I was about to post in another thread where the succes of Vic's tiered system experiment is being raised but realized I really want to talk about the BIG problem - we are becoming insignificant

I found a thread I started 4 years ago "How do we make Harness Racing strong via today's sports betting market" but I want us to think more broadly than the betting market.
I am glad I found it however as the 2nd post was from Danno and read

The game needs more exposure to the wider public, in recent years we have been marketing the game to it's brethren.

How you do this is the tricky bit, we get next to no coverage ( unless it's bad) on Radio, TV and the papers, how can we change that?
Does harness racing need a team of highly professional, "runs on the board" publicists? If so what shape does that take and how does it get paid for?

The gallops are facing a similar problem to us but from a completely different standing, look at the papers, they are getting a pretty fair run there.


No doubt David Martin is doing his best in Vic to improve the books but we need to come up with BIG ideas
We have to make the Trots attractive. Seriously, have we ever tried to learn what works off the French or the gallops or anyone else.
I don't read from enough sources and do little more than moderate this forum but I have not seen anything from Dale Monteith or the board so if anyone has, please post something positive to lift my spirits

I don't often see the Herald Sun but did yesterday and read that Roy Morgan research showed that while 11.5% of Vic 18yo+ had a punt in the last 3 months
the research showed that men aged 50-64 are the most frequent punters while only 7.2% of 18-24yo's had placed a bet in the last 3mths

A radical idea would be for racing to offer something more than betting, be less reliant on betting eg. AFL

The Mission Statement of HRV's strategic plan talks about growing 'other revenue streams'

We need to attract some big sponsors from the top end of town

Under Marketing Strategies in the plan we find:

• Eliminate brand confusion
• Market to new people outside existing industry
• Change in Marketing focus and cost reduction
• Work with clubs to increase attendance
• Celebrate and promote our champions, both state-wide and regional
• Extract more from our ownership of RSN and media relationships
• Continue to increase ownership and involvement of syndicates
• Develop and augment the Trots Community Card offering new benefits

How many of these have we done?

We got a new marketing manager back in November - coming up 5mths : What are we doing differently?

How is the Advisory Council going?

Tell me that things have improved since this thread 4 years ago

http://www.harnessracingforum.com/sh...betting-market