Fox’s Belmont Stakes Debut Plays Up Unique Betting Ties
On the eve of Fox’s inaugural broadcast of the Belmont Stakes, horse-racing aficionados and casual fans alike can look forward to a production that more faithfully captures the atmosphere of the on-site experience. In what marks the first time a network has held an equity stake in the wagering around a premium sporting event, Fox is going all-in on its association with the NYRA Bets platform.
Fox, which owns 25% of the New York Racing Association-controlled wagering service, is looking to help grow NYRA Bets by way of the third leg of the Triple Crown. Throughout Fox’s three-and-a-half-hour production, the network will look to recruit new players by way of a mix of 30-second TV spots and reads within the broadcast that will include a call to action. Viewers will be encouraged to download the NYRA Bets app, and a race-day signup bonus (which effectively allows novices to play for free) should go a long way toward generating new accounts.
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As Fox Sports’ executive VP, head of strategy and analytics Mike Mulvihill sees it, the goal of the NYRA Bets promotions is to convert casual viewers into regular fans and active players. But the app push is also consistent with Fox’s desire to present a more authentic depiction of a day at the track, one that encompasses all the pageantry and merriment of Belmont.
“Horse racing is a poem, a puzzle and a party, and I am a big fan and I don’t know that all three of those elements have ever been presented in an equilibrium,” Mulvihill said. “We want to emphasize all three of those things. It’s the power and the grace of the animals, it’s the challenge of the betting and the handicapping, and it’s just the fun of the social event, so we want to bring all of those things to the show. It’s a new way of presenting horse racing.”
A devout racing enthusiast, Mulvihill is the mastermind behind Fox’s pivot to all things equine, and his vision for the network’s first Belmont broadcast is predicated on mainstreaming the genuine railbird experience. “Because it’s such an ingrained part of the sport, I kind of think it’s overdue for TV coverage to more openly embrace the handicapping and wagering aspect of horse racing,” Mulvihill said. “What you’re going to see from us this weekend is a more explicit acknowledgment of the obvious, which is that betting is the lifeblood of this game. And we’re going to present it as not just essential to the sport, but something that’s really fun that people can do together as a social activity.”
Saturday’s running of the 155th Belmont Stakes will mark the official start of Fox Sports’ eight-year rights deal, which runs through 2030. The network outbid NBC for the package in early 2022. Fox’s partnership with NYRA predates the Belmont deal by a good stretch, as the two parties established a limited content relationship back in 2016. That early deal, which saw Fox serve up more quotidian horse racing events via its branded cable networks FS1 and FS2, was enhanced in early 2021 with its purchase of the stake in NYRA Bets. An as-yet unexercised option gives Fox the wherewithal to bump its share up to 49%.
Online wagering now accounts for about two-thirds of all the money spent on horse racing, and as such, the handle can be expressed in terms of multiple billions of dollars. In 2022, races at Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack and Saratoga generated an on-track handle—a tally that includes wagers made via NYRA Bets—of $291.4 million, up 9% versus the year-ago haul. Since the birth of advance-deposit wagering back in 1975, 40 U.S. states have legalized the practice.
While Fox and its advertisers obviously hope for a robust TV turnout, the absence of a Triple Crown contender has cast a bit of a pall over the network’s earlier ratings projections. Last year, NBC’s coverage of the Belmont averaged 4.72 million viewers, of whom 714,000 were members of the 18-49 demo. By comparison, when Justify ran the Derby-Preakness-Belmont table in 2018, NBC’s coverage of the third leg averaged 12.7 million viewers, including 2.05 million adults under 50.
“Viewership’s always going to be important, because viewership is correlated to ad revenue, but the first thing we’re going to look at after the race is how many people signed up for a new NYRA Bet account,” Mulvihill says. “In terms of the data that will be of the greatest interest to us, we’re excited to see how much wagering we drove through that platform, and how much money was deposited by those new account holders.”
Mulvihill sees Saturday’s race as the first step in what he believes will become a developing model for TV sports, one in which media companies with a position in wagering will use TV exposure to drive betting activity. And if the pilot program is a success, don’t be surprised if Fox somewhere down the line looks to add to its stable of top-drawer horse racing events.
But future deals and big money grabs aren’t the only things driving Mulvihill’s horse racing obsession. He’s been enthralled with the sport since the day he and some fellow undergrads at the University of Missouri made their first road trip to Churchill Downs. “From that first Kentucky Derby, I really got hooked on it,” he said. “And once I graduated and came to New York, the sports experience that was easily the most available and affordable for me was to take the train out to Belmont Park and pay two bucks to get in.”
After the Derby planted the seed, those quick trips on the LIRR nourished what would become a lifelong passion. Belmont was where Mulvihill first became acquainted with legendary announcer Tom Durkin’s calls, and those experiences were instrumental in Mulvihill’s pitch to bring the broadcaster out of retirement.
Belmont was also the place where Mulvihill first appreciated the weird magic of the parimutuel window, where billionaires rub shoulders with broke college grads. “You’ve got guys like me who brought 20 bucks with them and these other guys who own 100 horses,” said Mulvihill. “And because all that wagering money is going into the one pool, the kid with the $20 bill in his pocket has a chance to literally go home with the money of somebody who owns horses that are in the race. And that’s part of the charm of it.”
Fox’s coverage of the Belmont Stakes kicks off Saturday at 4 p.m. EDT (Canadian wildfire smoke permitting, of course), immediately following its early USFL game (Panthers-Maulers). The race will lead into a quick trip up the Clearview Expressway and over the Throgs Neck Bridge to the Bronx, from whence Fox will air the season’s first nationally televised meeting between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
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