SA RACING DOOMED ?

It appears nobody "in a rush" to give a positive input?

.....the only positive is that we still have an industry.....however scarred, bashed, trampled, poor, sick, infected and under injected.....however not the right people in the positions to try and stop the downward spiral let alone turn it around.

Louis,come on and tell us mate ...............you and I have been boxing for a couple of years, because I have been saying the exact same thing ................what turned you around and made you see the light!

Dave Scott wrote: It appears nobody "in a rush" to give a positive input?

Very perceptive Dave.

Sadly, a frightening scenario awaits the horse racing industry. A brave post by Louis who once again shows his love and commitment to this wonderful sport. Any odds on a positive response from the powers that be?

Welcome to South Africa if you are bent you survive.

Racing will still be around long after most of us have passed on.

The current model might not last that long though and a stubborn reluctance to change will see some falling on their swords.

Racing solutions is not as far fetched as it might appear if looking at recent history but the value of unlocking longer term gains needs to be understood and supported.

The jurassic churn model, although a fine servant for many years has become a crutch that impedes growth and should be reserved for racing's faithful and complemented by modern initiatives.

No genius required to see that this model is past its sell by date if maintained on a standalone basis.

lsu u talk a good game and im assuming its u posting frequently on the s.p site so please enlighten me in simple English please as to how you would go about fixing racings problems

Pirates

We all know that racing has many problems and that most of these problems are the result of not being able to convince new players of the merits of involvement in our game.

When money dry's up it is very hard for any business to maintain the quality of its product which causes a domino effect on delivery.

You can only squeeze so much out of the current player and merely adding products is not the answer even though turnover might improve over the short term as we see in our local market at present. I am not hyper critical of all the newly introduced products as some of them are very good and have instantly attracted some fairly decent support. They don't target the root cause of the problem though which is to reach out to a completely new or different customer base and this is why they will only provide a short term gain for racing.

Racing has to make itself more visible to the uninitiated if it is to compete with the likes of the Lotto, casino's and sports betting for the leisure and wagering rand.

I believe strongly that new products are required to reach out to a younger, more tech savvy generation, but certain specific objectives have to be covered in the design to be successful, not just a generic of what we already have.

Two design objectives are vital if we are to attract new support to racing. Firstly the product must support rapid pool growth and large pools that can compete with the aforementioned lotto and casino jackpots. Racing needs this to create awareness and interest to get involved.

The most important and challenging objective is to get new players to commit to the learning curve and complete the learning curve if they are to become long term customers for racing. Racing's greatest strength is it's ability to create annuity income as skilled players seldom leave the game, but getting people to commit to arguably the longest learning curve in wagering has proven to be a difficult challenge.

This is the area that needs the most attention in product design as you have to convince players to not only get involved but to stay involved and for long enough to become skilled players.

To do this games have to be affordable and entertaining for new players and I am not talking about the minimum bet amount but rather the entertainment value of the money spent by new players.

Current formats have very little chance of achieving this as they all have an elimination based methodology that knocks out new and even skilled players early on in most instances.

Extended multi leg formats with no elimination and longer term benefits will serve this purpose very well and this is the route that product development has to go. Formats that promote competition between friends, family, colleagues and that feature bragging rights will offer great opportunities to get a completely new breed involved in the sport.

Involvement needs to be fun even when losing as most players lose on more occasions than they will win which is why a competitive social angle is also required.

We have developed a few of these products (Scoreline is one of them) and they could be rolled out tomorrow if the betting operator were willing to support these initiatives.

Unfortunately they feel that online products is not worth the effort as there is not enough traction in our country yet to give it a go. This is where we need people that realise the value of creating traction rather than waiting for it to happen first.

We have another really good initiative that we will roll out in the next year but it is obvious that we need to reach out beyond just the tote operator as they are regrettably not keen on supporting innovation.

We have designed this product, called Equine X to be offered by anyone with a gambling licence or even on a social network like Facebook, so we will see how it will go. Cannot say more about it at this time as we will be submitting the final draft of a patent application very soon.

Will share with you guys once in a position to do so.

thks lsu so basically you all for this new concept its a rush story ...to be honest its all above my intelligence but my main concern in racing is we cannot keep the current customer happy by just trying to do the basics right so lets rather get that house in order first before we actively go and try and attract new ones .unfortunately I cannot see this happening because its a people issue and until the industry really goes into meltdown or the current powers that be are replaced it wont happen..all I see happening at the moment is the deck chairs on the titanic are being rearranged

I agree with you Pirates as securing attendance without wagering is a waste of time.

Money is needed to fund the game as players become instant spectators whereas the reverse has proven to be of little value over many years of exposure at big race days.

Punters will only reap benefits if racing can become profitable again which will not happen if the customer base remains in decline.

In line with the current subject..........why not link the crowd and the horseracing on these party days.
Instead of having the sponsors prizes for best hat ,silliest outfit ,best dressed etc hand out dummy PA,j'pot and Pick 6 tickets,as raffle type tickets, with prizes linked to "bet types"

All tickets have random numbers but designed like perms ( ie.P6 tickets all have 6 numbers in the first leg ,5 in the 5th etc.)
Whats the point .............well continued participation depends on the next race and you want to keep people in as long as possible, to keep their interest in watching the races and concerning themselves with the results............imagine people still in with legs to go ..........will they know their numbers ........yes....will they know the horses names ..........yes..... will they watch and shout ............yes....................could they get hooked on the bet type for the future .............maybe!
I would bet that some ,if educated as they go along, may feel inclined to extend the excitement to "a more often thing", for real money,instead of prizes.
At least most partygoers will have also watched ,and participated, in what racing is really about!

Good suggestion Rob

The race day experience is already highly entertaining. Get the product/wagering experience to live up to it as well and racing will be able to reach out far more effectively to new customers.

Non-elimination for new players is absolutely vital to retain their interest and to motivate continued involvement.