Last week, key stakeholders of British Horseracing agreed on comprehensive changes for the heritage sport to adopt in 2024. Led by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) – next year British racecourses will embrace a new fixtures list promoting ‘Premier Racedays’ to grow and engage racing with a wider audience.
Declaring further sweeping changes The Jockey Club announced that The Grand National will implement its commitment to rider and racehorse safety, in which Britain’s biggest race will be reduced to a field size from 40 to 34 runners.
Changes are deemed necessary for British racing to recapture its public trust and appeal. Yet writing to the government, racing leadership maintain their critical concern on the financial impact of ‘affordability checks’ on UK gambling impacting racing’s future prospects and sustainability for its vast network of stakeholders.
This was the main point of discussion, kickstarting the week on the latest episode of iGaming Daily, James Ross is joined by the two Ted’s with Edward Menmuir and Ted Orme-Claye.
Speaking firstly on the issues British racing has faced over the past few years, Orme-Claye described the two key and “intertwined” issues of Engagement/Audience and Sports Finance;
“The elephant in the room is the pandemic..obviously this shut the sport down for a while with a lot of their finances coming from the betting levy (where bookmakers pay a percentage of their revenue to support horse racing). Horse Racing has also kind of been falling down the ladder of engagement, in 2018 football overtook it as the most bet on sport in the UK. Attendances are also down, so really they’re just struggling to maintain the same audience they had in their heyday.”
Click the play icon below to watch the rest of the most recent episode on YouTube, alternately you can listen on your podcast player of choice.
To read more about the topic discussed, click on the following links:
– https://sbcnews.co.uk/retail/2023/10/13/horse-racing-affordability/
– https://sbcnews.co.uk/retail/2023/10/11/bgc-racing-media-payments/– https://sbcnews.co.uk/europe/2023/08/02/bgc-horse-racing-bankroll/
