Biting the hand that feeds

[Horny Harry]

From England........
Biting the hand that feeds
By Richard Evans (Filed: 18/11/2002)
When they are not thrashing us at cricket, those sports mad Australians are pretty nifty at staging outstanding race meetings: the Melbourne Cup carnival being a prime example.
The racegoer is king Down Under and racing authorities, like the Victoria Racing Club, never lose sight of the importance of ensuring the sport's shop window is kept in the public gaze.
To that end, the VRC guarantees racing enjoys the oxygen of publicity by paying around £1 million a year to the Melbourne Herald-Sun newspaper for 12 pages of racing editorial a week, including cards and form.
Analogies between racing here and there can be misleading - Australia does not, for example, enjoy the benefit of a daily trade paper like the Racing Post - but compare their approach with that of our sport's leaders.
The British Horseracing Board wants to charge national newspapers £1.2 million a year for data that makes up the racecards printed every day on this page.
The new charging policy has come about because someone in the Portman Square asylum apparently believes newspapers gain commercially more than racing from devoting acres of newsprint to racecards.
A quick glimpse at the spin off for Racing plc from daily coverage, shows nothing could be further from the truth. Race sponsors like Martell and Vodafone benefit to the tune of £15 million from their name being printed repeatedly in sports pages. But that is chicken feed compared to the sums generated for bookmakers and, via them, for racing's coffers.
Just what percentage of the estimated £7 billion bet every year is down to newspapers printing cards is impossible to calculate. However, the bookmakers acknowledge their turnover would, to quote Simon Clare from Coral's, "fall through the floor without it."
And what do newspapers gain in return, apart from providing a service to dedicated followers of racing?
Precious little if the truth be told. The ageing profile of racing fans, underlined by commercials for insurance to cover funeral costs on the Attheraces channel, does not excite advertisers or circulation managers.
So the benefit from racing's press exposure is virtually one-way traffic. And that may be a point not lost on some senior newspaper executives.
If companies pay newspapers to have their share price listed in stock market pages, why not charge a commercial price for printing racecards which underpin racing's finances?
What is for certain is that, come Jan 1, newspapers will happily drop all cards rather than pay an extra penny. Indeed, some give every indication of relishing the opportunity to do so.
Just why the BHB decided to let this genie out of the bottle is unclear, although the reported profits of the Racing Post, running at around £1 million a month, may well have been the catalyst.
The effect has been, once again, to provoke an unnecessary row and turn allies into antagonists. The endless conflicts and confrontations that plague racing are not just tiresome; there is now anecdotal evidence that they are having a detrimental effect on potential sponsors and others outside the sport.
"It must be one of the worst run industries in the country," trainer Len Lungo said last week. I am beginning to think he is right.

[Seabiscuit]

It seems that Aussie racing might be heading down the same path as the UK. So our UK friend may have spoken too soon when he praised Aust racing authorities and attacked the UK.
The following story is from Chris Scholtz at aapracingandsports.com.au
Sunday, 10 November 2002: Australian racing and newspaper interests have a sweetheart relationship that, while not always goodness and light, works beneficially for both industries.
Racing knows it needs strong and positive media support to promote the “product”.
Conversely the print media knows good racing coverage sells papers, even if there is disdain among editors and boardroom bean counters over the extensive space that has to be devoted to TAB race fields, form and results for little upfront financial return.
Media giants News Limited and Fairfax moved to reduce racing coverage to a bare minimum several years ago due to the “space” demands of ever-growing TAB meetings.
This threat was nipped in the bud when deals were struck with TAB organisations to underwrite racing coverage, ensuring all TAB meetings received due space.
News Limited won the multi-million dollar contracts. Fairfax missed out but has maintained a more than worthy coverage rather than give the Murdoch press carte blanche over the racing market.
But interesting times lie ahead as the mail is out that that the “pay-for-space” TAB contracts are unlikely to be renewed when they expire next year.
In NSW for instance, TAB Limited executives believe there is now enough quality coverage and information available through a wide range of print and electronic sources (e.g. internet sites such as AAP Racing and Sports) to ensure punters get all the form and data they need on a daily basis.
If the contracts are not renewed, it raises the question of how News Limited and other media groups will react to a withdrawal of TAB funding for the printing of race fields etc.
Clearly it would be just the excuse the boardroom heavyweights are looking for to reduce racing form coverage to a bare minimum unless it can be subsidised by other sources, which is highly unlikely.
Obviously such a response will raise great concern among Australian race clubs in desperate need of the coverage to generate the turnover that keeps them financially viable.
If the newspaper executives truly believe that racing sells papers there should be no worries, even if the current coverage is curtailed somewhat to save print space.
But how will the newspapers react should Australian race clubs, already desperate to raise funds as sponsorship money becomes harder to obtain, follow the lead of their English cousins and start demanding that newspapers pay for the “privilege” of printing pre-race information.
I can assure the doubters, who think it may never happen here, that it has not gone unnoticed among Australian racing executives that the British Horseracing Board has moved to obtain a circulation-based royalty fee from the UK print media for the use of privileged
pre-race data such as fields, jockeys and weights.
Such a payment in the UK is not new, as newspapers have paid the BHB an insignificant sum of 4000 pounds a year for their “pre-race data”.
However the BHB is now asking for the major daily newspapers to pay a fee of 0.03 pence per copy and specialist racing publications up to 10 percent of “relevant revenue” attributed to the display of race fields and other privileged information.
For a major London daily paper – such as the Daily Telegraph – this fee will amount to 90,000 pounds per year.
In total the royalty fees would bring the BHB an additional 3 million pounds per year, a figure that ensures Australian race clubs do sit and take notice of what eventuates in the UK.
The BHB, interestingly with former Australian racing executive Greg Nichols at the helm as chief executive, says it is acting out of “commercial reality”.
“The proposed charges are not aimed at screwing the pips out of newspapers,” said a BHB spokesman.
"As we move into a new commercial era, we are moving from charging a nominal rate to one that is a more appropriate balance between the value that newspapers derive out of inclusion of race cards and the value that racing derives.”
The situation in the UK is obviously the opposite to what currently exists in Australia – but for how long?.
Here, the days of newspapers being able to extract payment for racing coverage seem numbered.
Conversely, race clubs will realise they hold copyright over the use and display of their “privileged” information.
Furthermore, clubs that have been paying for their race data to appear in various forms in print or on the internet will come to see it as an unnecessary expense when the same information is freely available elsewhere.
As you read today’s racing form in your daily paper, take time to think of the old adage “watch this space”.
It may have a completely new meaning for racing in the near future.

[masun]

The British Horseracing Board wants to charge national newspapers £1.2 million a year for data that makes up the racecards printed every day on this page.
The relationship between the racing industry and the newspapers is not unlike that which exists between the music industry and radio stations. Should music companies pay radio stations for playing their records or should radio stations pay music companies for use of their music? The answer is clear cut. In the US, the music companies have to pay hundreds of millions dollars to radio stations to have their music played. Similarly, in a confrontation between the newspapers and the racing authorities, the newspapers will emerge the winners.

[Horny Harry]

I find most newspaper form guides to be fairly useless. Good for a gander, with a few interesting snippets here and there, but thats about it. If you were to use it to punt with I dont think that you would be too successful.
In Australia I would prefer to get my form off the net ( some of it for free) or pay 4 bucks and get the Sportsman which is one of the best and easiest to read data bases available.
Others I know pay for AAP ratings / form etc off the web.

[masun]

I find most newspaper form guides to be fairly useless. Good for a gander, with a few interesting snippets here and there, but thats about it. If you were to use it to punt with I dont think that you would be too successful.
This is undoubtedly true. However, most punters, at least in HK, get their info from newspapers. To convince yourself, just walk past any off-course betting centre. Most people are studying the form using newspapers. From what I have seen, that's why most people do in the UK too. So if the main dailies stop printing horseracing data, my guess is that more people will pay more attention to soccer betting.