The Rule of 3

I've always been puzzled by the Giveaway Days at Saratoga. The Giveaway Days are the most attended Days of the meet, but not really. The problem is the track is reporting "spinners", those that pay multiple admissions to get multiple tickets for extra giveaways.

It's amazing to watch many of these people, walk in, pay multiple admissions, get in line for the giveaways and walk out of the track by 1:00 pm even before the first race goes off.

How many actual people were there? Or more importantly what is the effect on handle.

I use the Rule of 3. Expect no more than a third of the spinner reported attendance to actually place a bet on a giveaway day.

The reported Giveaway attendance yesterday was 50,727 with an on track handle of $3,071,438. That amounts to per person wager amount of only $60.54.

Compare this to the prior Sunday, where there was no giveaway item. The attendance was a modest 18,425 however the handle was $3,021,079. This is only $50,000 less than the giveaway Sunday handle yet there was  32,302 less bodies at the track that day. The  per person wager amount was a healthy $167.83.

Using the Rule of 3 for Giveaway Days the formula works out like this

Attendance (50,727) divided by 3 = 16,909 people who actually attend the track on a giveaway day AND actually place a bet.

Grading the 2012 Saratoga Giveaway Items

The Giveaway days, aka non-betting cheap people bumping into you at the Track Day, continues under the watch of Governor aka Emperor Cuomo. Here's my quickie review and grade for the 2012 items (photos of items released by NYRA):

SARATOGA BASEBALL CAP Sunday, July 29



Love the Galloping Horse added to the Bill-looks a lot classier than past years ball caps

Grade: A-

SARATOGA PICNIC MAT Sunday, August 12



A checkered color mat with a snazzy looking handle-look's okay enough to keep in your car for spontaneous use.

Grade: B

SARATOGA PILSNER GLASS Sunday, August 19



Does this look Tall, slender and tapered to you? Nope, plus a true Pilsner glass has an even taper without curvature. This looks more like a pint glass to me. Can we expect Cuomo to blame exiled NYRA CEO Charles Hayward for this one? For the lack of accuracy the item should get an F, but lets face it, this is a beer glass after all and I expect a large turnout for this misnamed item.

Grade: C

SARATOGA FLEECE BLANKET Sunday, September 2



This Wal Mart quality item probably costs about 60 cents to make. Will look good enough till you try to wash it and run it through the dryer. After one wash/dry cycle it will make your snuggie appear high quality.

Grade: C

24/7 for Racing

The New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers will be featured on HBO's Emmy award winning 24/7 reality series in this years "24/7 FLYERS/RANGERS: ROAD TO THE NHL WINTER CLASSIC". The HBO series on the NHL debuted last year and the show received across the board fan and media critics approval. I'm sure it also brought more attention to the sport and only helped to bring in some new fans.

We wrote last year that Horse Racing would be perfect for the 24/7 reality series. HBO at the time was reportedly looking to pick up a new sport for the 24/7 franchise but so far no decision has been made.

Questions at the Track

I don't know why you would need the costly McKinsey Report to figure out how to draw more folks to the racetrack and to betting on the races. Just take a novice fan to the track and listen to them. This past Sunday I took a married couple in their 40's to Saratoga Race Course with me and my better half.

They like casino and slot gambling and take frequent trips to Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods, and Atlantic City. They were last at a racetrack at a New England Fair 20 years ago. Here were some of their questions they threw out at me during the day.

Upon reaching the gates and stopping to pay the $5 Clubhouse Admission:

Q: How come you have to pay $5 a person to get into the track when you already have your pre-paid Clubhouse seats.? We don't pay to get into a Casino?

My Comment: Good Question, I always thought it made no sense to charge for the privilege of just walking into the track. Charge for the grandstand & clubhouse seats and let everyone else in for free. Don't ding the customer.

Q: What's a Quinella bet again?

My Comment: I pointed them to the Program and gave them a basic primer on the various bets they could make. I think we forget that most people want their gambling to be easy and they find the slots and poker easier to learn and easy to figure out. The tracks need more visible education guidelines with companion online guides, games, etc.

Q: Why are there 11 horses in the race but the infield center video board is showing only the odds for Horses 1-9.

My Comment: This one had me confused as I knew there were 11 horses in the race but only 9 were on the board until I realized that NYRA was playing video ads on the right side of the screen which eliminated the odds on Horses 10-11 in this particular race. The ads eventually stopped and Horses 10-11 showed up, but how is a novice better supposed to understand the game if they want to bet Horse #10 and the odds are nowhere to be found on the main video board ?

These were all good questions and the cost to hear them was nothing.

Charlie Sheen the right choice to lead the Breeders Cup

Ray Paulick reports on the Paulick Report that Greg Avioli is resigning as president and chief executive officer of the Breeders’ Cup. Paulick lists 8 potential replacements. In a sidebar poll readers have chosen "none of the above" as their choice.

With such lack of enthusiasm for the usual suspects to replace Avioli, why not think outside the box. We need a winner and who sells winning better than Charlie Sheen.

The timing is perfect as Sheen is currently on the open market.

The Breeders Cup Twitter site has 4,323 followers. Why not turbo charge that number and grab Sheen as your CEO who just set a Guinesss Book World record for being the quickest person on Twitter to gain 1 million followers, doing so in 25 hours, 17 minutes.

Some may say Sheen is on a classic downward spiral but I would argue the man is a marketing genius and he is acting like a business minded positive forward thinking CEO, something the Breeders Cup needs. Are not these recent quotes from Sheen reminiscent of great leaders of the past, like Winston Churchill and Vince Lombardi. Breeders Cup, may you consider these quotes as part of Sheen's resume:

"You can't process me with a normal brain"

"I have Tigers blood and Adonis DNA"

"Defeat is not an option"

"Drug tests don't lie. Scoreboard doesn't lie"

"Plan Better applies to everything where an excuse now sits. Try it. U won't be wrong. EVER"

I believe his first decision will be to replace the confusing "Win and your In" slogan with his more concise classic line:

"Duh Winning!"

Saratoga holds up well for Weekend #2

Blessed by near perfect weather, NYRA has to be very happy with the weekend 2 results at Saratoga.

74,649 fans walked through the Saratoga gates Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a nice healthy number, especially considering this was a "non-spinner" weekend as there was no giveaway day on Sunday. Monmouth Park had 58,175 fans over the same 3 days.

Monmouth was a big winner on Sunday with 40,904 fans coming to see the Haskell, but the Spa still drew 22,190 on Sunday and almost drew even with on track handle ($3,270,939 at Monmouth vs $3,152,520 for Saratoga).

On Saturday it was no contest as Saratoga had 28,682 fans with $4,682,285 in track handle compared to only 9,890 fans and $720,090 in on track handle at Monmouth. I guess it was so nice, everyone in Jersey just stayed at the Shore.

Friday was a big success for Saratoga as 23,777 fans came out for Twilight racing with an on track handle of $2,762,008. Monmouth on Friday drew 7,381 fans with $622,391 in on track handle.

NYRA heavily promoted the Friday Twilight card as "Party at the Spa" with tons of signs throughout the track and ads in the local media. They had a band, The Sean Dolan Band, playing after the last race outside the Clubhouse gates. I don't know if they are any good, but Ernie Munick said they are, and that's good enough for me. Plus Ernie himself was there playing in the backyard on Friday.

With such nice weather, the fans showed up all weekend and with the oppressive humidity of week one gone, everyone I bumped into over the weekend seemed happy. I also had my first Shake Shack Shake, a black and white Shake, on Saturday. After drawing a goose egg all day Saturday at the betting windows, the $13.00 for 2 Shakes, (one for the better half) was the best bet I made all day.

Saratoga Swag

Just Like Christopher Moltisanti, people love getting their free swag. Thus we have the Saratoga Race Course 2010 Track Giveaways, 4 of them in all.

Here is a quick take on the items with my initial thoughts and Grade for each item:

Mid Summer St. Patrick's Day T-Shirt-7/29/10 (Thursday): Your typical Wal-Mart quality T-Shirt worth about 2 bucks, a dollar less than the $3 admission you pay to get in to the joint. But its "free" so people will line up for them like heroin addicts at a methadone clinic. I don't quite get the tie in to St. Pats day- seems strange. Grade: C-

Rachel Alexandra Cap-8/8/10 (Sunday): The cap has a Woodward Stakes emblem on the front and Rachel lettering on the back-looks like pretty good quality from the photo, probably worth a walk over between bets to pick one up. Grade: B+

Umbrellas: 8/22/10 (Sunday): Always a popular item, although the last few umbrella's given out have been poor quality, like the ones you buy outside Grand Central in a rainstorm. The ones given out years ago were big with a nice wood handle-I still have one I got about 15 years ago and use it all the time-you can't kill the thing. This years model looks like it might be pretty good quality. Grade: A-

Long Sleeve T-Shirt: 9/05/10: Slightly Better quality than the T-shirt, but don't expect it to be in the same condition you got it after about the 2nd time through the wash & dry process. Grade: B-

At least ours is open

The website might be outdated as pointed out by Jay Hodvey on his Daily Racing Form blog, but The National Musuem of Racing and Hall of Fame located across the street from Saratoga Race Course is one cool place to visit, especially if you appreciate the history of the game.

And unlike the Soccer Hall of Fame, it is not closing.

The Grey Ghost

The fun race for this Halloween is The Grey Ghost, a $35,000 Starter Handicap at the Meadowlands Racetrack reserved only to horses grey or roan in color. The race goes a mile and 1/16th on the Turf. Clever marketing by the Big M and the grey on green contrast coming down the stretch should be fun to watch. There are 9 horses entered in the race.

I also have a vested interest in watching the race as I am somehow still alive in the Meadowlands Survival Challenge Contest after 23 Days of racing. 3,602 players have been eliminated with yours truly among the 1,223 players still active.

The Grey Ghost is one of the 3 races on today's card that active players have to pick a horse in as part of the contest. I put my money on Lightning Power, a 7 year old gelding who was 2nd in last years Grey Ghost.

KISS

Racing needs KISS, no not the rock group but the acronym for Keep it Simple Stupid.

Let's be real, we are living in a real dumbed down society where the basic american will not go out of his way to do anything even remotely complicated or try to learn something he believes to be confusing.

Market racing for the exciting gambling game that it is and market it as easy to try, not hard. I mentioned at the start of the month that I had entered the Meadowlands Survival Challenge, a simple game with a simple concept of picking horses to win, place and show with losers going home and winners advancing with real prizes given out at the end. We are now a quarter way through the meet and I am still alive in 669th place out of 4825 original players.

Hats off to Meadowlands Racetrack for getting a mostly NYRA track bettor like me to pay attention to another track on a daily basis. I have just focused on Jockey/Trainer combos I like, pick my 3 horses in the 3 races every day and let the computer tell me who placed where. Suddenly, instead of just looking at the Belmont Results every day, I also check the Meadowlands results...heck now names like Elvis Trujillo have daily meaning to me. This can only lead to more betting at the Big M, using a very simple concept appealing to the basic tenet of the game-gambling.

Don't Blink

We now enter the time of year when times seems to speed up and the days although filled with daylight seem to pass so quickly. It seems you reach the 4th of July Holiday, than you blink and Labor Day is upon us.

On the racing front, we enter such a busy time. Starting this holiday weekend we have a stakes filled card at Belmont and Monmouth Park and Hollywood Park out west has the American Oaks.

Opening Day at Delmar is only 19 days away and Opening Day at Saratoga will be here in just 26 days.

The Churchill Downs meet ends on July 4th. Churchill track officials are beaming with last nights "Downs after Dark" night racing experiment drawing 33,481. The 3 night experiment drew 27,623, 28,011 and last nights high of 33,481. I had read that some people feared with college over that the final night would not draw but those fears were put too rest. The old adage of putting out a usable product with great customer service and fair pricing worked for the night racing experiment.

On the Churchill Downs website you will find a poll where you can vote on whether to keep the experiment going as part of the regular meet schedule. I'm no Nostradamus, but this seems like a 1-9 lock on a "Yes" vote.

Less is More

It is the time of the year for opening day at many tracks in the coming weeks.

Churchill Downs opens this Saturday, a week before the big Day of the Kentucky Derby, Hollywood Park opens Tomorrow, Monmouth Park opens May 9th and Delaware Park opens this Saturday. And opening day for Saratoga is now only 97 days away.While we sometimes scratch our heads with the knucklehead logic of Race Track officials, I like the comments of Delaware Park Executive Director John Mooney with reference to reducing this years racing days at Delaware Park from 136 to 116 and eliminating Sunday Racing, except for the month of June. Fuller Race Fields are expected with an average of 9 horse fields up from the usual 6 or 7. Mooney stated:

"It's more of an advantage for us to race on Wednesday, particularly in the fall of the year when you have to compete on Sundays with NFL football and all the other sports activities that take place," Mooney said. "This not only helps us to increase the handle, but the money committed to the [horsemen's] purse account through pari-mutuel wagering."

I am all on board with this thinking. A recognition of the marketplace, an awareness of the competition and a plan to not over saturate the product.

Crowded out

The Equispace blog covers the ESPN coverage situation this weekend of the Lane's End Stakes, complete with a link to Alex Waldrop's NTRA blog commenting on how and when the the NTRA decides to buy time on ESPN for Racing telecasts.

Still shaking my head that we had no coverage the weekend before last weekend. That weekend we had 4 nice derby prep races that were run, all within the same hour, which would have made for a nice one hour show on ESPN. Plus they would have avoided the March Madness Weekend which is a ratings monster. Instead this past weekend they decide to broadcast the Lane's End Stakes smack dab against the NCAA Men's Championship. CBS Sports has sent out a press release stating that on Saturday, March 21 the overall average metered market rating/share for the Tournament was a 6.3/14, up +5% from a 6.0/13 last year.

That's a tough number to compete against.

Bad enough that the NTRA has to actually buy the ad time (like infomercials do) but how is a Saturday slot against March Madness attractive to potential viewers or ad buyers?

Marketing-Adapt or Expire

Instead of wondering if it works or how , the smart business person is using it right now, that being the tools of Blogging, Twittering and Internet social networking sites to market your business.

The lesson here is do it now, do it fast and don't stop. Spread the word of your business through every electronic avenue you can via your own web site, Internet social sites and the cell phone.

The horse racing industry got a late start but it seems industry big wigs like the NTRA and NYRA are finally getting it and using all platforms available to market such as Facebook and Twitter. We have a way to go and are behind other sports but in this constant changing every day is a new day and the time is now.

Speaking of which, you can see the various Twittering going on at the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance via TBABlogs. You can also read the Tweets at the TBA Home Page.

Maybe this Twitter Thing Really Works

and I thought is was only to exchange meaningless updates about nothing to people who have way too much free time. Maybe Not....

You can follow the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance Twitter group here

EA Sports focusing on 2 more sports for '09

and no...one of them is not Horse Racing. EA Sports, the leader of sports related video games including the leading seller Madden NFL series is adding 2 new sports to the fold in 2009. The already have the NFL, the NHL, the NBA, NASCAR, NCAA Basketball The PGA and FIFA Soccer. In a soft economy, video game software and equipment has actually risen-2008 saw a sales gain of 19% over 2007. Despite the economy, sales are expected to grow and leading retailer Game Stop has forecast a 10-12% sales gain for 2009.

You would think any marketing agency for a sport would hitch its wagons to this silver bullet. In 2009 EA Sports will debut Tennis with the release of its EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) games are expected later in 2009. I always thought a Horse Racing Video game using the likeness of actual Jockeys , Race Tracks and Trainers would be a good seller and also relate the game player to the actual sport, must like Madden NFL helped make certain players more popular. You could add a fantasy betting element to the game also, as all good gamblers love their action, even on a fantasy level. Seems like Marketing 101 to me, but than again that's just me.

It's in the Genes

If only it were that easy.

With all the talented 3 year old's out there-Old Fashioned, Vineyard Haven, Midshipman, Friesan Fire, The Pamplemousse, it figures that the first one to get National Television exposure would be a horse who has yet to enter a Starting Gate- Nicanor, the full brother of Barbaro. CBS Evening News with Katie Couric had a feature story tonight on Nicanor, who is scheduled to make his debut this weekend at Gulfstream.

I can't say I am surprised that a horse who has shown nothing yet is getting all this attention. In the TV biz,It is all about catching the most eyeballs, and cute stories about a full brother of Barbaro will grab more viewers than a story reviewing the Beyers figures of The Pamplemousse. Just look at the 100 million or so movie goers who watched the film about that crazy lovable, dog Marley in Marley & Me. People just love animals, and the more sappy the story, the better.

So love it or hate, this is the way it is, and should the colt win this weekend, get ready for the onslaught. You can read the full text of the story on CBS here.

Television Coverage

It has long been said that the sport of Thoroughbred racing missed the boat on Television. The Sport was once the king of print journalism in the 1930's -1950's, just take a gander at archives of papers such as the New York Times.

Then Television became commonplace in American Homes in the late 1950's and Racing never really jumped on board.

The National Football League did jump on board from the beginning and it remains the king of Televised Sports and lately it is beating even the biggest non-sports shows. This stat from Molly Willow of the Columbus Dispatch "Tube Talk" column:

"About 22 million people watched afternoon playoff games weekly on both CBS and Fox. That's more than the average audience for this season's No. 1, Dancing With the Stars (19.2 million), and No. 2, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (18.8 million) -- both of which are on at night, when viewers might not have anything better to do"

Her theory on the huge ratings:

"I don't think the football audience has necessarily increased because the game has become more interesting as it has evolved. The NFL, after all, claims that its "Greatest Game Ever Played" took place in 1958.

Instead, I suspect a combination of the hyper-
commercialization of the sport (see: FedEx), the heightened interest because of fantasy football and, in no small part, high definition"

And oh yeah, not mentioned in the column but another factor is that people bet on the NFL games. Those with a betting interest are also tuning in.

Horse racing will never achieve the TV ratings of the NFL, but it can certainly increase it's share of TV eyeballs but promoting Fantasy Horse Stables and increasing shows broadcast in High Definition (including your local OTB Channel).

Sources:

Molly Willow "Football Sailing High above Series Fare" The Columbus Dispatch. Jan. 14 2009

Recession Proof?

As we read news articles and blogs about the state of economy further killing track handle and attendance, this report from NBC Nightly News of 12/29/08 reports that not only are State Lottery sales up in 29 of 42 states that sell lottery numbers and scratch off tickets but 22 states will have record sales in 2008. Many people apparently feel that if they have a few bucks left in the week to gamble with, it is far easier and certainty less challenging mentally to throw a buck on the counter of the local convenience store and buy a scratch off ticket rather than bury ones head in the Daily Racing Form and figure out a horse to bet on.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Coverage of the Breeders Cup..or lack thereof

I have been a subscriber to Sports Illustrated for over 25 years. Like the change in seasons, Sports Illustrated comes reliably delivered to my mailbox on a weekly basis.

But I find myself reading it less and less. The Time Inc. owned weekly magazine has gotten thinner and thinner every week, with less and less ads, and in my opinion, lesser quality articles and photographs. I remember as a young sports fan, 2 decades ago, looking forward to the feature length articles and photographs in Sports Illustrated each week.

They covered all the major team sports but also were known for excellent articles and photographs on the Olympics, Horse Racing and Boxing.

William Nack, in particular, was noted for his lengthy and illuminating articles on the big horse races of the year-the Triple Crown races, the Breeders Cup, etc accompanied by brilliant photographs.

No more. The issue of Sports Illustrated coming out after the Breeders Cup, dated 11/3/08, has a ½ page article (see photo above) with one tiny photograph measuring 2.5 inches by 2 inches of Zenyatta with 2 thumbnail size photographs of Raven’s Pass and Curlin. The entire article is a mere 4 paragraphs. The article only mentions 2 races-The Breeders’ Cup Classic and Ladies Classic and only mentions 3 horses by name in the entire article.

Paul Moran, writes in Paul Moran at the races that “Sports Illustrated, embroiled in an absurd dispute with Breeders’ Cup officials over ownership of photographs, declined to cover the races at Santa Anita.”