Entering the world of horse racing from a fandom perspective can appear a daunting task for outsiders. The lack of a unified global calendar means that race organizers often fail to capitalize on interest surrounding major events such as the Cheltenham Festival or the Melbourne Cup throughout the year.
These are assertions made by Spotlight Sports Group (SSG), which has brought together leaders from various horse racing institutions to call for reform in the sport.
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Representatives from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Ascot Racecourse, Horse Racing Ireland, the Japan Racing Association, the Victoria Racing Club, and the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia all came together to identify problems around the sport, and collated their findings into The Horse Racing Audience Opportunity report.
This report discussed areas such as how the horse racing product can be adjusted to promote audience growth, how promoters can leverage new digital affordances, how the betting industry remains integral, and the overall global structure of horse racing.
While the quality of the on-course product, the report asserts, has never been questioned, the “complexity” of the sporting calendar and the “failure to tell our own story in a language new fans can understand,” per SSG chief Mark Renshaw.
Motor racing’s Formula 1 (F1) series is pointed to as a benchmark in this regard. An example of how a complex (and previously thought) insular sports property managed to capture a significant youthful audience segment and overall major commercial growth in recent years.
F1 head of betting Mark Wrigley also contributed to the report, saying: “Second-screen experiences, live visualizations and broadcast overlays have the potential to make horse racing significantly more engaging, immersive and accessible."
Capturing new, and crucially young fans year-round remains the objective, with betting remaining a crucial component, but perhaps a less immediately vital one too.
Speaking to Sportcal (GlobalData Sport), Spotlight Sports Group B2B managing director Sam Houlding discusses the group’s findings and steps forward for the horse racing industry at a time of major change in the global sports economy.
This report has identified sports fans aged 25 to 44 as the key horse racing audience demographic. How can horse racing do better in attracting this consumer segment?
Houlding: “Horse racing, like all sports, has challenges in competition for attracting fans, because there’s probably more competition for fan engagement than ever before. We know that the age cohort across the sports fans, and even some entertainment and big event fans that we've identified, creates a really big addressable audience as an opportunity for us. Our data and estimates suggest there's a 200 million additional addressable opportunity out there for racing.
“We know that over half of sports fans follow 11 sports or more, and we know that 70% of sports fans follow athletes or teams on social media. So when we talk about the specific demographic, there's a lot that racing can do to target them. [Making] racing as a product easy to understand and relatable.
“Promoting the sport with betting being a product within the sport, rather than leading with betting. Creating better digital experiences that meet those audiences on their terms through the content forums that they engage with, and adapting different strategies for audience acquisition and audience retention. Improving the betting product, so making it more intuitive.”
Does the heavy competition for eyes, both from a fandom and sports betting perspective, affect audience growth strategy?
“It's no secret that racing is more aligned with betting as a contributor to the finances of the sport than other sports. Some of the data that we have through the Hong Kong Jockey Club shows that 70% of new fans will engage with wagering betting anyway. So I think that [sport-first presentation] is the most important thing, rather than us thinking too much about betting.
“We can make betting journeys more intuitive, easier to understand. Like we've done with Smart View, [tech] that presents race cards in a more data-visualized way, which is far more accessible for new audiences to understand. Some of the language attached to racing is steeped in legacy terminology that isn't so easy to understand.
“I also think we've got to gain really good cut-through from racing as a product. Making sure that we tell really strong, simple narratives across the sport, ideally to end up in more of a season narrative. People understand things like league formats, knockout competitions, and qualifiers. Racing is a series of one-off events. It has some well-attended and well-viewed global festivals, but once that's done, we move on to the next one. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there.
“We know that 86% of the racing audience globally is mobile first, and we know that social media is a very heavy part of that. We know how the younger demographic and the new fans are going to engage in the sport, so when you have things that can run across season-long narrative, and when you have these really big key events, they are the things that are going to gain cut-through on those channels
“If you look at what other sports have done out there in this space, cricket has brought in formats like The Hundred, which has completely demystified the sport.”
Is this something that can also have a knock-on effect in terms of broadcaster relationships and media rights values?
“There is a stat that we generated in the report. 36% of sports fans say they've watched highlights on mobile in the last week. Broadcast and media rights are a massive part of the fabric of the sport, and what we need to make sure of is that we are meeting those audiences on their terms on mobile.
“We [at SSG] invest very heavily at the moment in short-form video as part of our three-year strategy, and we're investing very heavily in influencer partnerships on social.
“All of these things are just to make sure that we meet the new fans with the right content in the right way on the channels that they engage with, so I think it's no different for broadcast and for media rights. I think the challenge is to make sure that we use the assets of our sport in the right way.”
Horse racing’s tentpole events still maintain a dominant position due to their strong historical significance. But does that heritage perhaps make them averse to change?
“While you don't want to steep yourself in legacy and heritage, because it might alienate new fans if you don't change the product, there are huge strengths in it as well. Some of the biggest global events we have are really steeped in the heritage and the legacy of racing: Royal Ascot, the Breeders Cup, the Melbourne Cup, and they've all done really marvelous jobs of building their events, and making them more relatable to new audiences.
“So actually, I think those key legacy events are the ones that will cut through to new audiences. It's probably the horse racing landscape outside of the big events that is the more challenging aspect of engaging new audiences. So ideally, I think the big events would be the points of cut-through, and the points where we get new fans engaging with the sport, and then our job in racing as a sport is: can we then convert those big event fans?”
While the report maintains that the in-person experience is still strong, perhaps the digital infrastructure surrounding the sport prevents rightsholders from capitalizing on that. What needs to be done to see an improvement?
“This is an area where I think Liberty Media and F1 have done really well, by centralizing the digital narrative and experience of the sport. There is a call to action in the report around creating a single unified digital experience and point of entry for audiences. Everything I talked about in terms of simplifying the narrative of the sport really helps you to do that.
“Racing goes across lots of local markets, so there are challenges in doing that. The opportunity would be amazing if we could get there. There's a need for a consistent data source and output within the industry so that we can surface unified data and narratives across racing.”
The coveted Gen Z demographic typically demands authenticity from the media that they consume. What do you think horse racing's authentic narrative is?
“I think it's a question that the sport needs to think about very clearly. We have ‘Equine Superstars.’ Organizations like the Victoria Racing Club make sure that in all of their promotional activity, they're weaving imagery of the horse, so that's their emotional connection for their fans with racing. But it's very hard to interview a horse and extract personality from the horse. So we're lucky that we have jockeys and trainers.
“That behind-the-scenes narrative and getting into bringing as much personality out as possible is where we're going to connect. Whether it is through the horse, imagery, or the jockeys or trainers, we want to really get under the skin of the sport. Athletes and teams on social media, they're the stories that people want to relate to.
“I want content that opens my eyes to things I didn't consider engaging with. They're the things that get cut through in engagement, and racing needs to identify exactly where it can draw on those. It might be a bit different for different audiences, and it might be different in terms of locality as well, but we've got facets across the sport to bring loads out there.”
