Case The Race - Involving New Fans And What Racetracks Are Doing To Achieve This Goal

It is every racetrack’s nightmare: an aging fan base and a sharp decline in regular attendance. While the economy spirals, attending and betting on horse racing is no longer a priority for anyone, even die-hard fans that have to weigh the pros and cons – and monetary effects – of spending a day at the races. Unwilling to go down without fighting, marketing managers at racetracks across the country are scrambling to bring in new, younger fans; they are reaching out to a younger demographic with the hope that these younger fans will keep coming back.

With gambling scandals and a rash of high profile horse deaths in the last few years, most of the battle is simply getting people to consider attending the races. Once inside the track doors, it is likely that visitors will have lunch and place a few bets. However, the idea of spending a day at the races occurs to so few, especially in a place like Southern California where there are limitless sources of entertainment, that simply reaching prospective fans is a daunting task.

This season, Santa Anita Park is offering “Dollar Day” on Fridays, with free admission and hot dogs, soda, beer, and popcorn for a dollar each. In addition, free box seats are offered while available. “The Fridays have been a really good deal with young families and singles. We are seeing people here who we wouldn’t normally see,” said Allen Gutterman, Vice President of Marketing at Santa Anita. “It has doubled the Friday attendance.” Both Del Mar and Hollywood Park also offer Friday incentives through concerts (free with your racetrack admission) provided by popular local rock bands. Santa Anita has had success in the past with its infield Microbrew Festivals. “We would get eight or nine thousand young people out for those,” Gutterman explained.

In New York, the famous and historic Saratoga Racecourse offers themed-days, such as Family Day and Men’s and Women’s Days, which offer promotions for the guests of honor. For example, on Men’s Day, free shaves and whiskey tasting were offered.

Giveaways have long been an easy way of getting fans in the door. Almost all tracks offer baseball caps, t-shirts, mugs, bags, sweatshirts, towels, blankets, posters, or bobbleheads at one point or another, usually in conjunction with big days at the race meet. On these days, when demand is high and supply is limited, the parking lots are jammed when the gates open. But sometimes this can backfire, as people leave immediately with their prize and head to sell it on eBay. Still, despite the economy and winter weather, Santa Anita has seen a 4% increase in attendance on giveaway days this meet over the same days last year.

Beyond their initial visit, customers need incentives to come back. Santa Anita has done an excellent job in handing out free or dollar passes to the big days during the meet, reminding patrons of the events to come and giving them a reason to return. A lot of racetracks have a “membership club” exclusive to that track or to tracks owned by the parent corporation. These reward the patrons in various ways. For instance, Churchill Downs has the Twin Spires Club that includes a small membership card to track the amount gambled by the user. Cardholders receive rewards and perks for using the card, especially if one bets a lot. Santa Anita offers the Thoroughbreds, a club that includes admission discounts and exclusive giveaways. Del Mar recently started the Diamond Club. The club offers free and discounted admission depending on the day, as well as account wagering. All of these club examples are free to join.

Canterbury Park in Minnesota started a fun tradition, the Bail Out Bucket. If a customer places a bet using their Canterbury MVP card, and the bet isn’t a winning one, then the bettor is eligible to place the losing ticket into a bucket. Three times a day, two tickets are drawn and the ticketholders are then reimbursed for their losses up to $200. The program has already had a tremendous positive response despite being only two months old.

Keeneland, in Lexington, Kentucky, has always been ahead of its time and an ambassador to racing. In accordance with its reputation, the beautiful and wildly popular racetrack paved the way for popular College Scholarship Days, which started in Fall 2002. According to Christa Marrillia, Keeneland’s Special Event Coordinator, last October, over 4,000 students participated on College Day. In partnership with the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, a $1,000 scholarship is offered after each race. Any student currently enrolled in one of the many area colleges, including University of Kentucky, is eligible to apply for a chance to win the scholarship.

To help reach their target audience, Keeneland representatives attended the University of Kentucky’s freshmen orientation and handed out passes to the track. They also started a group that reaches hundreds of people daily on the social networking Web site Facebook.com. “We’ve also gotten the Greek community involved in Scholarship Day,” Marrillia continued. “We have competitions among the fraternities and sororities and give a donation to whatever their philanthropy is, as well as a plaque for the winning house.” What Keeneland is doing is working: College Day of April, 2007, came with 34 degree temperatures and snow, but 2,700 students braved the storm to attend the races.

Santa Anita, too, is hoping to reach college-aged audiences this year. “We are starting a college outreach program,” Gutterman said, “and we’ve reached out to 300 different organizations at University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles. We are going to offer free admission, seating, and lunch, as well as the opportunity to participate in a handicapping contest.”

Unfortunately, a great day of fun and friends at the racetrack doesn’t necessarily translate to money at the windows for racetrack executives. A lot of young people remain in the dark about the inner workings of the game; helping new fans to easily understand the sport remains a frustration and a mystery.

“We offer handicapping seminars on Fridays and Saturdays, but they tend to get much of the same crowd,” Gutterman said of Santa Anita. The track also offers newcomer seminars and special Pick 6 Carryover seminars.

During the summer race meet, Del Mar offers the wildly popular “Donuts at Del Mar” program, at which families can come out and have breakfast while watching the morning workouts and listening to guest speakers comprised of jockeys, trainers, and owners. Although informative, the lectures don’t tend to teach fans how the sport works and how to analyze races. For those wanting to learn how to play the game, those lessons are paramount.

Enter Canterbury Park and their innovative Canterbury College program. “We started Canterbury College and have had a lot of success with younger people,” said Jeff Maday, the Media Relations Manager at Canterbury. “The first year had about thirty participants, and this year we will have two hundred people. The course consists of five classes, three hours each Sunday, where we offer free lunch and a free Daily Racing Form, then proceed to teach them how to read the Form. We start with the running lines, from the date of the race all the way across. It isn’t the most exciting thing in the beginning, but then we can get into different handicapping methods, such as pace, speed, class, and form, as well as the workings of the inside of the game. We talk to not only owners and trainers, but also track superintendents and other handicappers.”

Another Canterbury program is in the works, as well. “This year we are starting a program where you can act as a sort of an ambassador, where you are rewarded if you bring five friends to the races with you,” Maday explained. “We will also continue to give out free admission tickets and host our New to the Races Seminar.”

Finding and raising new racing fans is a multi-faceted puzzle, of which marketing gurus are well aware. “There is no program that we can offer that will fix a bad experience at the racetrack,” Maday admitted. “Walking up to the betting window can be very intimidating, and if the tellers aren’t friendly, you can lose people before they’ve been hooked. Racing can’t rely on slot machines forever.”

Over at Santa Anita, Gutterman is open to exploring other demographics as well, such as the under-age fans that may not be of betting age yet, but still enjoy coming to the races. “Last year we targeted our marketing to the jockeys,” he explained. “We specifically noticed a lot of young girls coming to the races who were taken with the jockeys, who in their own way can become like rock stars if we work hard enough to get them exposed.”

Aiming to hook newer fans isn’t the only thing on the marketing directors’ minds, however. “You never stop targeting the older, retired age group.” Gutterman warned. “But if you’re ever going to get that young person back as an older person, they need some basis on which they wish to return. That makes it very important to go after young people and give them the experience of live racing.”

With the right education, the right tools such as the innovative CASE data, and incentives to spend time at the track, fans will continue to head out to the races, either hoping to get lucky or to test out their acquired racing knowledge.