a strip mall. It's sadly the state of the sport.


14 comments:

Kyle Newcomb said...

Racing’s future is secure. No other game lends itself to a gigital/virtual format better than racing. Imagine 50 horse fields…making the dream of 50 percent take a (virtual) reality. Breeding will transition nicely, too. Imagine what an NFT by Flighline could bring. And imagine the multiples when the breeding and racing seasons can be compressed at will. Why should there be only one Triple Crown, one Breeders’ Cup, one and a half Saratogas per year? The climate emergency we fa e demands changes. The threat of more pandemics points clearly to mitigation. The fewer organic entities interacting with other organic entities the better. Nobody wants a repeat of 2020. How ridiculous was it to have jockeys in masks? Never again. Now, virtual horses will still need to be vaccinated. We can’t deprive the allopathic vet and his pharmaceutical rep of their livelihoods, but that’s just pro forma. Quit being so negative. It’s a beautiful, brave new world of racing that awaits. And this time there will be plenty of coverage on the Telescreen.

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