The new 4k UHD board at Churchill Downs.Photo Courtesy Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer
When you walk beyond the stylized arches of Gate 1, past a bank of outdoor betting windows set under weathered white beadboard and through the maze of passageways, stairs and parlors that is the interior of Churchill Downs, you come soon enough to a terrace facing the historic track where America’s most celebrated horse race is run.
And then you can’t help but see it: a colossal, special-effects structure straddling the backstretch on three black steel legs, towering above stables and grabbing half the sky. The largest 4K, Ultra HD video board in the world — a $12 million build, 173 feet high, with a 90-foot-high, 15,224-square-foot screen the size of three NBA basketball courts.
It’s the latest chapter in the gentrification of Churchill Downs and the reinvention of the Kentucky Derby as a 21st century entertainment event. But before the board and its raison d’être, some backstory — about racing, Churchill and the Derby.
Start with this. In an industry filled with bad news and brouhaha — from a recent undercover PETA video and resultant legal complaints to public hand-wringing and chronic internecine bickering over medication, federal legislation, casinos, slot machines, track surfaces, a disappearing fan base, betting takeout, shuttered tracks and, in short, everything — the Kentucky Derby is the city upon a hill.
The first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs is the one day each year people across the country who never heard of Lasix or Bute, Instant Racing or Super High-Fives follow a horse race that’s long transcended its sport.
The Derby is a rite of spring, the stuff of legend chronicled by William Faulkner (“the moment, the peak, the pinnacle”), John Steinbeck (“an emotion, a turbulence, an explosion”), E.B. White (“everybody gets all dolled up in the morning and drunk at night”), Alistair Cooke (”Jefferson’s original image of America restored”), Hunter S. Thompson (“decadent and depraved”) and an army of broadcast and print media who annually attempt to follow in their footsteps.
The lore and hype are matched by the numbers. In attendance, television ratings and betting, the Derby dwarfs any other North American horse race. Last year, in a steady, daylong rain, 151,600 people attended the race, down from the record 165,300 in 2012, but still the all-time 12th largest crowd. In all, 16.2 million viewers watched the NBC broadcast, up 9 percent from 2012 — the second highest tune-in since 1989’s record 18.5 million on ABC — and the third most-watched program of the week after “NCIS” and “The Big Bang Theory.” And betting from all sources and outlets worldwide totaled $130.5 million on the Derby and $184.6 million on the 13-race Derby-day card, each the second-highest totals ever after 2012’s corresponding records of $133.1 and $187 million.
Statistics like those evidence how much Churchill has transformed both the Derby and itself. In the past decade, it has marketed its legendary race more and more as a with-it, bucket-list experience, launching Derby-week events like “Taste of Derby,” a hunger-relief fundraiser featuring chefs from across the country and “Opening Night,” a meet kick-off “reimagined” with fashion, DJs and a live band; a red carpet for celebrity attendees; and an online Derby party-and-lifestyle website. It has showcased signature foods, branded an official drink (the Early Times Mint Julep) and secured a host of corporate partnerships, including with Yum! Brands (the Derby’s presenting sponsor since 2006), Longines and Stella Artois.
And Churchill Downs’s transformation? For one thing, it isn’t just a famed racetrack in south Louisville but also the flagship of a corporate parent, Churchill Downs Incorporated. CDI, incorporated in 1937, began to expand beyond its namesake track in the 1990s. It now employs 4,500 people and owns and operates racetracks in four states, casinos in five states, off-track betting operations in two states and the country’s leading online wagering service, TwinSpires.com.
Though Robert Evans, CDI chairman and CEO, said, “we had planned to do even better,” last year CDI (NASDAQ: CHDN) reported record net revenues of $779.3 million, a 7 percent increase over 2012, and record adjusted EBITDA of $176.2 million, up 11 percent over 2012.
At Churchill itself, much of the corporate money and energy has been focused on its physical plant. A lot of the bones of the labyrinthine, National Historic Landmark facility — including its emblematic 1895 twin spires, wooden boxes and outdoor betting windows and bricked walks — remain. And its rowdy and blue-collar DNA, however veneered and mainstreamed, persists along with them.
But over the past 12 years, Churchill has undertaken major building renovations and additions that have changed the look, dynamics and gestalt of the track, inside and out. In 2005, it completed a massive $121 million project that modernized its grandstand and clubhouse, providing an additional 404,000 square feet of space, increasing permanent seating capacity to nearly 52,000 and adding 77 luxury suites.
This year, it’s completing its two most expensive and ambitious projects since that modernization: a $14.5 million grandstand addition and renovation and its headline venture — construction and installation of its record-setting $12 million outdoor video board. Work on the projects began last year, and both are to be ready and operational when the spring meet opens April 26.
The grandstand project encompasses construction of a new terrace with 2,400 seats and 51,000 square feet of space — including a rooftop garden, food and drink plaza and restrooms — and renovation of 15,000 square feet of existing space, including improved food and drink stations, vendor areas, mutuel lines, office spaces and restrooms. (Part of the renovation closed a social-history chapter: the last trough in a men’s restroom was replaced with urinals.)
That leaves “Big Board,” as Churchill brands it, the largest 4K, Ultra HD video board in the world (and the only one in an outdoor arena). It stands 173 feet high, with the bottom of its screen 80 feet above ground, and at a weight of 500 tons, supported by 18 steel-and-concrete piers drilled 45 feet deep into bedrock. The Big Board features 9 million lines of LED resolution (2,160 vertical x 4,000 horizontal) for state-of-the-art picture, and to support it, audio delivery on 750 new speakers throughout the racetrack.
The board was manufactured by Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company, which has constructed other major sports-and-entertainment outdoor video boards, including the just completed 20,633-square-foot “Big Hoss TV” at Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas, the world’s largest HD LED screen. (Churchill’s “Big Board” is Ultra HD, with a resolution of 4,000 rather than 1,080, which as has been the standard for the past decade-plus.)
Positioned about midway along Churchill’s backstretch and outside its dirt course, the board will create a 170-degree viewing angle throughout the track and offer thousands of fans something many never had before: a clear look at the Derby.
But the board won’t be about only Derby day or horseracing. The software and equipment controlling it allows for multiple split-screen presentations of video, images, data and live and recorded programming and includes fixed and mobile full-1080i HD cameras. That means the Big Board’s content, generated through four control rooms on site, can span anything from everyday fans (faces in the crowd) to posing celebrities, video games to Twitter tweets, bands on stage to brand messaging.
“This really is about the customer experience and being able to engage with the community year round,” said Kevin Flanery, president of Churchill Downs Racetrack.
“Churchill is competing with sports venues throughout the country. The board is an asset. What we can do with it is to be determined, but we want to use it in a smart way. And we want to make sure it’s entertaining.”
The Derby in 9 million pixels — 20 horses, 150,000 people — will kick-start Churchill’s “Big Board” era. What came before it, for better or worse, will be history.