RACING FORUM

Posted: **Tue Jul 23, 2024 8:54 am**

I have to own up to being very lazy and that I have lifted the following from the Racing Post, but those in denial need to smell the coffee. I am not sure that any of my personal gripes and solutions will work for the bookmakers, but we have to make the point just how serious the condition of the sport is.

I have no great sympathy for the bookmakers. They agreed the Media Rights deal so they need to learn to live with it, but who ever thought it was a good idea to give the racecourses the Media Rights revenue need to be accountable.

The tracks have wasted a one off opportunity to improve the facilities and levels of service for race fans and probably just inflated their already over inflated bank balances. They operate at a commercial level far below that which any other business can hope to survive.
Quote:

Writing in the Racing Post amid a media rights row with racecourse group Arena Racing Company (Arc), Ian Brown, the chief executive of Flutter Entertainment's UK and Ireland division, also questioned prize-money levels and asked where its payments to racecourses were going.

The parent company of Sky Bet and Paddy Power has warned racing must embrace major change as it has become "unprofitable" for bookmakers, with a shrinking audience and the sport's "underlying quality" in decline.

Bookmakers contribute around £350 million to British racing's finances annually through media rights payments, the levy and sponsorship. However, Brown warned the sport his firm was paying more for a declining product and said the relationship between media rights payments and prize-money had become increasingly distant.

He added: "Our data suggests that the incremental value customers place on certain fixtures is much lower than what it costs us just to stream those races. Indeed, what we pay as just one bookmaker is often close to the total prize-money on offer.