A recent article in the Irish Field newspaper got me mulling over the importance of attracting new blood to this sport that we all love so dearly. Below are some ideas that came to mind and I have also borrowed from the article written by Darley Flying Start graduate Will Mayer and have tried to put them into a South African context. Reading the article, it also became glaringly obvious that the Irish have very similar problems to the ones that we face.
Our biggest problem is that it has become increasing evident that our core fan base is stagnant and reaching an advanced level of maturity. However, if we look at population statistics, a significant portion of the 46 or so million people in this country is under the age of 30. So successfully marketing of the sport to this demographic of young people is paramount to the continued vitality of horse racing.
This generation is characterised as being technologically savvy, urban, mobile and having a wide variety of tastes. They also have a wide variety of entertainment options including other sporting codes like rugby, cricket and soccer, not to mention movies, theatre, clubs and restaurants.
We need to effectively target this generation as they represent the segment of the population that is most willing to try new things and are at an age at which consumers develop brand loyalties for life.
But to effectively market to this generation we must identify the different sub categories.
The first of these is the 18-30-year-olds. This age group comprises of university students and young professionals. Both of these groups provide growth potential for our sport.
Students have an abundance of time and are looking for entertainment and young professionals, especially those without families, will likely have disposable income.
The second sub category is the 7-17 year-olds. Although this market can be easily overlooked, it also contains potential for growth. Studies have shown that children play an increasingly large role in family purchase decisions.
The primary market involves selling our product directly to children. Although we would not sell them the betting product, one we can capitalise on is merchandising. Other sports have benefited tremendously from merchandising and one only has to look at The Sharks, the Bulls and the surfing market to see the benefit here.
The only merchandising in racing is the odd nick-knack or racecourse souvenir and baseball caps advertising stallions which are not usually available to the general public. We already have the capacity within the industry to design unique t-shirt and baseball cap logos and to brand racing.
Aside from the primary market, children also act as the future market and if we can encourage early participation in the industry then we can secure racing’s future.
We need to understand how to market to this next generation. It can be said that racing is inherently the bedfellow of betting. Some would say that to move away from this base would be turning our backs on our biggest supporters.
But a study by Horse Racing Ireland showed that the largest demographic on the course was the socialiser (44%), followed by punters and horse followers (24%) each.
What this model suggests is that increases in revenue will not of necessity come from betting but also hospitality. It is therefore imperative that we get people back to the course. If the people come back, the spin-off would surely be an increase in betting turnover and the knock-on would ultimately be an increase in both on-course and off-course betting turnover. So the updating and effective marketing of facilities, which older fans appreciate but younger fans expect, is a must.
Also in this group we will have part of a youth demographic that is attracted to the analytical aspect of handicapping.
The Bloodhorse Magazine some years back ran a feature on a maths teacher who used racing and handicapping to teach maths, encouraging pupils to think out of the box and to use their analytical skills. The exercise ended with a trip to the racecourse to put all the theories and mathematical skills into practice. It was highly entertaining for the pupils and introduced them to the sport on a level which they could understand and at the same time learning life skills.
I strongly believe that Tellytrack needs to be revamped. I understand that to make everything profitable we rely on betting turnover but a channel that is heavily focused on the betting product will not attract any new clientele and we are trying to milk a cow which will ultimately run dry as no new blood is introduced.
We have the talent and the technical skills to produce a much better daily product, one that is more palatable and appealing to the beginner, casual fan and any Dstv viewer surfing channels. I believe that this is a failing of the current programming and ultimately we are squandering our biggest asset as far as the general appeal and marketing of the sport is concerned. We will eventually run out of punters and we need to look ahead to avoid the cow running dry.
As mentioned before, we need to appeal to the younger generation. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Rag day at Kenilworth has been reintroduced. Many years ago when I was at varsity in Stellenbosch, the Rag day at the races was a must attend event at Milnerton. However, we did go to watch the races and not the after party.
The demographics of universities has changed dramatically in recent years but racing needs to - and must if it is to survive as a healthy growing sport - showcase its self to those who in the past had no interest in the sport at all as they are potentially our biggest source of new customers.
We unfortunately have developed a culture in this country in which we give freely in the hope of some return. We need a new mindset. The new money is out there, it needs to be cleverly harnessed.
Like fancy party political jackets and the finest whiskeys, racing needs to revisit its perceived elitist roots. People must be convinced that racing is THE only game in town to be seen at socially and if you aren’t participating then you haven’t made it. But freebies must be avoided at all costs. It cheapens the sport and once the novelty wears off and expenses become a reality, it becomes a very expensive marketing exercise with very little reward.
General standards of dress on racedays by those who are major role players in the industry – trainers and owners - does not currently project a good image. While enforcing a dress code is highly unlikely to succeed, there are still many “old school” participants who can and are willing if given enough encouragement to set an example which may eventually rub off and raise the visual image of the sport. A start would be to ban jeans and T-shirts from the parade ring.
A major obstacle that we need to address is the inherent learning curve associated with racing. Ours is a sport with a very specific vocabulary and a plethora of statistics and information. Although we often take it for granted, this mountain of information can seem insurmountable to the novice and ultimately proves so daunting that they look elsewhere for their entertainment.
A persistent hurdle is public opinion. Racing is charged with everything from corruption to animal cruelty and elitism and it is critical that racing is not seen in this light by the next generation. There is a fine balance between being elitist and totally over the top and it has been written that racing suffers from CAMRI: Condescending, Arrogant, Myopic, Racing Insiders. We need to avoid projecting that image. Racing is an elitist sport by definition but a friendly face and a willing ear can go some way to dispelling this image. An American marketing study showed that if senior management with prominent name tags, and not some bottom-of-the-corporate-rung customer service attendant, took the trouble to mingle with the on-course patrons and asked for personal feedback at the exits, future crowd attendance showed significant increases. In other words, patrons felt important and were keen to return.
We must think of horse racing as a national brand. It is a brand of entertainment competing with a multitude of others for the attention of young people. We must get away from the Gold Circle vs Phumelela mindset. Surely it is not too difficult to market horse racing as a national brand even though it is run by two separate operators.
The technological revolution has provided a platform for unlimited potential as far as betting and the like is concerned. But we first have to get people interested in the sport before these innovations can be exploited to their full potential.
The effective use of resources such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are essential in putting our message over to the younger demographic. It has been suggested that young people do not have the patience or desire to spend hours analysing information for having an informed bet at the races. However, this seems to be a fallacy if seen in the light of the huge popularity of fantasy leagues in football and rugby. The conundrum here is that we do not have a big enough fan base to build on.
A final improvement is that the operators need to pay attention to feedback. They will often be required to seek it out, as the feedback will not come through traditional channels.
Some of the best suggestions from the next generation consumer can be found on on-line blogs and websites. These suggestions are often simple things but even if the changes are not implemented, it is imperative that we acknowledge that we are listening and that will go a long way to encouraging the next generation to go racing.
Horse racing needs to reflect on where the sport has gone wrong in losing its general public appeal. The symbiosis between humans and horses goes back centuries. But in relatively recent times in this country it was sustained by being the only “gambling” game in town and in this period of almost unlimited money, managements seemed to lose focus on the primary participant - the horse. They have now been reduced to four-legged lottery balls with a television channel to perpetuate the image.
There has been resistance by the thoroughbred industry to the introduction of harness racing. The perception is that the venture is being funded by thoroughbred racing when in truth it is self funding, using monies generated by the Swedish television feed (note: Not Australia) on the tote for revenue. Outside of this the only reliance on thoroughbred racing is the current limited use of the training and racing facilities.
If Harness racing does get off the ground in any significant way, it will provide an added source of income to thoroughbred racing via tote revenue. We should not be standing in their way.