One would think it wouldn’t be something as complex as a new fangled electro Rubik’s cube mixed with Wordle and then having the Hammer Of The Gods come down hard with Overthinking. But for various reasons, this is what’s happening and, more to the point, not happening...
Let’s say that someone from one racing jurisdiction has exclusive racing content and are paying a third party to carry this content on their racing channel to reach a different audience.
The third party agrees and moves forward without perhaps thinking things through. Like how their own product must be a priority to their audience and which means shelving the other foreign product agreed to be broadcast for pretty good ka-ching.
What happens next is stumbling around and continuing to move the goalposts- and both parties needing to be “flexible”.
“Flexibility”? In a pretty straightforward business contract?
“Flexibility” in yoga, yes. In terms of a business agreement between two parties? Well, that’s a stretch.
Hence the somewhat uneasy alliance these days between the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the coverage of its racing product in Australia on Channel 68/78, the home of racing.com.
Though the channel produces good, solid and predictable programming one expects for its hardcore audience of racing fans, what appears not to be working is that despite the ka-ching paid out, the HKJC just might be being short-changed.
For instance, Hong Kong racing cannot be shown on racing.com when there’s weekend racing from places like Ballarat or Sandown or Gawler etc going on.
This makes sense as the channel’s priority is showcasing its home grown product.
Hong Kong racing is shown when it doesn’t clash with the local races, and often starts from around the fourth race onwards.
It’s keeping things “flexibile”.
Plus, when the Hong Kong races on weekends are finally shown in their entirety, there often seems to be a need to immediately cut to commercial breaks, meaning that the results and payouts go walkies.
What are the options for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, especially for its commingling market in Australia?
Yes, there’s the usual dog’s breakfast on Sky Racing with various racing and wagering product from all around Oz including harness racing and greyhound racing plus, whenever available, thoroughbred racing from Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, America and Japan.
All this becomes an ongoing ping pong match between Sky2 to Sky1-and vice versa.
On Sky, Hong Kong racing is competing for viewing time, and sometimes relegated onto a split screen with greyhound racing.
It’s hardly the way world class racing, which is how Hong Kong racing wishes to position its product, should be presented. No one is gonna sit around staring at their television sets with remote controls at the ready.
Sure, there are other ways to watch Hong Kong races from wherever anyone is via apps etc, but apart from sounding somewhat old school, the engagement level depends on the viewing habits of today’s fickle consumers.
Most have more “apps for saps” than one knows what to do with taking up valuable storage space on mobile phones. If anything, these days, everyone is downsizing.
Also, at least some in Hong Kong have had one of those “black boxes” bought years ago for around HK$800 from the triad run area called Mongkok.
When plugged into television sets or computers, these offer free access to every ‘live’ sporting event going on.
All of the above, however, is not where we’re going with any of this...We’re going somewhere else- and today.
Delivery channels, VPNs, partnerships and The Art Of The Deal aside, anyone with some knowledge of technology and understanding how it can be used to take creativity further, not only can offer a buffet of original content interesting to a particular audience, it can be the master of its domain, 24/7 via, let’s say, a four hour loop.
This can also offer exciting new online business streams and juicy carrots for those who might be looking at horse racing as part of their business portfolio and deciding if there might be a return on investment and time.
What’s important for the horse racing industry to understand is today’s constantly changing media landscape and the need to be part of it instead of clinging to a past that is no longer here.
The global music industry learned the hard way around 2001 about Change Or Perish when it decided to sue that agent of change named Shawn Parker, below, and Napster.
The savvy Parker had created the free music file sharing site Napster which was launched in 1999 for US$50,000.
In only a few months, the startup had attracted millions of users. The major music labels and the band Metallica didn’t like this, sued and won when they had their day in court.
The music industry might have won the battle, but it lost the war.
It didn’t take long for Shawn Parker and other tekkies and young entrepreneurs in school dorms to return in full metal jacket mode.
They took over the online world with companies like Plaxo and had the support of hundreds of millions of music fans.
With a 15 year old kid named Mark Zuckerberg, Parker took something called Facebook to where it had never thought about going before.
Audiences found these new online destinations to be younger, hipper, easily accessible and having different content, far more interactivity and with original user-generated content.
They weren’t outsiders looking in. They were now part of whatever it was that was happening. They had a sense of belonging.
The tail was wagging the dog and it’s still wagging Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Ol’ Yeller, Huckleberry Hound et al.
A paradigm shift had happened when the music industry was asleep at the wheel and not listening to Bowie singing about those Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
Horse racing hardly has the audience of the online music world.
It definitely could, however, improve its current consumer base IF open to finally giving the pastime a makeover long needed while still keeping the hardcore business of wagering as part of two very different profit centres.
This can rebrand racing’s media landscape and change the game by adding to it without confusing its existing ageing and dwindling market.
It is, after all 2022, the world is slowly learning to live with Covid, and there’s a sizeable audience out there not exactly in the autumn of their years, nor bogged down by microwaved minutiae.
This is an audience happily streaming away and looking at what’s come and gone and discovering new online ports of call.
The challenge for the racing world is not to be locked out in the cold.
The opportunities to attract, primarily the 28-42 market still looking at whether racing is for them, are there.
It’s knowing what attracts them and making that initial introduction compelling enough.
This can be done while still holding onto the older and existing market.
But to carry on as if nothing in the world has changed?
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