WA racing sees Plus-side to new Seven deal
Racing.com a chance to also air racing from Perth
Increasing angst directed towards Sky Racing by Western Australian administrators and participants in part led to the state industry regulatory body breaking away from the Tabcorp-owned broadcaster.
A new deal with free-to-air network Channel Seven to broadcast all of the state’s thoroughbred meetings on its digital platform 7plus, an agreement that was announced by Racing Wagering Western Australia (RWWA) and the network on Friday, could also eventually lead to Perth’s thoroughbred racing being shown on Racing.com’s channel.
While Sky Racing will continue to broadcast Western Australia’s thoroughbred racing on its key Sky 1 and Sky 2 channels, the partnership with Seven will come into effect from September 16, allowing dedicated coverage from the likes of racing experts such as Lochie Taylor and Scott Embry to be accessed live and free.
Brittany Taylor also established a significant public profile during her stint hosting the coverage of Perth racing until she crossed to corporate bookmaking group Entain, which operates the Ladbrokes and Neds brands in Australia and the New Zealand TAB.
The packed schedule of Sky Racing, which also operates the Sky Thoroughbred Central channel, has continually forced thoroughbred racing from Western Australia to be “bumped” to Sky 2 and it has also received little airtime on the premium thoroughbred channel where New South Wales meetings and, to a lesser extent Queensland, take precedence over cards from Ascot or Belmont, Northam, Bunbury or Pinjarra.
The RWWA-produced coverage will also be able to be accessed via its website and the state-owned and industry-run totaliser and TabTouch fixed odds wagering company.
David Hunter, RWWA’s chief racing officer, admitted that Sky Racing wasn’t delivering the coverage the local industry would ideally want in order to help encourage wagering turnover.
The final minutes before the next race are pivotal to capturing punters’ attention and being shunned on the pub and club Sky 1 coverage can be detrimental to the amount bet on particular races.
“Sky has been an important partner to us and hopefully it will be going forward as well, but there certainly has been a level of frustration from us and our industry on the coverage that has been provided on those channels in recent years,” Hunter told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“We understand the reasons for that [and that’s because] decisions by Sky to acquire certain rights have limited our ability to address those [concerns].
“So, we made the decision to go another way, but we don’t want to ever sever our relationship with Sky, that’s not our intention.”
Perth’s $5 million slot race The Quokka (1200m) has been broadcast during Seven’s Saturday mainstream racing coverage and the agreement allows for races to be seen on the free-to-air channel.
“Seven are our media rights partner, so they can take anything that they want to on free-to-air, it’s up to them where they go with it. Regrettably, the time difference, particularly over summer, does make that quite problematic,” Hunter said.
“We will work through that with Seven over time, but it would be nice if we weren’t three hours behind for half of the year. The reality is, it is what it is.”
That said, Hunter revealed there was scope for Racing Victoria’s media arm Racing.com, which broadcasts on free-to-air channels 78 and 68, to take on coverage of Western Australian thoroughbred racing.
Racing.com currently broadcasts all Victorian and South Australian race meetings and occasionally takes some of New Zealand’s signature thoroughbred races.
Hunter said: “There are provisions in our deal with Seven to allow them to sub-licence to other parties, including Sky Racing and Racing.com, and that’s in Seven’s hands initially.
“Our strategy very much is, we want anyone to be able to consume our thoroughbred racing from anywhere, so the broader the distribution, we are supportive of, of course.”
The evolution of how people, particularly punters, consume racing has also led to RWWA, with the support of Perth Racing, electing to side with Channel Seven in an effort to have its industry’s race meetings put in front of as many punters as possible be that on TV, a smartphone or tablet free of charge.
Western Australian greyhound and harness racing coverage, however, are not part of the new agreement with Seven.
“Where are we at with greyhounds and harness racing? The answer is, their rights are exclusive to Sky Racing for another two years,” said Hunter, who has also been told that 60 per cent of Seven’s viewers consume its content via the 7plus app.
“That is the reason they won’t be involved in this deal at all. They have misaligned expiry dates.”
Meanwhile, Hunter indicated that RWWA’s wagering arm – the only Australian TAB yet to be privatised – had weathered the downturn in betting turnover more favourably than many of the corporate bookmakers despite “posing challenges across the board”.
“It is probably the most challenging that I have seen in my 20 years involved in racing administration, but what is interesting, and we of course run a wagering business, is that it has held up much better, we’ve found, than the wagering on our product by the national digital operators,” he said.
“That is probably indicative of a much stronger economy here in Western Australia compared to a more challenging economy in other parts of the country.
“We are starting to see things level out, so hopefully we may have hit the bottom, but time will tell on that one.”