Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Rescheduled Derby results in handle, TV rating declines
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Is the Kentucky Derby the Kentucky Derby if it is run four months after the first Saturday in May?
Handle and viewership numbers would say no.
Total betting on Saturday’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, held without spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic, fell 52 percent, while initial television ratings data indicate that the viewing audience fell by at least as much. Total betting on the entire Derby card also fell by half, and data collected from charts strongly suggest that wagering on the race and the full card suffered mightily by the absence of bets from the usual celebratory ontrack crowd, as well as the wagering that would normally take place at hundreds of racetracks and OTBs across the country, some of it sent through the windows on behalf of friends who don’t normally wager on racing.
There were a handful of other major macroeconomic factors impacting the general public’s interest in the Derby. Weather conditions were ideal across much of the Midwest and Northeast on Saturday, giving people ample alternatives to a day spent sitting inside watching a horse race that had been dislodged from its traditional pegs. Economic conditions in the United States remain nowhere near normal, with unemployment still at recessionary rates and ongoing restrictions over how people gather and spend their money. The Derby also was held on a three-day weekend typically associated with end-of-summer travel and backyard barbecues.
Racing factors were significant as well. The Kentucky Derby was held this year six weeks after the Belmont Stakes, which normally caps the Triple Crown season but this year was run, nominally, as the first leg of the series, at a distance of 1 1/8 miles instead of its usual distance of 1 1/2 miles. In any other year, the Derby would be preceded by three months of sometimes mainstream discussion about the candidates as they navigated their ways through the crowded spring prep season at racetracks running live across the country. That didn’t happen this year, and talk of Tiz the Law, the Belmont winner, making a Triple Crown run by winning the Derby in September rang hollow, if not absurd.
The total wagering number for the Derby, $79.4 million, was down $86.1 million from last year, when betting set a record for any North American horse race at $165.5 million (the latter total includes money from a separate pool in Japan). Total betting on the 14-race card was $128.3 million, the lowest full-card handle total for the Derby since 2002, and a number that was just more than half of the record set last year, at $250.9 million. Full-card betting on the Derby had risen three years in a row prior to Saturday, and the 2019 record number was nearly $60 million more than the card had attracted just three years earlier.
Still, the two numbers were the best for any race or any race card this year, underlining the strength of the Derby among horseplayers, who have been resolute throughout the pandemic at having a bob on the races that are being held spectator-less at track across the United States. In August, total handle on horse races held at U.S. tracks was down a mere 1.6 percent compared to August of last year, according to figures released the day before the Derby, while average handle per race was up 9.5 percent. The August figures followed a July in which total betting on U.S. races unexpectedly jumped 16.6 percent, at a time when the NBA, NHL, and baseball were just gearing up to restart their seasons.
The handle declines on the Derby were not unexpected. The Belmont Stakes and its undercard attracted about half the bets the race would typically get in a non-Triple Crown year, and the Kentucky Oaks card held the day prior to the Derby suffered the same fate. Not having fans on-site for both Churchill cards had a dear cost – in a typical year, Derby attendees push $20 million through the windows, while Oaks attendees put in another $10 million.
The initial television rating for the five-hour Derby broadcast on NBC indicated that viewership peaked at 10 million viewers at the time of the race, and that the broadcast had a 14 share, a measure of the percentage of televisions in use at the time watching the broadcast. Last year, with the Derby coming off Justify’s successful Triple Crown run in 2018, the Derby broadcast posted figures that were easily double that viewership number, and share was a 25.
The broadcast numbers weren’t helped by Churchill’s reluctance to promote the Derby in the lead-up to the race, a decision that company officials made in deference to the general unrest facing the country and, more specifically, within Churchill’s immediate orbit. Louisville has become a center of the Black Lives Matter protest movement, and demonstrators had already made it clear that they would use the Derby as a backdrop to gain national attention for their goals.
On the positive side, the Derby viewership number was the best for any sporting event held since the Super Bowl in February, according to NBC, and the best for any sporting event ever held on Labor Day weekend. It was at least comforting to see that the Derby is still a mustsee for the racing world and a decent portion of the general public, but although people could talk all they wanted about the race this year still being the Kentucky Derby, hardly anyone was fooled into thinking it was the first Saturday in May.