Bill Veeck on televising racing
Maverick baseball owner Bill Veeck ran Suffolk Downs from 1969-1971 and documents his experience in Thirty Tons a Day: The Rough Riding Education of a Neophyte Racetrack Operator. In his first year, Suffolk Downs ran the richest turf race in the history of American racing - the two mile, $200,000 added Yankee Gold Cup.
The race had created such interest around the country that ABC-TV had approached me indirectly about telecasting it live on Wide World of Sports, which would have meant a windfall income of something like $50,000. The catch was that they wanted me to delay the race for an hour so that it would fit into their programing. And that I wasn't going to do. I had instituted a policy of Precision Post, which meant that the races went off scrupulously on schedule, not when the last dollar was shoved through the betting windows - a radical departure at Suffolk Downs. I certainly wasn't going to throw it away on the big race of the year. Besides, television may run the world but it doesn't run me. There is, I think, a not-so-subtle difference between having the TV people point their cameras at your race - which is a form of reporting - and subjugating your race to their programing. When you accommodate yourself so docilely to their direction, your race becomes a TV show, your track is reduced to a backdrop, and your customers become props. "You want to telecast the race?" I told them. "Fine. But it's our race you'll have to telecast, not yours."
Jean-Pierre best thirteen others to win the Yankee Gold Cup in 3:19 4/5.
The race had created such interest around the country that ABC-TV had approached me indirectly about telecasting it live on Wide World of Sports, which would have meant a windfall income of something like $50,000. The catch was that they wanted me to delay the race for an hour so that it would fit into their programing. And that I wasn't going to do. I had instituted a policy of Precision Post, which meant that the races went off scrupulously on schedule, not when the last dollar was shoved through the betting windows - a radical departure at Suffolk Downs. I certainly wasn't going to throw it away on the big race of the year. Besides, television may run the world but it doesn't run me. There is, I think, a not-so-subtle difference between having the TV people point their cameras at your race - which is a form of reporting - and subjugating your race to their programing. When you accommodate yourself so docilely to their direction, your race becomes a TV show, your track is reduced to a backdrop, and your customers become props. "You want to telecast the race?" I told them. "Fine. But it's our race you'll have to telecast, not yours."
Jean-Pierre best thirteen others to win the Yankee Gold Cup in 3:19 4/5.
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