Posts Tagged ‘yankee stadium’

By Bradford Cummings

As I have said many times before on the Paulick Report, I am an outsider looking in on a sport I have grown to love and admire. Like when I had that first drink with my now wife, I could not shake the sentiment “where have you been all my life?” And after a talk with Director of Communications and Media Relations Dan Silver and Director of Marketing Neema Ghazi at the New York Racing Association, it appears to me the new direction for New York racing has new fans like myself in mind. With a little nudging and some tender loving care, the industry would do well to follow their lead and open up this beautiful sport to the masses of potential fans.
 
Catching them in the middle of Saratoga madness, it is clear these two young men take their jobs extremely seriously because they themselves are lifelong fans. In a previous conversation, Ghazi had told me he actually grew up in Saratoga so racing was in his blood. As he would tell me several times in a short period of time, he considered Saratoga to have the best jockeys, best trainers and best horses in the country during its historic meet each summer. I suppose it would be like growing up next to Yankee Stadium, a bit hard to avoid the hype.
 
Silver on the other hand, was a Philadelphia boy who gravitated to horse racing through the television, a medium he regrets we do too little with as an industry. “TV has been neglected,” said Silver. “One of the great mistakes the industry ever made was not jumping on TV like football did.”
 
This regret, though he is certainly not old enough to remember, has informed much of what he puts emphasis on when considering his communications plan. Both Dan and Neema put a lot into the necessity of quality television for the sport to grow. Both gentlemen touted MSG + as a great way to fill that gap, specifically when considering the racetracks under their watch. This well-known regional signal essentially reaches the Midlantic region of the United States and can also be tuned in through DirecTV. This exclusive feed gives NYRA racetracks an advantage others do not have as experts like handicapper Andy Serling among others gets exposure and helps to build a local and national brand.
 
Of course, Andy Serling can now be found online through his Twitter feed, largely the brainchild of these two Young Turks. “You can find Andy Serling, one of the top handicappers in the world, tweeting his picks each day,” said Ghazi. “Currently, his Twitter page has 1,281 subscribers in just four weeks.” With such gems as “Maybe the Linda Rice supporters can tell me why Sextant is 3:1 and not 30:1 in the 5th” and “Kiaran McLaughlin is 0 for 16 with 2YO filly firsters on dirt over 5 years at Saratoga” it is clear this feature will be a mainstay for racing fans during the many years to come.
 
Under their watch, NYRA has created a dedicated YouTube channel with nearly 2,000 archived videos and 36,716 views, a Facebook page with 2,836 fans and a blog called Saratoga Insider that covers the backside at Saratoga from the insider perspective. Most will remember Curlin’s Corner during last year’s Woodward and NYRA is back at it again with Rachel’s Sandbox, an exquisitely simple and effective fan page that leads with a video of the her historic Preakness win. Others in our industry could take a page from this marketing plan which is far more reminsincent of a Lebron James push than the strategies that have made racing a footnote in the American lexicon.
 
Due to these obvious improvements, it is no wonder attendance and handle are both up over last year despite a near depression. While factors like lower gas prices and the propensity for “staycations” play into the hands of improved financial figures, other racetracks could use similar reasons to boast if they had improvement. But just like with Churchill’s successful Downs After Dark, innovation is often rewarded in an industry that oftentimes looks left out of the evolutionary cycle. Much credit should be given to Charlie Hayward and the rest of the NYRA leadership for understanding that in order to move forward, we must try new things and not look back at old solutions.
 
With the economy still not in full recovery and a sport still not back into the spotlight, it is good to know that Ghazi and Silver understand at its essence what they have to sell. “A young family of four can come to Saratoga for as little as $6,” said Ghazi. “They can bring all their own stuff and just have a picnic.” There’s simplicity in this statement that should assure the industry these two and the rest of the NYRA staff truly gets it.  
 
If you get them in the door, they’ll become lifelong fans. Take it from a Chicago boy now writing for the Paulick Report and a Philadelphia guy who stumbled upon racing while flipping the channels on his way to a different destination.

“Being back with these guys was a thrill. I’ve been with them the last few days, and you really don’t get to see them more than maybe once or twice a year at the Derby or the Breeders’ Cup. To be able to ride with them … when I got the call, I was like, ‘Holy cow, yeah, it would be an honor.’ The field of riders they ended up getting was tremendous, and I never thought in a million years that I had an opportunity to win, but I got on a good horse.”

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