Last Saturday the first of the Triple Crown races was held, won in a late surge by I'll Have Another. Horse racing in the US has been in a decline for a number of years and is looking for good news where it can. Related posts on US racing can be viewed here, here, here and here.
It was reported that television viewership was up for the 2012 Derby. A Paulick Report story noted that the Derby obtained more viewers (14.8 million) than each of the following 2012 sporting events: the semi-final NCAA men's basketball game between the UK and Louisville, the Daytona 500 auto race, and the Masters golf tournament.
To be fair, the comparisons are all against cherry-picked examples. The story didn't compare them against major college post-season bowl games or MLB, NBA or NFL playoff games. The numbers for the 2012 Kentucky Derby were about the same as the average viewership for the weekly Monday Night Football (MNF) game in 2011. That isn't bad, but remember Monday Night Football is broadcast on a cable network (ESPN) and not an over-the-air broadcast network that has more reach (NBC). The last year an over-the-air network (ABC) broadcast MNF, it averaged 16.3 million viewers per week, significantly more than the 2012 Kentucky Derby's 14.8 million. Also, the Kentucky Derby is one of the big races whereas Monday Night Football is the only football game telecast that day, but there are 17 of them per year. The AdWeek story on MNF's viewership can be found at this link.
From the Paulick Report story*, here are the top 20 Kentucky Derby Nielsen rating TV markets:
- Louisville 50 KD
- Cincinnati 34 KD
- Ft. Myers 62 F
- W Palm Beach 38 F
- Buffalo 51
- Columbus 32
- Knoxville 59
- St. Louis 21
- Boston 7
- Indianapolis 25
- Tampa 13 F
- Orlando 19 F
- Baltimore 26 PK
- Richmond 58
- Pittsburgh 23
- Greensboro 46
- Milwaukee 35
- New York 1 BS
- Nashville 29
- Providence 52
- Dayton 64
I added a couple of pieces of information to the list. First, I added the city's TV market ranking per the StationRanking.com website. Second, I added the letter "F" to markets in Florida and either "KD," "PK" or "BS" to markets closest to the racetracks hosting the Triple Crown races: Kentucky Derby, Preakness or Belmont Stakes. Cities close to Triple Crown hosting tracks should generally have good viewership interest. Florida, facetiously known as "the retirement state," has a large body of senior citizens, which is the stereotypical horseplayer demographic.
Analyzing this body of data, the results don't look as good. Only three Top 25 US TV markets are in the top 10 of the Derby viewership markets (St. Louis, Boston and Indianapolis at 8-10). Of the entire 21 markets listed, only 7 are in the US Top 25. Of the top Derby TV viewership markets, 4 of the top 10 and 7 of the 21 markets listed are ranked 50 or lower in the top US TV markets. Of the markets that are close to Triple Crown-hosting tracks or are in Florida, 8 of them are in the top Derby viewership markets.
Overall, although Derby viewership may be higher than previous years, the overall viewership is not all that impressive and skewed toward those markets expected to be interested in the Triple Crown races. Given the average age of the horse racing enthusiast is 50 or older, racing still hasn't figured a way out of the problem that their fan base is aging and in truth, literally "dying off."
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