The New Generation of Harness Racing
As many people in this industry complain over drugs, takeout and corruption, the biggest problem facing harness racing is that the audience is aging and not being replaced with the next generation.
From this backdrop, a few promising signs are shining through. Individuals, companies and organisations are testing the waters of technology and trying to harness it to promote themselves and the industry.
The Meadowlands Racetrack has just started a YouTube channel. So far they’ve posted a few videos of trainer and driver interviews after races. The challenge for them is to keep at it, interest will be slow at first.
In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvanian Harness Horsemen’s Association recently launched a new TV show, Pa Harness Week. All their shows are uploaded online through YouTube after the screening.
In New Zealand, Sheldon Murtha & Co are trying to get an internet based harness racing show of the ground. They’ve lined up a few sponsors and already put out 16 episodes. The quality is amazing (Sheldon used to produce similar content for TV).
Standardbred Canada and the USTA are both posting video content on YouTube and Standardbred Canada is using YouTube to embed race videos into their stories.
Harness Racing New Zealand publishes all tote races an hour after the race is over, and provides for free the information their counterparts overseas lock up.
New harness racing blogs have been sprouting up in the last year including:
- Dean’s ‘Pull the Pocket‘
- Kimberly Rinker’s ‘Harness Racing Insider‘
- Andrew Cohen’s ‘First Over‘
- And the new and sparsely worded ‘Maine Harness Racing Blog‘
A Long Way to Go
All this is great, and it’s quite a shift in 1 year. But here’s what still needs to happen:
All fees need to be removed for getting data from the organisations so that the public can access the numbers (entries/results/stats etc) for free. Why not go one step further and open up the whole system to third party developers so people can create useful handicapping tools based on that information.
What if every video of every race in the world was uploaded to YouTube or a site specially set up for this purpose? How much value is there in protecting the video rights of a race that happened 6 months ago? Free it up. Maybe create something similar to what Racing Day is doing - minus the paid subscription.
Free live streaming of video for every racetrack, accessible to anyone in the world. This could be monetized by integrating a betting system alongside it. If racetracks, legislators and organisations could co-operate this would be huge.
Do you know why poker took off?
It’s because they added a little camera so that people at home could see what’s going on. Allowing the audience a chance to see inside the minds of the players made all the difference. Similarly, providing more accessible data, statistics and video will make racing more attractive to the younger fan, and make handicapping easier and ultimately more rewarding.
A Simple Idea
How about partnering with Google as Football has in the UK:
What if you could search Google for past performances, entries, or pedigrees from your mobile phone while you’re at any track in the world.
How cool would that be?
Simple, useful and achievable right. So why hasn’t anybody looked into this and contacted Google. Because it’s nobody’s job to do so.
The Not My Job Complex Illustrated:
(Hat tip to Seth)
We need people who live with technology in their daily lives to push these advancements.
We don’t need misguided internet marketing campaigns from people who think their audience is stupid and easily manipulated.
Finally I want to end with a comment I made on this blog back in May:
Gambling will become more and more an web based business, and if you don’t provide people with the tools they need to continue betting, they will simply move to an industry that provides them. The argument that the major fan base in harness racing are typically older and therefore not very interested in the web doesn’t really work, because one day you’ll wake up and those people won’t be around any more. And if no effort has been made to use technology to draw in younger fans then you won’t be left with much.
What do you think - are any of these ideas achievable in the near future? I would really appreciate some feedback.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Bang on!
Most excellent post!
July 11th, 2008 at 5:40 am
You can’t have live racing video available on the web. This would feed into the hands of the illegal bookies and ADW who don’t contribute at all to funding purses. Same thing with regards to wagering info such as programs.
That being said, there is no reason why you can’t show replays and make programs available for free through legal wagering venues. For the programs, I would make them free if you bet through that site X dollars a month or if you register at a racetrack site. No need to make wagering easier through these illegal wagering sources.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Dean, thank you I’ve been mulling about these issues for a while. And thanks for the mention on your blog. As someone new to the industry I confess not too well versed in the issues, but I do understand the internet, how people use it, and what you can do with it if you understand its potential.
Allan, illegal gambling is already huge worldwide. Legal live video monetized by horeseplayers already exists in various forms outside of official channels - Day At The Track comes to mind but there are others.
My understanding is that these company’s have financial agreements with Racetracks so that the dollars flows through to purses. In New Zealand those in power don’t want Kiwi’s using these offshore services as it means people will gamble more offshore and less in NZ. But surely if it was legal worldwide then the free market would mean betting dollars would even out?
I recognize there would be issues to overcome to make sure dollars flow into purses, but a blanket statement like “You can’t have live racing video available on the web” seems like a pretty big assumption to me.
What would happen if you started with the assumption that you needed to have live video online, and then worked to address the issues from there.
Update: Greg Blanchard has an article on Woodbine’s site along a similar vein here:
http://www.woodbineentertainment.com/woodbinecolumn/Column/Column.aspx?id=21
July 11th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I agree. It smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face, imo.
I remember back in the late 1980’s when I started attending the track regularly. There were no pay phones. Why? Because they did not want people to make bets with illegal bookies. That’s fine. Illegal bookies made up to 10% of handles (so anecdotally we hear) and it was a cost effective way to hinder that. It had value.
But this is 2008. How many people want to play legally online but can not because they can’t see video? It’s a chicken and egg argument we should not be having (imo). Free video should be distributed for all. (and I notice it has gotten a lot better…. Georgian, Grand River, the Meadowlands and many others offer it free now).
Just another note if I can, which might help to see where I am coming from on free video: I get free programs from Woodbine. Woodbine has a very good program for bettors. Free programs, some coupons for dinners, that kind of thing. When I go get programs now, I get all of them. When I was paying for them I would just get the Meadowlands and Woodbine/Mohawk and that’s it. Or I would bring them from home printed off the computer. With that relatively inexpensive perk I tend to read them and play a few dollars now and again into those pools - pools I would never play into. I do not think the principle is very different with free video.
Keep plugging away on the blog!. Great work!
August 12th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
[...] and fun then simply reporting the facts. Greg Blanchard’s first post follows up on the discussion we had here last week about the internet’s role in harness [...]