NTRA Marketing Summit

So the National Thoroughbred Racing Association's Marketing Summit, held Sept. 21-23 in Las Vegas, was, according to the NTRA, a rousing success. With emphasis on reaching a new generation of fans, the session with the same title led by John Della Volpe (director of polling for Harvard's Institute of Politics) heard suggestions from independent racing bloggers as to how to best recruit newcomers to the sport.

Many of the suggestions were very tech heavy and focused on how to link the internet to live racing. Virtual racing, the use of widgets, ring tones and mobile alerts were all proposed and all sound promising. So does the use of "ambassadors" as guest hosts at race tracks to introduce new fans to the sport up close and in person.

While all of the ideas were certainly forward thinking, I could not help but notice the lack of attention paid to the marketing of the actual horses as attractions. It seems that a lot of the focus is on developing a new generation of racing bettors rather than racing fans. After all, if you love horses, you can love watching them without betting on them.

Note that Alex Waldrop outlined his "vision" for racing in the publication Horseplayer Magazine, not say Equus. Now I'm sure Horseplayer Magazine is probably a better venue for the strategic plan, than Equus, but my point is that the information is being directed at the bettor not http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifthe horse lover.

On one level, I certainly understand that the financial future of the sport is directly tied to luring more handicappers to the game, BUT I also think the NTRA is seriously missing the point by ONLY appealing to those players. Not everyone who goes to Las Vegas gambles. Not everyone who goes to the races bets.

It seems to me a multi-pronged marketing approach is what is needed: one that appeals to sports fans, horse lovers and handicappers. Of course before you can do that you have to make sure that there are no skeletons in your closet. And in my opinion, the NTRA has a bit of "cleaning up" to do before it lets the casual fan get too close.

Let's hope that some of the proceeds from this new generation of bettors actually end up benefiting the horses.

You can read the full report here.