Well, since the NTRA can't seem to come up with crap when it comes to marketing ideas, I'll provide this one free of charge.
ABC is in last place in primetime ratings, unless I am mistaken. Find one of their crappy half hour sitcoms and cancel it. Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday would probably be the best night.
Find a corporate advertising sponsor willing to put up $250,000 or so and start a 20-week racing program where during a half-hour weekly show a "feature" race is shown and people get on line and pick a winner. At the end of the series, see if someone stands out with the most winners, go to total payoff of the winners in case of a tie, and worse case, split the money.
The races could come from various tracks already with night programs, and even Santa Anita and Golden Gate end around 730, so if they just added one more race on any night the were hosting the program it would get them to 8pm EST, I don't see that being a big deal. You would get tracks like:
SA/HOL/DMR
BM/GG
SAMH/LoneStar
Mountaineer/Turfway
You can fill the 20 min of actual broadcast time with the following
- Human interest stories, anything that might atrract new fans
- Jockey profile, start with Pincay since he will has recent publicity in the SI Swimsuit Issue. Do a "day in the life" and MTV Cribs type interview
- Full post-parade coverage, details about each horse (owners, where born, how old, racing record)
- Expert pre-race analysis, but done in laymans terms so as not to confuse.
- Beginners Corner - teach about racing conidtions, wagering, and general handicapping principles, how to read a program
- Post race follow-up with explaiations of wager payouts and race analysis
The idea is to start atracting NEW people and drive home the idea that even if you don't get a winner in the first week, there are still 19 weeks left and no one is going to run all 20 races perfect. Maybe you start to get discouraged by the 4th week if you don't have a winner yet, but if the show in entertaining enough by then, maybe you will be hooked to watch the rest. And at worst, I would hope the ratings would be better than whatever is on there now.
I don't think any regulars would mind "dumbed-down" coverage, it would great just to see this on prime time TV. Get polished announcers and do a better job than ESPN does today, I'd be willing to bet they would have no problem pitching this idea to Al Michaels.
On that note, did you guys hear that John Madden is moving to Monday Night Football and Dennis Miller is out (thank god)
