MARK SUTHERLAND

Weblog: How I see it

Time for urgent rethink on the sport's funding

THIS week saw another blow for greyhound racing, as reported on racingpost.com, there was a further drop in revenue generatedfrom off course bookies to the British Greyhound Racing Fund for 2010.

The figure for this year now stands at £8.5million, down from £10million in 2009 and £12 million in 2008, that’s a 29 per cent decrease in two years.

What’s worrying is where the cuts to greyhound racing are going to come from, when you consider the spend in 2009:

Prize-money £2.5m
Retired greyhounds £1.8m
Marketing £1.5m
Sampling £1m
Vets support £1m
Racecourse integrity £0.5m
Track safety, other welfare and trainers’ assistance £0.6m
Other areas including IT, training etc £1.1m.

The GBGB need to trim £1.5million off the above spend for this year and I don’t envy their task. Whatever they do there will be opposition and in my opinion they are in a no win situation.
So what’s the answer going forward?

For me there is only one option and that is any off course bookmaker that takes a bet on greyhounds HAS to pay one percent of turnover into the Fund each year. This should be done on a quarterly period throughout the year, to at least alert the Fund if there are going to be any massive shortfalls rather than wait for the next year and declare a huge drop in revenue.

Why should some bookmakers get a free ride when you consider how much money is turned over in bookmakers on greyhound racing every year? One per cent seems a much fairer price for the privilege. The bookies have tightened up their belts with the acceptance of bets from certain punters, which is mainly due to arbers and those that win money, so it is reasonable to presume the bets they do take are mainly profitable.

The leading bookmakers do contribute a decent amount of money to the major greyhound competitions and that is always appreciated by the greyhound fraternity. If it wasn’t for Sky then there would be no greyhound coverage on the box, but sponsorship is obviously is an important part of this to ensure the quality of live racing.

You only have to look at the markets on Betfair for any live Sky card and the turnover is much higher than any other greyhound race during the week, plus the bookmakers must see an increase in turnover and interest, especially the sponsors. So this leads on to the old debate about a regular TV greyhound station.

The problem arises as to who pays for it? GBGB are unlikely to be able to afford it and why should they when they are not guaranteed any extra revenue in return. So how about a regular weekly slot on Sky?

The last couple of weeks have had blank Tuesdays and I personally have missed the coverage, so why not show the heats the week before and a couple of other mini competitions with the qualifiers going through to a final on the main card? For coverage of these extra days maybe Sky could approach six bookmakers to contribute towards the costs of the show and in return have a banner on the bottom of the screen with the bookmakers name and number to call to place a bet. If Sky or not interested then why not approach Eurosport or another channel?

You can’t help but feel down about the way greyhound racing is going, but instead of sitting there moaning let's have some ideas and see if we can pull some purse strings together that is going to benefit everyone.

Any thoughts email me on sutherlandm@sky.com