Broadcast is Dead for Racing, so What's Left?

With the recent demise of TVG's broadcast arm, we were met with more news that NYRA would be grabbing the ball to broadcast more 'TV type' coverage of the sport. I welcome that, as I am sure you do as a fellow die-hard. 

But I wonder, in the long term, does it matter?

Over the years, I have been a daily reader of Cord Cutters News, and it has become increasingly evident that the broadcast industry is experiencing a significant decline. However, in recent years, this trend has intensified. Whether it is the closure of a popular cable channel or the substantial loss of 40% of its subscribers by ESPN, these events are a clear indication of the industry’s challenges. 

What has taken its place has been primarily community-driven. Individuals gravitate towards a brand or personality they perceive as authentic. These outlets, as you are aware, offer a substantial number of long-form interviews that are generally on-demand and free. 

I think many are very good. For we Canucks, we may have watched the long-form Bloomberg interview with Canada's opposition leader a couple of weeks ago. It was hard-hitting, where we saw a pol answering deep policy questions we don't see them have to answer very often. 

Over in gambling land, this is prevalent. Yes, we still get the pablum of the Michael Strahan parlay brought to you by Draft Kings, but solid gambling content on YouTube and twitter channels has grown. 

Rob Pizzola's Hammer Betting Network is one I follow. Just yesterday their live Masters Betting broadcast had 3,000 views in real time across Youtube alone. Although that might not sound like much for a live broadcast, we can put it in context. 

ESPN, beamed into 100 million homes, had terrible ratings on their similar shows, sometimes averaging well under 100,000 live. Yes, this was during the era where their hosts were encouraged to share their politics that turned so many in their targeted demographic off, but regardless, the numbers were low. Rob's network is one of hundreds, and when you add them all up we see the sea-change.

The problem for this sport, as I see it, is that we were never free to build-out these communities. 

Racing, from the beginning of time, was centrally planned. Want to show a race on Youtube? Roberts would say no. Want to create something - anything - outside the racing politburo, it was near impossible. Even if you showed a past performance screen shot you might get a nasty-worded letter.  

People in our sport today try - and bless you all. But the customer base is now so thin that you find yourselves trying to build a sturdy community out of water-soaked kindling.

Is community building via new broadcast mediums impossible for horse racing? Is it too far gone? 

I don't know, but I do look at what Chess.com has built for that old, slow-moving game. Leaving aside the subscribers, which suggest a net valuation of about $2 billion for their business, live games get thousands of views and the community itself is filled with very good content creation. It's not centrally planned - it never was - and these channels drive defined revenue. So, I guess there's hope. 

For our sport it might be a pipe-dream, a Rick's Natural Star. But I believe, with TVG out of the space, perhaps there is some opportunity to open the sport up once and for all. If we ditch the protectionism and stab the intransigence with a steely knife, who knows, maybe something pops up. 

Have a nice Wednesday everyone. 

No, TVG-Fanduel TV's Demise Wasn't Inevitable

The big news in horse racing land the past week was not the Florida or Arkansas Derby, Repole fighting a two front war while trying to run a football league, or even salt-of-the-earth Marcus Hersh getting flamed on the twitter. It was, of course, the huge news about TVG. 

• FanDuel TV will reduce its workforce by about 60 percent at the end of June, after honoring commitments to Keeneland and Triple Crown coverage. The remaining employees will continue through the end of November.

Horse racing is a tight community, and I, like many of you, have chatted with TVG folks over the many years. This clearly sucks. For them mostly, but for us and for the sport in general. 

What irks me to no end, quite frankly, is hearing people profess about how inevitable this all is. That horse racing is yesterday's sport and that it's a complete eventuality it all goes away. 

That, in my humble opinion, is a pile of horse shit. 

Back in 2012 Kodak went under, years after controlling 80% of the film market. 

Old-school film was replaced by digital, as we all know, and off they went into the sunset. But Kodak's folding wasn't inevitable either. 

Kodak had a massive revenue edge, with money sitting in a bank account to invest. 

Kodak knew about digital and had the technology right under their roof before many others, but they failed to do anything about it. They held the skeleton key to the disruption that was coming, but they didn't have the courage to disrupt themselves. 

They rested on what they had, while the customer was telling them they weren't liking what they were offering. They chose legacy over responsiveness and agility. 

In our sport, we have been gifted billions upon billions of dollars through slots and legislation, and we've watched - meet after meet, month after month, year after year - demand crater, without diversifying and investing where it was most-needed. 

We can complain about the CDI Death Star getting their cut and spending it on historical racing machines and casinos and stock buybacks and making Arlington Park a parking lot, but they're a private company; they're not responsible for the sport. The other half of the slot money went to the various alphabets; they're ones who are tasked with caring about it. 

In our sport, the ubiquitous alphabets knew what was coming - sports betting, digital casinos and everything else we can bet on, including if the President will have a ham sandwich for lunch tomorrow.  

How did they prepare for this, no less while they were given a monopoly on online wagering for years? I'll wait for your answer.  

Kodak (and others) taught us that new technology is important, right? Today, all we read about is Kalshi and Polymarket. They're everywhere, they are the AI of bubbles, the cocaine that fueled the cocaine bear; they're hotter than an otter's pocket. 

Well, TVG is owned by the company that owned the world's biggest, best and most used prediction market - Betfair. To add insult to injury, in 2012, California passed legislation granting monopoly power to racing for exchange wagering/prediction markets. 

If you didn't know that, you read it right. If the sport acted on this 14 years ago, instead of holding on to what it had, scared of "cannibalizing win pools" or whatever else it used to excuse and encourage their paralysis, the private equity folks and the Trump kids would be coming to this sport - horse racing - for a piece of the action. 

Imagine that. Horse racing - you and me, and the grooms, the hotwalkers, the TVG cameraman, the trainers and owners and everyone else - would get a slice of every settled bet wagered for who is going to win the Super Bowl, or what square-jawed, creatine filled headshot king is leaving the Bachelorette next. 

So, yes, it disturbs me that a sport with billions in wagering, with billions in purses, with billions of slot money, with hundreds of thousands of participants and fans and bettors; and farmers, and vets and vet techs and farriers and feedmen, has been represented so poorly. 

And to hear over and over again that this was all "inevitable"? 

Give me a freaking break. 

Record Keeping with Wagers Acts as a Good Mental Proxy

In Chris's newly released book, he spends some time talking to players about the sometimes/often boring task of record keeping. I think most of us know it's important, but it can take a back seat to the work of handicapping, or more often in modern betting, database tweaking. 

To me, one of the best things about record keeping, though, is what it can tell us as in bird's eye view. 

I recently went through my quarterly stats, and was pleased to note that what I was intrinsically feeling about my play was confirmed. 

First, I looked at my pick 5 volume as a percentage of total play. 

At Woodbine, my pick 5 play totaled about 12% of my total play (this may sound high, but in harness with mucho-chalk, it's a lower takeout staple). 

At the Meadowlands, it was less than 1% of my total play (0.7%). 

Leaving aside the fact that Mohawk races more often and they have two pick 5's a night, this volume difference is stark. 

However, those of you who play the Big M know full well that the first pick 5 involves amateur drivers and the cheapest horses on the grounds, often both. 

I'm not consciously trying to play less, but my decision making is forcing me to play less. 

In effect, it confirms my decision making is good. If I was playing a harness racing staple like a pick 5 to push volume, my Big M volume would be greater. I'd be "playing just to play".

A lot of the benefits of record keeping do not have to be stats-laden, mathy, wild exercises. It can be used to confirm if we're seeing the ball well, or not seeing it well; if we're pushing in areas we should not be, or underbetting in areas we need not to be. 

I was chatting with a professional player yesterday and he typed, "really, gambling is just a massive test of curiosity, grit, discipline, and work ethic." 

I think that's right - and monitoring our play, even as simply as above, can help us all become better. 

Have a nice Monday everyone. If you want to order Chris's excellent book, it's at the link above.