The 2015 Breeders’ Cup is in the books and, from official numbers and reviews, it was a resounding success — for Breeders’ Cup Ltd., the organization that administers horse racing’s annual fall championship event; for Keeneland, the historic Versailles Road track that hosted it for the first time; and for Lexington and the Bluegrass region.
First, the numbers for the two-day event. Attendance on the Keeneland grounds: 95,000 — 3 percent below last year’s on-track number of 98,000 at Santa Anita and 17 percent below the on-track record of 114,000 at Churchill Downs in 2010. (The Keeneland numbers are better asterisked — more on that later.) Wagering, full-card from all sources: $150.5 million — marginally lower than last year’s $151.8 million and 13 percent below the record $173.8 million at Churchill Downs in 2010. Revenues: a record of about $19 million. Television: more than 4 million viewers for the final hour of NBC’s Saturday broadcast, with a 2.6/6 rating/share — 53 percent above last year’s numbers but about half the record 5.1/13 rating/share set in the first Breeders’ Cup in 1984 at now-demolished Hollywood Park in California.
Reviews — from local media, civic and business stakeholders and racing industry figures — have run a gamut from adulatory to rapturous. A Lexington Herald-Leader front-page headline termed the event “boffo,” and WLEX-TV called it “spectacular.”
“This was a day that people will look back on and tell people they were here, and it’s exactly why the Breeders’ Cup was created, to showcase the very best of our sport,” said Breeders’ Cup president and CEO Craig Fravel. “We’re thrilled with the crowd over both days, the strong business levels and our gracious hosts here at Keeneland and the greater Lexington area.”
Keeneland President and CEO Bill Thomason called the event “a tremendous success in every way,” and praised “the unprecedented way” central Kentucky embraced it.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the Keeneland team who executed operations at the highest levels to provide guests with an incredibly memorable two days of racing,” he said.
VisitLex President Mary Quinn Ramer echoed the sentiment.
“It was outstanding on all accounts,” Ramer said. “Keeneland did a fantastic job. The city looked and presented at its best. Hospitality was over-the-top, and that was noted by our guests from all over the world.”
Ramer said definitive revenue figures, including hotel occupancies and rates, wouldn’t be available until December, but she expected from “anecdotal” numbers the event would exceed its predicted $65 million regional economic impact (a figure generated by Breeders’ Cup).
Building a Relationship
This consensus leaves an obvious question: Will past be prologue?
From the start, the issue with Keeneland as a Breeders’ Cup site has been size. The historic track in the heart of racing’s international breeding industry offered a natural fit for American racing’s highest profile event after the Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown. But its physical plant and 8,000 reserved-seating capacity were considerably smaller than most previous Breeders’ Cup sites.
To solve their square peg-round hole problem, Breeders’ Cup and Keeneland focused on event quality rather than crowd size. On-track attendance was limited to 28,000 a day by capping general admission — a fi rst for the event and a rarity in racing — at 10,000 and increasing reserved seating to 18,000 through the addition of $5 million worth of temporary structures. Ticket prices were raised to record highs, with a reserved two-day seat costing up to $1,225.
There was also ticketed admission — with no track access — to dining and tailgate areas on Keeneland’s grounds for about 17,000. With 28,000 on-track, that made Keeneland’s official two-day attendance 95,000. But past Breeders’ Cup attendance numbers have been on-track ones (as are those reported daily at racetracks nationwide). An apples-to-apples comparison would list Keeneland’s two-day Breeders’ Cup attendance at 56,000, the event’s lowest two-day total ever. Hence the aforementioned asterisk.
Hospitality vs. Capacity
Attendance aside, this year’s Breeders’ Cup has been widely praised as first-class, even among previous racing industry skeptics like Barry Weisbord, president and co-publisher of Thoroughbred Daily News (TDN) and until June a Breeders’ Cup director. Weisbord questioned last year if Keeneland and Lexington were too small to host the event but has now recanted. “I was wrong,” he wrote in a recent column. “It was the best racetrack hospitality experience of my life. … When are we going back?”
That Keeneland should be an encore Breeders’ Cup site remains a question for at least some in racing, however. Len Friedman, co-author of “The Odds Must Be Crazy” and handicapping guru of the Ragozin Sheets, wrote in a recent online post that future Breeders’ Cups should rotate among Santa Anita, Churchill Downs and Belmont in New York — “the only tracks big enough to handle the crowd and the horses.”
Big enough makes a difference not only in how many attend but in who they are. An event accommodating 28,000 on-track will invariably have a greater percentage of elite attendees — a higher luxe quotient — and fewer average fans than one holding 60,000. Given the acclaim for this year’s edition — and considering its organizing purpose to expand racing’s profile and fan base — Breeders’ Cup seems challenged to balance, in its future sites, great hospitality with broad access.