A global TV view

Seb Vance outlines the big plans Racing TV has for international racing – we should all reap the benefits of increased global coverage, writes Sally Duckett

FOR THOSE OF who did not have the chance of partying at Downing Street in 2020 and 2021, the boredom of lockdown was eased for many by watching some form of television.

Aside from consuming hours of Friends or the vast box sets of Line Of Duty or The Crown, it was live sport that proved to be a key lifeline for many.

TV viewers craved the live, dynamic and immersive action to break the monotony of life stuck at home; live sport emerged from the pandemic as a winner.

Racing enjoyed its own audience uplift, too, with all channels reporting improved figures due to the captive audience. Key metrics from ITV Racing recorded a 2020 Derby audience of 2.3 million, the mostviewed Derby since 2012, while the 2020 Cheltenham Festival hit audience highs not seen since such records began in 2003.

The progress continued through 2021, and ITV posted record audiences for every day of the Cheltenham Festival and a 23 per cent increase on 2020, an audience of 8.8 million for the 2021 Randox Grand National, and record figures for the opening day’s racing from Aintree and the Opening Show. The momentum hasn’t slowed in 2022, with ITV Racing audience shares (percentage of viewers watching) posting higher figures than during the lockdown period.

The sport’s specialist British-based subscription channel Racing TV also enjoyed its share of the love and its membership increased initially to 62,000, then growing again to a current record high of 65,000.

Furthermore, the importance of the growth of the digital era and its relevance to racing was brought home over the Aintree fixture – the viewing audience was bolstered by more than 3m video streams, generated via Racecourse Media Group’s (RMG) Watch & Bet service. This was more than double the number of streams that the previous staging of the festival produced in 2019.

Those figures have held firm since, backed by some of the innovations brought in and developed over the last 12 months, some of which stretch further than British shores.

An international perspective has been developed in order to market key global race days, and the benefits of a whole sport approach are directly tangible, reports Seb Vance, director of RMG’s Communications and International Distribution, when outlining the latest innovation, a global racing package that has been termed the “crown jewels”.

“We’ve agreed a partnership with Henry Birtles Associates Media [HBA Media], which manages the rights to a lot of the premium horseracing events around the world, races such as the Breeders’ Cup, the Melbourne Cup, the Saudi Cup, the Pegasus Cup and Royal Ascot,” explains Vance.

“We were chatting, probably about six months ago, and, instead of working individually as we had been doing, we came up with the idea to work together and create a package of world class racing throughout the year, a batch of up 12 or 13 of the best races in the world.

“We felt the broadcasters would find a ‘package’ a more compelling and attractive proposition rather than individual races. It gives broadcasters a narrative and storyline throughout the season.

“Furthermore, it means that they can promote one event to the next, and, for example, with a lot of the same jockeys riding in the races, they can create some real momentum.”

Early reports have been good with the broadcasters receptive to the concept.

“It’s been really encouraging with major networks such as Fox Sports in the US, ESPN in South America and SuperSport in Africa increasing their coverage, and we’ve got some new territories interested, too, such as Scandinavia via NENT and South East Asia, through Eclat,” says Vance, adding:

And for RMG’s racecourses, it’s fantastic as they can be packaged alongside similarly high-profile races and we can leverage that to give races the exposure they might not have enjoyed had they been distributed as stand-alone events.

The series of events started with the Pegasus Cup last month, moves to the Saudi Cup this month, onto Dubai, and then back to Europe starting with the Grand National, then moving into Flat racing with the Derby, Royal Ascot, Goodwood, York, Irish Champions Weekend and British Champions Day.

“We supply the broadcasters with marketing material and video, but they can also really push it themselves, which is what we want, and that probably hasn’t happened before. It’s great for our racecourses, but it’s great for the sport as a whole,” reasons Vance.

This collection of races is not orientated around a betting product, but RMG is highly involved in this important aspect of our sport now, particularly, on an international basis, through the development of the World Pool.

“We also have a business, Racing TV International, which distributes to international bookmakers and online companies,” explains Vance. “It’s a really important revenue for RMG and British racing. We distribute our pictures to about 35 countries around the world and you’d be looking at the Far East, Australia, US, Italy, France as the most significant revenue generators.

“But what’s a real priority for us this year is the World Pool, which has now bedded in really well – last year there was lots of good coverage, and, most importantly, lots of betting interest.”

The World Pool was created by Hong Kong Jockey Club and brings together racing fans from over 20 nations, so everyone is effectively betting into one pool creating huge liquidity.

“We are working hard with the UK Tote, who are integral to World Pool, to educate customers in the UK to bet via the Tote so they can take advantage of the value. For instance, at British Champions Day, Tote beat SP on five of the six winners on the card. “Field sizes are important for the World

Pool, and we’re working with racecourses on the programmes to ensure healthy fields of at least eight runners, which will generate healthy betting turnover.

“Further, we’ve been working very closely with the Hong Kong Jockey Club over the years to get our premium race days on the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s governmentapproved schedule, which then enables Hong Kong punters to bet on the races.”

Seb Vance, director of communications and international distribution at RMG, with Ryan Moore

AN EXAMPLE of the significant levels of turnover generated is that £26m was bet into World Pool on the 2021 Cazoo Derby at Epsom. In 2021, 37 race days were part of the programme, 18 from Britain and Ireland of which 11 came under the RMG banner. It is expected that 2022 will have a broadly similar make-up.

RMG also has its sights set on the US and the opening up of sports betting on the continent, India is believed to have a lot of potential and deals have already been made,

while obviously as the Middle East becomes an ever-more important racing region, RMG is embedding its services in the area’s media production.

“The Middle East is hugely important, and we’ve got some very valued and significant contracts in the Middle East,” says Vance. “For instance, the Dubai Racing Channel has been a long-time partner of ours and shows British and Irish racing via our Racing TV output.

“We’ve just renewed with them for another five years, which is fantastic news. It means Dubai gets our racing day in day out, and the sport there really is number one. It is great that we’ve renewed with them – there’s a huge interest and commitment to British and Irish racing.”

As well as exporting the country’s racing, RMG imports and distributes the action from Dubai. The content from Meydan is produced in partnership with a production company called Timeline and Vance believes that experience of working in Dubai plays a part in enhancing production and presentation of the racing in the UK and Ireland.

“You can try a lot more things if you’re just focused at one racecourse as you are in Meydan,” he says. “We have the touchscreen there which we use a lot. The jockeys and trainers love it – after the race they’ll now come straight to the analysis zone and the touchscreen, they all know how to work it and talk through a ride or a race using the screen.” The ongoing developments in Bahrain have seen RMG, alongside Timeline, selected as the partner to produce and distribute the Kingdom’s racing for this season, building on a previous two-year relationship revolving around the Bahrain International Trophy.

With racing in the Middle East growing in strength, Vance is anticipating a bright future.

With the intention to marry up racing in the region it makes it all really exciting. We’re really happy that we’re a big part of that in Dubai and Bahrain. And we also support Saudi with video and archive and promotion of their big race, as well.

RMG and Racing TV also has eyes on developing a younger audience, focusing the eyes of the youth on horseracing. Social media and working with “influencers” are seen as key to unlocking this demographic.

Vance outlines: “We’ve 600,000 followers on social media and we are really looking to kick on on our social channels this year.

“On Instagram we’ve created this new initiative called #raceday. We’re trying to get a younger audience involved, non-racegoing audiences, and educate them about all things racing. We’re using influencers such as Love Island and Married at First Sight contestants to tell the story, as well as a number of sports stars. It’s a new initiative for us, but it’s going really well.”

Vance does admit there is business need driving the push for a younger demographic, the Racing TV subscription base perhaps mirroring racing’s predominant middle aged and older audience, but Racing TV’s remit is as much for the good of the sport’s future as for its own bottom line.

“The point of #raceday is to get people interested in racing, then, we hope, in one way or another it will benefit the sport as a whole, which will in turn benefit us.

“So, whether it’s people betting more, spending more money on racecourses or getting their mates to go racing, the more people who take an interest in racing the better the knock on effect it will have for the whole sport.

“We’re not putting subscription messages on these posts, it is more a general ‘come racing’. The campaign is still new, but we’ve had a total of 1.7 million video views which is pleasing, and it’s something we really want to develop this year.”

Working with social media influencers might be something quite alien to most in the racing industry, but Vance feels that the approach has been paying off.

“They are so enthusiastic, and they love their racing now. A lot of them came from non-racing backgrounds or hadn’t been racing before, and the beauty is that they’re marketing to followers who aren’t racing fans either so it really helps to capture a new audience. That’s great, and they do produce a genuine excitement about the sport.”

ADDITIONAL RMG developments include Extra, which provides dedicated streams from racecourses allowing viewers to watch a race meeting of their choice, the new virtual studio which gives an immersive experience for the viewer, and, from the courses, improving the speed of the picture feed so negating the advantage that the drone operators have been trying to seek for in-running betting. Furthermore, GPS-operated timing data has been introduced on all the

Racing TV tracks provided through CourseTrack, a technology that could easily and inexpensively be used abroad. Alongside the quicker pictures, it could be key to unlocking new betting opportunities to give punters more chances for a bet.

“From a commercial point of view, we’re looking to work with bookmakers on opening up the in-running markets,” outlines Vance. “Obviously punters can already bet in-running, but we’re looking at ways we can expand those markets further. You might be able to have a bet on which horse will lead after the first furlong, or which horse does the fastest split, creating new betting markets in much the same way as you might see with football betting.” But whether it’s the virtual studio, ultra-low latency feed, social media posts from influencers or the timing data, everything that Racing TV and RMG does is for the good of racing and is based around capturing new audiences.

“The overriding strategy is attracting more fans to racing, more fan engagement, because it just has a knock-on effect for sport. And that will be only positive,” says Vance, adding: “That’s the sort of ethos we all work under. We’re constantly looking at ways we can evolve and innovate.”

The bloodstock industry has reaped the benefit of the broadening base of international racing interest. Surely the more people around the world who get to watch British and Irish racing, the more they want to be involved either by owning a horse in training in Britain or Ireland or by purchasing from our bloodstock industry to race at home?

The impact of foreign buyers of all levels at bloodstock sales in Britain and Ireland, at the yearling sales, the breeding stock sales and the horses in training sales, has become vitally impportant.

There are no metrics to analyse the impact the ability to watch our sport might have in creating an interest that leads to a bloodstock purchase, but it does not take a huge brain leap to realise that the more exposure the sport has abroad, the more the interest levels grow.

We are part of a global sport and it needs marketing as one. Concepts such as the crown jewels, in which arguably British and Irish racing are the golden strands, take both the racing and bloodstock industries forward.