As reported at Bloodhorse.com this morning, there seems to be a slight shift in attitudes from those in racing regarding pari-mutuel pricing:
"A national reduction in (pari-mutuel) takeout is another way of attacking the pricing model,” Basler said.
........Nick Eaves, president and chief operating officer of Woodbine Entertainment Group, indicated racing can’t afford to wait for change.
“It seems to be that the ultimate determinant of a pricing is a customer’s ability to pay,” Eaves said. “Is there something the industry—horsemen and tracks—can do in the meantime. If we wait, I think we’re all finished.”
Just two short years ago the prevalent mindset with ADW especially, was to try and cut into the ADW share by asking for more money, while leaving the takeout alone. We at HANA have reported on why we believe this would not be beneficial to racing, and have done so for some time as one of our planks.
We are encouraged that at the very least racing is speaking now in terms of gross takeouts - i.e. how the pie is split up is not the problem, the price of the whole pie is. We believe this is a tremendous shift in thinking from racing and if they can keep focused on lowering the price to "a customer’s ability to pay", we will make progress in stemming the massive handle losses racing has seen over the last several years.
2 comments:
I agree in that it will help. But I do have to say this is pretty rich coming from these two guys. Basler who forces the Ohio race tracks to charge a minimum of 7 % host track fee and holds the tracks hostage until the day before or a few days before providing his horsemen's approval. Quite simply Ohio tracks simply are not worth 7 %.
AND Nick Eaves. This is a guy that could lower his takeout but simply does not. On top of that he restricts his signal and if you are lucky to get it you again are paying between 7 % and 11 %.
These two guys are like Tracknet and CDI. Say one thing to the press and public but do just the opposite!
The industry is going down the tube because you have leaders like this that simply should not be leaders in that they were never taught by their fathers that if you are going to talk the talk you need to walk the walk!
Again I agree with you HANA that there needs to be a correction in pricing in not only the takeout but IT HAS TO be in conjunction with the host track fee!
If there is in fact an attitude change within the industry, HANA deserves some credit for raising awareness of the issue, but Waldrop offered the same message month's ago without any follow-up. To what extent did HANA pursue the issue with Waldrop? Will they now pursue it with the above-mentioned individuals?
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