For those who had a read of the ‘Why are feature crowds down?’ article, here are a couple of responses I received via e-mail.
(If you haven’t read it, click here http://www.brissyraces.com.au/why-are-crowd-numbers-down-on-feature-days/ )
From Stephen
If the on course bookies paid better odds than the tabs/corporates race courses would be chockers every day. There’s your answer, end of story, it’s why I stopped going.
From Glen
Credit is the key in today’s marketing, people will spend money if it physically doesn’t have to leave their wallets. If your friend rings you up and says let’s go and play golf, you say ok because you know you can pay for the round, cart hire and lunch on your card. You then have 55 days to pay for that day before you think about the cost.
If you replace golf with the races when that friend rings you instantly you think…now I need $25 to get in $20 for lunch $50 for drinks + some money for a punt…..and I don’t get paid until Tuesday… so you say sorry mate, I can’t make it. So my first point is to make credit available on track everywhere.
My second point is that if you can’t get more people to the races, which unfortunately is probably the case you need the ones that go to spend more. This is where we come back to my first point. Once some items are able to be placed on credit it then frees up for some extras to be bought with cash.
I know this is simple but it does work.
Great job and passion for the sport Gibbo, hope this can help.
From Ian
Hi Gibbo. In my opinion BOOKIES have a major part to play, they may as well not exist nowadays, we used to go to the races for better odds and the bookies themselves were characters. I agree cheap or no entry fee, reasonable prices for food and drink and some promotions would help. I could go on forever clubs and racing bodies need to wake up.
*That’s just a few ideas of how some followers feel about it all. It is a tough gig for the racing clubs and I’m not sure who has the right answer but let’s hope racing can cash in on the likes of Black Caviar and get the next generation into racing. God knows we need it.
