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Monday, March 4, 2013

Internet Marketing Embraced and the New Grand Circuit

At Sunday's general session of the USTA board of directors, several initiatives have been announced taking advantage of technology and the Internet, from the revised and updated rule book being made available shortly on tablets to a new emphasis on Internet marketing.

The Strategic Wagering Program has been lauded once again for increasing wagering thanks to the guarantees which are shared between the USTA and the member tracks.  Very few guarantees were missed making the program a good inexpensive marketing tool to stimulate wagering..

The message regarding marketing is it needs to change and be geared towards the Internet and social media to reflect the target market's moving away from television and print media.  In a way this is fortuitous as most racetracks don't have the financial means to launch traditional marketing campaigns.  Since online marketing requires less capital, more tracks should be able to market to their target audience which spends a large time on social media and the Internet.

How many times have you wondered who set the morning line at your favorite racetrack?  Well, if things go as planned, you will have to start blaming a computer as the USTA will be working with Trackmaster in their effort to have a computer program set the morning line for racetracks; this being something some racetracks have been looking for.

John Campbell spoke about changes to the Grand Circuit coming this year.  Our own Joe F. provides this dispatch:

John Campbell, the new president of the Grand Circuit, announced Sunday that all non-restricted stakes races in North America will now fall under the Grand Circuit umbrella. Points will be allotted to owners, trainers and drivers, and awards will be passed out at season’s end.

Tracks that had not previously been affiliated with the Circuit, or had allowed their membership to lapse, like Yonkers, Northfield, Saratoga, Hazel Park, Dover Downs, Harrah’s and Red Shores are now part of the syndicate.
Some of the races that did not carry the GC designation last year but now do are the:

Rooney…. Lismore….Yonkers Trot….Hudson Filly Trot….Messenger….Lady Maud….Sheppard….Battle Of Brandywine….Colonial….Valley Forge….Maxie Lee….Betsy Ross….Cleveland Classic….Battle Of Lake Erie….Quillen….Progress Pace….Matron Pace…..Matron T&P divisions….William Connors Open…..Joe Gerrity Series.…Gold Cup and Saucer

2 comments:

JLB said...

I have often wondered about the role of the morning line. To me, it should be created by an expert handicapper to be a guide as to who the likely contenders are. But more than one trackman has told me that the definition of a morning line is to predict what the public will bet. This, to me, is not very useful, as the public sometimes overbets favorite horses (e.g. Nickawampus Leroy in the "old days" at Yonkers/ Roosevelt).

That Blog Guy said...

The morning line indeed is a prediction of how it is felt the public will bet, not who will win. Being some people wager shopping for odds, there is a place for a good morning line.

Where the handicapper should be talking about who he thinks will win is in the comments that tracks like WEG and the Meadowlands put in their programs.