Horse Racing can learn from the NFL
Approximately 148 million people watched last year’s Super Bowl, a number likely to grow (or at least remain stagnant at its high level) tomorrow when the Steelers play the Cardinals.
148 million – amazing.
The NFL is a prime example of genius business operations and marketing. The league grew beyond just another sporting event on the world landscape to an actual function in our society. People adjust their lives and schedules to accomodate this Sunday tradition (both regular season, playoffs and the Super Bowl). At Louisiana Downs tomorrow, we’ll squeeze our post times a bit to make sure our players can make it back to their couch in time for kick-off.
The point? Football matters in America.
How did they get there? How can horse racing learn from their success (and in some cases, failures)? Here are a few ideas I had.
- Consistency — The NFL runs a consistent schedule. Every Sunday, and one game on Monday night. It’s like this for 85% of the season. People learn, people adjust and people expect. In horse racing, it’s everyday. Where’s the novelty? The excitement? The Kentucky Derby, the biggest race in America, is held on the first Saturday in May of every year. Now that’s consistency, and look how big the race is.
- Revenue Model — NFL clubs and franchises have a revenue sharing model which helps level their playing field. Therefore, part of the incentive is to grow the brand of football and the NFL, which naturally filters down to individual teams. Additionally, each particular franchise is given additional incentive by way of luxury suite sales to encourage putting a winning team on the field.
- Non-saturation — From September to January, and that is it. If football were every Sunday for 52 weeks out of the year, would it be as popular? I’m not suggesting horse racing scales-back to five months, but some consolidation would certainly help.
The three points above are merely skimming the surface, but are interesting send-offs to additional discussion. And while they may prove ineffective in the long run, it is at least some outside the box thinking, an approach seemingly lost on our game.