Marketing, Social Media and the Bad Suits who don’t understand it!

It’s been a long time since I wrote, it might have been writer’s block or just generally being depressed at the current state of affairs in our sport. Didn’t know what to write about but thought the general disconnect the Clubs have with the public would be a good subject to touch upon.

One of the phenomenons of the past decade has been the rise of Social media. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok and many more such apps where absolute nobodies have become,”influencers” from pretty much nothing to getting tickets to fight elections from major political parties as a result of their self created fame. Racing of course has missed the bus yet again despite having enough content to have been able to use this medium to grow their fan base. Racing as a sport is perceived to be a sport that is known as the, “Sport Of Kings” for a reason. It costs a lot to race, further it’s multifaceted and multilayered with so many different variables yet we have failed miserably to sell it to the 1.3 Billion we have among the masses in India.

We missed the Television bus because we lacked the know how as to what it took to get on TV. We missed the Satellite TV era too as sports like Kabaddi rode that made for TV boom to prosperity. Sports promotion is about promoting stars, sadly the only visible star our sport had, Vijay Mallya is no more part of racing as a result of his various financial problems. The real stars of our sport are the main protagonist ie the horse itself. The clubs yet again fail to utilize our equine stars to promote the sport.

Last year we had the good fortune to race a prodigious talent as good as Sir Cecil. Thanks to advice from my good friend Marthand Mahindra we got TCG Studios on board to follow his campaign, though sceptical at first I was surprised to see the response that we got from the racing fraternity. His Bangalore Derby win alone has over a Million hits on YouTube. I never thought racing would produce a so called viral video but TCG Studios racing content has over 5.3 Million views. Sir Cecil has more than a third of that alone. Mainly due to the slick production work by TCG and our star protagonist; Sir Cecil. The result of our campaign has been a large number of casual and even non racing fans who have got involved with racing. Many strangers have messaged me regarding the Grey and even now post his retirement, many enquire about his well being. We are a single organization in what is a sport with many personalities and similar or bigger set ups, the biggest of those setups being what I consider the bane of our sport, the, “Clubs.”

Our Clubs are pedantic, quasi governmental organizations run by people with little or no skin in the game in most cases. I’ve written about this earlier but let’s talk about their efforts or lack there-off in publicising the game. Most of our Clubs are absent on Social media completely the exceptions being RWITC and RCTC to some extent. Unfortunately both fail to engage fans of the sport, both do a perfunctory job of regurgitating results and pictures of races that are already run almost as if it’s a burden. Racing is supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be about personalities and more importantly their horses. They need to bring in a bright mind who understands that and builds on it. Using a Club employee who in the first place has scant knowledge of how to use the medium isn’t just wrong it causes more damage without the poor guy even knowing. Before we start talking about budgets and the lack of funds, do consider that social media is a vehicle for free self publicity. So it’s a plain and simple case of apathy from our clubs!

Consider the fact that someone like Dan Bilzerian can rack up 28 Million followers on Instagram, despite pretty much being an unknown before the app was available should tell you how effective it is when you know how to use it. I’m very active on Twitter and love engaging with racing fans from around the world and more so from India. Every major jurisdiction in racing around the world put out content which promotes their big race days and the stars who turn out at these racedays. Take Enable for example, not only is she truly talented but because of the way she’s been promoted to the world every one of us feels like we own a piece of her. Her owners, Juddmonte Farms, her trainer John Gosden, her jockey the ebullient Frankie Dettori have all worked at engaging with us. Whichever track she races at, uses her presence to attract more people to come racing. Similarly The Breeders Cup in America has been running content across social media platforms to engage and get more people involved in the mega event across continents. Even the birthplace of racing England has embraced the concept of engaging with their fans. The Henry Cecil Open Weekend at Newmarket where racing fans are given unprecedented access to the training yards and facilities at Racing Headquarters has grown into a seriously well attended and big event. Sir Mark Prescott opened his historic Heath House Stables to the public and his tours of Newmarket on YouTube are fantastic. Sir Mark doesn’t know it yet but he’s building himself up a burgeoning worldwide fan following.

The internet has made our world a lot smaller unfortunately our clubs still look inwards within their little islands. Nowhere else in the world will you find Chairmen giving long speeches about their events rather than having the views of the winners’ connections or those of the participants instead. Unfortunately this happens across every Club in the country, the racing fan couldn’t care less about the politics of the sport. To put it in perspective I don’t know who runs Ascot, Churchill Downs, Flemington or Longchamp or Santa Anita. What I do know are the horses that run there, the owners and trainers who run their horses there and the jockeys that ride there. They are the stars of the sport, the officialdom are akin to the event management company that runs an event, the less visible they are the more successful their event has been. Everyone wants to see the actor not the director. That microphone is a dangerous piece of equipment in the wrong hands.

Clubs need to start promoting their product a lot better and production needs to be a whole lot slicker. Better pictures, better cameras and most importantly better presenters. Many of those who fancy themselves as racing presenters in India would be better doing an advertisement for Calmpose or rather would be competition as a natural alternative to Zolfresh. The product is there and believe me it’s good enough it’s about time the clubs start looking at how they package their product to enhance the fan’s racing experience. If done right it’ll bring them back again and again and might even encourage them to bring along some friends. Racing as a sport falls in the aspirational category make it look what it is, right now it’s made to look a bit like a Diwali fete, bring in some glamour, it’s the Clubs’ responsibility to run a proper campaign to make sure of that. See how Formula 1 has made going round and round in circles in machines, into a nuanced multifaceted sport with many layers with lots of glamour and glitter surrounding it. Closer home see how Indian Polo promotes themselves on a much smaller budget. Horse Racing has many more layers it’s incumbent on the exhibitors of the product to get their heads out of 1980 and use the tools available to them to peel off those layers.