SA coverage heralds Racing.com evolution – Racing.com

Racing.com is about to go through its first major evolution since the official launch of the joint venture between Seven West Media and Racing Victoria in August 2015.

After being granted the media rights for Thoroughbred Racing South Australia (TRSA) for seven years, Racing.com will broadcast South Australian racing for the first time from Morphettville on August 2, sitting alongside Victorian racing across all of its media platforms.

Andrew Catterall, Racing.com CEO, sees the addition of South Australian Racing as a major win for Racing.com.

"The shareholder agreement that governs the Racing.com joint venture between Seven West Media and Racing Victoria very clearly states that the acquisition of further racing content is in our mandate," Catterall said.

"Racing.com is the only dedicated 24/7 free-to-air sports channel in Australia and the addition of another 180 meetings to the existing base of 520 Victorian and 88 Hong Kong meetings really strengthens our offering of over 3000 hours of live race broadcasting per annum.

"Our channel is available free of charge to 95 per cent of homes, pubs and clubs and every mobile phone, not just in Victoria and SA, but also nationwide."

Catterall has questioned some recent media coverage querying whether Racing.com is doing the right thing for Victorian racing by adding additional coverage from other jurisdictions, including broadcasting five feature meetings of the Brisbane Racing Carnival and 10 meetings from New Zealand, along with winning the South Australian rights.

"The challenge for Victorian Racing is to make the channel more relevant to more people, more often," Catterall said.

"We want to attract punters from all states and territories to our freely available platform.

"Broadcasting South Australian racing is clearly an important outcome to attract South Australian viewers to our channel.

"As the premium product on the channel, Victorian racing clearly benefits from being more relevant to a larger audience.

"Since the launch of Racing.com, wagering on Victorian thoroughbred racing has grown by 18 per cent and has broken through the $6 billion per annum turnover mark for the first time for any state racing authority in Australia.

"This growth in turnover will lead to increased revenue for FY17 for Victorian Racing, for the benefit of all participants.

"Given this growth story, concerns that the coverage of Victorian racing is somehow diminished or that the argument that Racing.com should remain Victorian only are illogical."

Catterall also reinforced that the investment made by Racing.com to secure the South Australian thoroughbred rights from 2017 to 2024 was a well-considered strategic and commercial decision.

"It's a pity that some media commentators continue to publish false assumptions about the commercial deal between Racing.com and TRSA, and don't bother to ring us to fact check," Catterall said.

"The rights payment offered to TRSA covers both domestic and international rights for the period FY17 to FY24.

"Both the domestic and international offers were based on extensive analysis of our capacity to generate a direct return on the investment.

"Our shareholders, Seven West Media and RVL, hold us accountable to getting a return on the investment on behalf of the industry.

"We clearly paid the market price given that the Tabcorp-owned Sky Channel matched our offer through their last-rights option in the auction process.

"In the end, given comparable offers, the superior distribution benefits of Racing.com's free-to-air, Pay TV and streaming model were adjudged by TRSA to be the right option for the future."

Catterall also said that once the rights were secured, Racing.com immediately secured major agreements to recover the financial investment in rights payments, and de-risk the strategy for shareholders and the Victorian industry.

"We have already completed a sub-licensing deal with Sky Racing to guarantee that South Australian racing remains on the SKY 1 wall-to-wall service until 2024," Catterall explained.

"A deal has already been done to sub license the international rights to our partners at the Melbourne Racing Club, which goes through to 2024 as well.

"We have also completed sponsorship deals with our wagering partners until 2019.

"These core deals recover the bulk of the rights investment, and so now we turn our attention to securing as many streaming sub licenses to wagering operators as we can, and finding advertiser partners seeking to leverage SA racing within our nationwide broadcast.

"These streaming outcomes are really important for TRSA as South Australian racing generates around 50 per cent of its revenue, and the majority of all bets taken, from punters outside of South Australia, wagering through corporate bookmakers and interstate TABs that promote SA racing to the much larger national audience."

Catterall said that Racing.com is keeping TRSA updated through learnings from wagering operators on how they have been negatively impacted by the Point of Consumption tax implemented by the South Australian Government.

"This tax impacts on all bets made by South Australian residents," Catterall said.

"We will continually update TRSA on what impact this is having on how the corporate bookmakers promote South Australian racing both in SA and nationally."

Link:

SA coverage heralds Racing.com evolution - Racing.com