Racing's "Vanishing" Attendance

Bucky shared an interesting graphic today on the twitter - 

This isn't a shock and awe for you and those who follow the sport, but it is interesting to me nonetheless. 

Back in the 1960's, with the emergence of television, Pete Rozelle and the NFL were worried. If people could watch football at home, who would be left to go to the games? That clearly didn't happen. NFL games are, and were an event; Americana if you will. 

In 2025, stadiums are packed with people buying $400 tickets and $12 beer. They're camping out, tailgating, and in Buffalo at least, jumping off stuff to break tables. 

Racing on the other hand, as the graphic shows, has not had such luxury. 

This is primarily, in my view, because it was never a sport in the first place. We aren't tailgating before the third at Aqueduct; we aren't looking for tickets on stubhub for the feature at Mountaineer. Other than a Triple Crown race or a trip to Saratoga, we just aren't doing it. 

We're watching on television, on phones or on a computer .... and we're betting on the same devices. 

In my opinion, the sport has spent a ton of money and thinking and sweat equity on trying to drive people from home to the racetrack. We've paid money to Alix with an "i" Earle and many others my demographic have never seems to have heard of. We have a Youtube dude that owns a piece of Sandman. We had an ABR Bus. We've had kids in suits and hats getting smashed on Grey Goose (hey, it's today's sponsor). 

The sweat equity, cold hard cash and machinery thinking we've exhausted on trying to get people to watch the sport is truly mind-boggling. But, again in my view, it was misguided because unlike NFL football, the reason people packed the stands wasn't to watch the sport. 

No, 37,754 people showed up in 1946 on Met Mile day to bet the sport, not watch it. And the millions who poured into Roosevelt and Yonkers over the next fifty years on cold and rainy Tuesday evenings were there for the same thing. 

The sport of horse racing's attendance never "vanished". It was never real in the first place. The only thing real was the gambling.

When we lost that, as we have the last twenty or so years - I think, in part at least, by spending too much time on buses and suits and influencers and marketing, and neglecting the betting game itself - it's an enormous task to turn around. 

Have a good Wednesday everyone.