Future of British Horse Racing Levy
The British Horse Racing Levy Board is increasingly being seen as defunct, toothless and all kinds of useless. The Levy has constantly been dropping and British horse racing simply does not know how to deal with it.
One of the things the British Horseracing Authority eventually was forced to do was cut fixtures. The cuts would be significant, but how much so, is something the BHA has not decided yet. The fixture list for 2011 was to be published before August but has been delayed since. The next deadline is said to be the 23rd of September. Early estimates had put the number of races to be cut at a staggering 250 meets. Most of the races on the chopping block were net contributors to the Levy. Cutting them wouldn’t have helped. The new number is expected to be around 150.
The number could still fall if the tracks chipped in to save the races and support their purses. They would eventually have to because Levy funds are expected to drop another 25%. The Levy system isn’t working and many have given up on the very idea of trying to save it. Cutting races to sufficiently fund fewer purses isn’t a rescue, it’s a slow death. In the end a return of punters to tracks and parlours and only their return is what will save the sport. That is the real challenge and no headway has been made to make horse racing more popular. Maybe less is more.
The Levy board is locked in battle with the remaining bookmakers who still operate within Britain’s borders and are subject to British regulations. The board says they get paid too little while the Bookmakers say they are paying too much. Neither side is backing down while negotiations continue to come up with a number that the two could agree on. That is unlikely because the disparity is just too great.
The Levy Board wants to get £130 to £150 million out of the bookmakers, while they want to give no more than £62 million. Unless the two sides come to terms, the Government would step in to decide on a number for them. That outcome has become increasingly more likely as neither the levy board nor the bookmakers are expected to budge.
There is a severe disparity between how the two sides see each other. From the board’s point of view they are entitled to a larger chunk of cash from the bookmakers, who use their product as a means for gaming. The bookmakers see it as a subsidy, an undeserved and unneeded subsidy at that.
Chief Executive of William Hill, Ralph Topping certainly thinks so. William Hill is one of the largest bookmakers in UK and lately has come out strong against the Levy and those tied to conducting horse racing. “There is no other sport in the UK that has to pay to show its product. The people who are running racing have not made a very good fist of creating a sporting product”.
Racetracks have been offering all sorts of gimmicks to attract people and make money. In that much they have been relatively successful, attendance is up and revenues are still holding even through the recession. It’s still not enough.
“You could put a great day's racing on and no one would come. You could put on a poor day's racing but say it's a ladies' day, and lots of people will come”, Simon Bazalgette, President of the Jockeys Club, said. The attendance isn’t up for the racing events. The crowds are there for the overall show.
Simon said that while racetracks have been able to put on crowd gathering shows, racing has all the while been withering away. “We need to be smart about this and say here's the premiership, here's the championship and here is the other stuff”, Simon said. He added that a championship structure should be created in horse racing.
These are changes that won’t be readily accepted. The only certainty at this point is that the current model isn’t working.
The times, they are always a changing.
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