To market, to market…

The problem with having too much to do at the moment is that the world — discourteously — continues to spin on its axis whether I blog about it or not.  As a result, a variety of racing news of some import has come and gone without me.

The nerve.

Nonetheless, one post that’s been gnawing at me these past few days concerns the upcoming National Thoroughbred Racing Association “marketing summit” (see here).  A number of our Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance colleagues have been tapped by the NTRA to share their web wizardry in helping the NTRA develop expertise in marketing to a new generation (which, as a friend of mine recently observed, would mean any generation this side of dead).

To which I say, “Congrats, guys and gals.”

And also, “Godspeed.”  And, “Watch out for the icebergs up ahead.”

In truth, bringing in outside expertise of this sort is a terrific idea, which almost gives one hope.  Still, it’s hard not to remember what the NTRA’s previous marketing conferences have wrought.  Sample conversation therefrom:

Advertising exec: Our research conclusively shows that more people than ever before list horse racing as one of their 30 favorite sports.  We have now clearly moved ahead of watching the fat kid down the street shoot marbles, and amateur dog shows are in our sights!

NTRA gang: Well done!  (Handshakes and backslaps all around).

Improving racing’s outreach via the internet is a long overdue idea.  Compare the website of, say, your favorite baseball team to that of your favorite racetrack, and the differences become clear.  To say nothing of the more sophisticated sort of Web 2.0 outreach and networking, which is a phrase I barely understand (which probably puts me ahead of most of the folks in charge of racing sites, but still…)

But if the NTRA — and more to the point, racing as a whole — are truly going to move the meter in terms of public awareness and participation in racing, they’re going to have to face hard truths about the sport’s myriad failures.  No more pretending that everything is OK; no more pretending that fixing the ADW issue (which must be done) will solve everything, or that slots are the savior.

Of course, the NTRA’s biggest problem (besides bad marketing) is that marketing is only one portion of a larger problem that’s been decades in the making.  Even if the NTRA’s campaigns were spot on (which they’re not), they can really only make people want to go to the track once; marketing can’t make them return.  So, without further ado, three easy steps to fixing the problem of racing’s declining and aging fan base:

1) Improve the message — Racing marketing usually veers wildly between two poles: on the one side, the mystical “majesty of the thoroughbred” mumbo-jumbo, to which the average person offers a hearty yawn (trust me, I’ve committed plenty of that mumbo-jumbo on this site); and on the other, unkempt guys in stained t-shirts and Saratoga baseball caps ruminating on who they like today — exactly the sort of person most people don’t want to be and don’t identify with.  Why anyone thinks that either of these marketing strategies might be effective is baffling to me.

Here’s the thing: racing is a hybrid, part sport, part gambling activity.  It’s an activity that can have all the excitement of going to, say, a baseball game, while at the same time offering the thrill of interactive participation — something that no other sport can offer.  It’s both great sport and fun gambling experience — better than smoky casinos or boring slot machines or mindless lotteries.  You can watch sports — and if you’re lucky, make a bunch of money doing it!  And yet somehow racing’s marketing chokes the life out of it.  The sport lies there on the page (or the screen), lifeless as a dead mackerel.

Moreover, racing’s a hybrid activity that takes place where humans and horses interact.  This is a strength of racing, not a weakness. Think of it this way: when you take newcomers to the track, where do they like to go?  The paddock, and then the rail — they want to be right up close to the horses and the action.  So, what we do when we market it?  We completely divorce the people — the fans, that is — from the horses.  They never share a screen.  Why?

Racing needs to reposition itself as a fun day with possible jackpot payoffs — and at the same time it needs to capitalize on the human-equine connection.

2) Improve the product — Another problem that racing faces is that the day-to-day product is, frankly, unattractive.  We’re fed an endless stream of races run under esoteric conditions that are hard even for moderately experienced handicappers to understand, let alone newcomers.  Never-won-two, haven’t-won-one-in-six-months, never won one-other-than: it’s a baffling potpourri of racing conditions to the newcomer, and, more to the point, a series of races leading nowhere at all.

The American public will tolerate a long, seemingly endless season — go to an early August baseball game if you doubt me — but what it wants as a “reward” for doing so is to be told a story.  We want our sports to be a narrative, with a beginning, middle, and most importantly, an exciting and definitive end.

Racetracks should reimagine their conditions books not just as a way to fill fields, encourage betting, and make horsemen happy but also as a way to generate public interest in the sport.  And the way to do that — as I’ve blogged about here — is by having standings for horses at several different levels (not just the TBA’s best national horses standing, though those are good, too), so that many races each day count towards meet-long standings.  And at the end of each meet, top horses in the standings could meet in a champions day, with increased purses — a reward for horsemen who support the local program and a great way to create renewed interest in the sport by turning the endless season into  a story we can follow.

3) Improve the raceday experience — When I was a kid attending sporting events with my father, you were there to watch the game, and that was it.  You didn’t expect to be particularly comfortable, you weren’t going to ooh and ahh over the surroundings, and you certainly didn’t expect delicious food (remember the ultra-hard ice cream with the little wooden spoon things?).

Racing is still operating in those days.  The rest of the sporting world, however, has moved on.  For good or ill, attending sporting events — or casinos, for that matter — is now an entertainment experience, and folks demand virtually all of the comforts of home, with an endless bounty of delicious food and drink and friendly, helpful service.  We want music and video, bells and whistles — to be spoon-fed fun.

Yet most racetracks are older plants with limited food facilities, staffed by too many folks who treat you as an imposition.  There are any number of racetracks you wouldn’t want to take a newcomer to for their maiden voyage — and some of them are major tracks in major markets (as Aqueduct shamefully hangs its head, Pimlico examines its nails and tries to disappear…).  Just as a trip to, say, Saratoga or Del Mar can create a lifelong racing fan, a trip to most other tracks is more likely to chase the new fan away.

The bottom line is that until the tracks make a real effort to improve their customers’ experiences, no amount of savvy marketing will reverse the trends we face.  Of course, not every track can be Keeneland.  But every track without exception can be — and really should be — clean, freshly painted, comfortable, easy to get around, and staffed by friendly, helpful people.  That I (or anyone) even have to mention this is, frankly, unbelievable.

Through its own inaction and errors in judgment, racing as a whole finds itself behind the eight ball.  But there’s still magic in the sport, and way forward is clear.  Marketing — which racing (including the NTRA) has done poorly, when it’s been done at all — is an important part of the solution, but it is, ultimately, just one part. The world’s best marketing can make a person visit the track, but in the end, only the tracks themselves can bring that person back.  And that, for a sport which has spent the last 30 years and more ignoring its customers, is no small challenge.

STILL TIME, THOUGH NOT MUCH… To join our newest partnership, with exciting two year-old filly Homefire!  Shares are selling fast, but you can still get involved.  Check it out here.