Have The Racegoers Gone To The Big Racetrack In The Sky?

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday September 13, 1989

ALAN AITKEN

So the alternative spirals continue, and the wheels continue to be greased. Life, with all its accoutrements, goes on.

Doubtless the news that Sydney Turf Club attendances were down by about 10 per cent will be greeted with a widespread pillorying of Sky Channel and those administrators who slayed the on-course crowds in Sky's name.

Further tomatoes will be picked up in preparation for throwing with the announcement in the Australian Jockey Club's annual report that their crowds dropped from 596,116 in 58 meetings during the 1987-8 financial year to 528,359 for 56 meetings last time around.

That's a fall of almost 68,000 people, or 11.37 per cent - or 843 souls lost per meeting. And the dwindle at both clubs comes to a tidy 11.32 per cent over the year.

While the STC lost $715,000 for the year, the AJC tucked away a little$67,000 earner, but Ray Alexander added that the club actually did enjoy a better year than that figure might indicate.

What does it all mean? Racing goes on. Prize money goes up. People keep betting more. Nobody goes. Why? Why not?

Well, both clubs are quick to point out that the wet weather was responsible to some extent for the moderate attendance figures.

The STC was hurt badly by the lower crowds, feeling the pinch where it hurts most - in the soft underbelly of on-course betting. Their on-course tote investments fell by $12 million.

The question that leaps out is whether Sky Channel is, in fact, to blame, or should be blamed. Is Sky Channel, in fact, doing its job?

During the same year, despite washouts and cancellations, TAB investments were a record $2.633 billion - up $207 million - and the TAB distribution surplus rose by $12 million to $67.34 million.

NSW galloping clubs will share more than 58 per cent of the total, receiving $49.4 million.

TAB marketing man Ken Page has said that Sky Channel is probably translating into an additional $3 million a week in TAB investments.

In future years, that spur to TAB sales will result in club handouts dwarfing anything they could be making through the on-course tote.

Perhaps in the final count, that has to be the function of Sky.

Race crowds were shrinking before the TAB came along 25 years ago. The TAB has helped to accelerate the flow but it can be argued that the clubs have assured their own existence by selling their product to national live telecasts.

Quite probably, crowds would be continuing to drop with or without Sky Channel. Once again, it might just have accelerated the trend, and the price received by the clubs may well justify it in a purely economic sense.

The AJC receives $12.6 million from the TAB this year plus $2.7 million for administration. The STC gets $12.5 million.

The Racecourse Development Fund has another $16.83 million jangling in the piggy bank.

How would racing earn that money without the TAB? And without it, how would the clubs offer the type of prize money they presently do?

Alexander said that the AJC expected submissions today from its advertising people regarding television ads to attract customers to the races at lesser meetings.

"Sky Channel is certain to be a help on the big days," he said. "But beyond that we might continue to struggle."

Good to see the principal body is trying to do something about it, but racing now seems to be heading towards a situation where the lesser events are a sideshow to ensure the turf's few showpieces - the backless prop-saloons in a Hollywood western around which the real action is played.

The arrival in TABs lately of leaflets on how to take one of the new mystery bets seems ominously linked. Yes, you just bowl along to your TAB, whack in a totally-blank trifecta slip and out comes a set of numbers chosen at random by the TAB's obliging hardware. You hand over the dollar and racing will get 3.2 cents of it.

It has nothing to do with racing's original heartland of horse and rider and the colourful contest. Nothing to do with bold, fragile creatures of flashing eyes and pounding hearts and real flesh straining real physiques.

The mystery bet is the ultimate polarisation of sport and participant. Even the relative dryness of form plays no part. Sad, but inevitable.

In a world where anything that makes a dollar becomes little more than a set of figures, multiplying and marching onward over themselves every year, racing has made the transition from a sport to an industry.

Sky Channel and the sport of racing are merely capital equipment to churn out money for the TAB, and, in turn, it provides money to keep racing flourishing.