The Horse Racing Audience Opportunity
SPOTLIGHT 2026
with thanks to supporting contributors
Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges Hong Kong Jockey Club
Mark Wrigley Formula 1
Felicity Barnard Ascot Racecourse
Kylie Rogers Victoria Racing Club
Leigh Jordon Victoria Racing Club
Paul Dermody Horse Racing Ireland
Japan Racing Association London Representative Office
Tom Ryan Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia
Simon Fraser 1/ST Group
Foreword
Executive summary
Chapter 1: The audience opportunity
Chapter 2: The horse racing product
Chapter 3: The digital ecosystem
Chapter 4: The live experience
Chapter 5: The betting experience
Chapter 6: The structural framework
Conclusion
CONTENTS
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Mark Renshaw
Chief Executive Officer, Spotlight Sports Group
Horse racing is one of the oldest and most compelling sports on earth. That’s a fact. When experienced live, it's unlike almost anything else. And yet, for too long, our industry has taken comfort in what has always been, rather than asking the necessary questions about what comes next. This report asks those questions, answering them with tangible data and a genuine cause for optimism. What stands between racing and its audience isn't the product's quality. The racing itself remains extraordinary. What stands in the way is complexity and a failure to tell our own story in a language new fans can understand and connect with. At Spotlight Sports Group, we've spent decades building the data infrastructure and content products that sit at the heart of racing's global ecosystem. Racing Post remains the sport's most comprehensive information platform, and through products like Smart View we are actively working to lower the barriers to entry for new audiences. But data and technology alone are not enough. The whole industry needs to move together. Racing has everything it needs to write its own version of that story. What it needs now is the collective will to put the modern-day audience first on a global scale. We hope this report serves as a catalyst for that conversation - and ultimately, for the subsequent action that follows.
This report is grounded in opportunity, not fear. British racing, Irish racing, European racing and world racing all face similar challenges and threats. No one could claim they are not serious - some might even argue they are existential - but there are answers, solutions and possibilities. Racing is a wonderful sport that should believe in itself. Those entrusted with its care can have confidence in the product while at the same time being mindful that complacency is not an option. As an industry, racing is a major employer. People's livelihoods depend on it. They need it to continue and, in the long term, they require it to flourish. However, for racing to work as an industry, it must first work as a sport - and any sport requires an audience. Central to this report is how racing can ensure it keeps and grows that audience. At a time of serious economic challenges and enormous societal change, and with the retention of racing's social licence no longer guaranteed, there is an absolute need to better understand, appreciate and entertain those who enjoy racing now and those we want to enjoy it in the future. More than most sports, racing has existed with a fan base that is far from youthful. The danger is that as existing fans die, they are not replaced with a new intake of followers. After analysing a host of data, and following in-depth conversations with some of the racing world's most respected leaders, this report sets out a number of calls to action. If adopted, we believe racing can not only survive but thrive.
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Tradition is not a bad thing but it must not be permitted to hold racing back. The sport needs to embrace the new world and never resent it. That means racing's flagship events cannot only be about racing. Racing must be seen as a form of entertainment. Those who attend the biggest days will increasingly demand - and need to be given - a wider live event experience.
Racing needs to make itself more easily understandable to more people. There is a necessity for the sport to do a better job of explaining to people why they should care about its superstar horses, trainers and jockeys. Racing should always be exciting. It should never be mystifying.
Racing must have a closer relationship with its customers, giving them reasons to become interested and stay interested. The sport should have a single digital entry point and adopt separate strategies for customer acquisition and retention.
Betting remains vital to the health of racing in most jurisdictions but when attempting to sell itself, racing should lead with the sport not the betting, mindful that once people become wedded to racing, an interest in betting will invariably follow. In order to make betting as rewarding as possible for punters and the sport, betting products should be more intuitive and easier to understand, with more relevant data freely available and easier to interpret.
Racing jurisdictions are not in competition with each other but rather other sports and forms of entertainment. Given so many racing nations face the same challenges and dangers, the industry needs to think hard about its structural framework and establish more global coordination and collaboration.
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Horse racing’s current global fanbase stands at between 36-48 million fans. Beyond it lies an addressable opportunity of up to 200 million people.
The audience opportunity
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CHAPTER 1
60-80 million in key horse racing markets
100-120 million in key horse racing markets
SPORTS FANS
30-40 million
CASUAL FANS
6-8 million
CORE FANS
Convert
Deepen engagement
Retain & optimise
Audience profiling
There is no point, no hope and no future for any form of entertainment if there is no one wanting to be entertained. Theatres cannot survive with empty auditoriums, football clubs require people to fill the terraces and racecourses need racegoers. No sport can continue to exist if it serves only its own participants. The future of racing, like all sports and forms of entertainment, depends on it welcoming, serving and satisfying a large and engaged global audience that is constantly being replenished. To flourish, racing must understand who its audience is now and who it might be - and arguably who it must be - in the future. Racing's current and potential audience can be presented as a pyramid. Occupying the top of the pyramid are racing's CORE FANS. They love the sport with deep passion and are its most knowledgeable and loyal supporters. They are completely engaged, attentively following all aspects of racing. They also act as a recruiting cohort, influencing others and sharing content. In the middle of the pyramid are racing's CASUAL FANS. These are people who have a real and genuine interest in racing, thereby possessing excellent knowledge. They enjoy watching the sport and betting but lack the intense loyalty that is unique to core fans. At the foot of the pyramid are two separate groups who have the potential to become casual and then core fans. There are SPORTS FANS, people who follow sport but show no real interest in racing. They may attend racedays on an occasional basis but do so because they enjoy the atmosphere and experience provided by live sport. Sharing the pyramid's base with sports fans are ENTERTAINMENT AND BIG EVENT FANS. The members of this group do not identify as sports fans and therefore display little or no engagement with racing. They are drawn to significant entertainment and cultural events and are energised by hospitality, fashion, music and the experience provided by major live events.
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Source: GWI 2026. Markets assessed: UK, Ireland, USA, France, Japan, UAE, KSA, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand
ENTERTAINMENT AND BIG EVENT FANS
6-8 million globally 63 : 37 male : female skew (74 : 26 in the UK and Ireland) 46.3% have a high income, with 31% on a medium income In the UK and Ireland 50.4% have a high income, with 31.4% on a medium income
Core Fans
CASUAL Fans
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30-40 million globally 50-50 gender split both globally and specifically across the UK and Ireland 44.3% have a high income, with 28.9% on a medium income In the UK and Ireland 43.9% have a high income, with 32% on a medium income
100-120 million globally 70 : 30 male : female skew (72 : 28 in the UK and Ireland) 42.6% have a high income, with 32.6% on a medium income In the UK and Ireland 53.3% have a high income, with 29.3% on a medium income
60-80 million globally 52 : 48 male : female skew both globally and across the UK and Ireland 40.9% have a high income, with 31.4% on a medium income In the UK and Ireland 50.5% have a high income, with 29.7% on a medium income
SPORTS Fans
ENTERTAINMENT AND BIG EVENT Fans
Convert sports fans and entertainment / big event fans into casual racing fans Deepen the engagement of casual racing fans, thereby turning them into core racing fans Retain and optimise core racing fans
In the simplest terms, racing must:
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Sports fans in the UK and Ireland also closely mirror racing's gender split, with males making up a little over 70% in the two cohorts.
70%
25 to 44 year olds are 18 to 20% more likely to be sports fans than the average.
18-20%
The Horse Racing Audience OpportunitY
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There is enormous untapped potential for racing to grow its engaged customer base, principally by persuading general sports and big event fans to become racing fans. Moreover, if racing succeeds in that ambition, it will almost inevitably attract new and younger demographics. Sports fans tend to be known as sports fans for a reason. Just as followers of racing will generally also enjoy other sports, it is invariably the case that those who are fans of football have wider sporting interests. There is natural crossover between football, cricket, the two codes of rugby, darts and snooker. There is no reason why racing could not become one of the go-to sports for those sports fans who currently consciously or unconsciously ignore it. Assessed by age group, racing fans (core and casual) and sports fans move in completely different trajectories from early middle age. Within the current population, older age groups are more likely to enjoy racing and less likely to identify as sports fans than their younger counterparts. For racing, the key opportunity is to make a connection with non-racing sports fans when they are aged between 25 and 44. Our index by age group chart identifies that individuals among this age group post an index figure between 118 and 120, meaning 25 to 44 year olds are 18 to 20 per cent more likely to be sports fans than the average. They are therefore theoretically receptive to racing, a sport many of them already attend on an occasional basis. Across the same age group, racing's index figure is only 95. Sports fans in the UK and Ireland also closely mirror racing's gender split, with men making up a little over 70 per cent in the two cohorts. There is a second key opportunity for racing. The 60 to 80 million people who can be classified as big event fans are predominantly young, with their line on the index graph largely moving in the opposite direction to that of racing. For racing, the prime time to target members of this group is when they are aged between 16 and 24. At this point they post an index score of 108 - and are therefore eight per cent more likely to be big event fans than the average - relative to racing's 91 among the same age group. The evidence therefore shows that racing has a clear incentive to target specific groups at specific times. Among 16 to 24 year olds, those who enjoy the major event experience are racing's biggest audience opportunity. Among 25 to 44 year olds, general sports fans should be racing's main target audience group.
Felicity Barnard, CEO of Ascot Racecourse
The HORSE RACING PRODUCT
“The strongest racing experiences are built around emotion, atmosphere and helping people fall in love with the sport itself - creating long-term engagement beyond betting.”
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CHAPTER 2
I one way, horse racing is exceptionally easy to understand. ou need to know nothing about any of the horses running in a race to grasp the basic principle. There is a start, there is a finish and the first horse to get from start to finish is the winner. You can devote hours of form study to working out the winner of the ten-furlong handicap at Windsor but if you back Auntie Rose and the horse wins at 10-1, you get paid out at the same odds as the first-time racegoer who backed her because he happens to have an auntie called Rose. The simplicity of a horse race is one of its great appeals to social racegoers. A person can invest as much time and thought into a race as they wish, yet ultimately all that matters is which horse gallops past the winning post in front. There are no offside rules to understand nor any need to grasp the nuances of leg before wicket. Racing did once have a Duckworth Lewis, albeit only the horse of the same name who once finished third in a Stratford maiden hurdle. However, simplicity will only take a person so far in their journey through racing. If they want to go further into fandom, they will need to dig deeper. They need to understand that Group 1 is not necessarily the same as Class 1. They must come to terms with the handicapping system and search out the meaning of furlong and guinea. They may find it confusing that through the British jumps season the big race from one Saturday to the next is often a Gold Cup but not the real Gold Cup, which is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, although only one race in the entire calendar is officially just the Gold Cup, and that is run on the Flat at Royal Ascot. They may be confused that while in athletics you must generally compete in trials to run at the Olympics, trials in horse racing are entirely optional. They may also be baffled that while a horse rated 120 on the Flat is extremely good, a horse rated 120 over jumps is extremely ordinary. They could also have little idea what a racing season really means given that top races are happening all the time all over the world. Knowing how races in one country interact can be difficult enough. Attempting to make sense of the sport's global structure might be deemed by some a bridge too far. In the one sense, it can be argued all these problems must be easy enough to overcome, otherwise how else could the sport have attained six to eight million core fans? The reality, however, is we live in changing times. If racing is to remain relevant to young audiences, it must also change. It must make itself easier to understand.
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Older generations are relatively more likely to be fans of racing, but less likely to identify as general sports fans. It would, however, be dangerous to believe that what has tended to happen in the past will continue to prove true in the future. Racing cannot merely assume that as young people develop wrinkles they will somehow become attracted to sprint handicaps and staying chases. If racing is to prove popular with a meaningful number of the 16 to 44 year olds previously identified as representing key target groups, it needs to adapt its offering. As anyone with teenagers or twentysomethings will know, younger audiences see themselves as time poor, not least because they want to fit so many different things and interests into that time. They follow multiple sports and interests, all of which are competing for their time and attention. It is into that constrained environment that racing needs to find a place.
Engagement spikes on Saturdays and Sundays, consistent with raceday-driven consumption, not season-long engagement or interest in the sport's leading players.
The changing audience
52% of 18-44-year-old sports fans follow 11 or more sports. Attention is spread thin and every sport is competing for relevance. A clear narrative and visible season progression removes a key barrier to engagement with this audience. (GWI, 2025)
70% of sports fans aged between 18 and 44 follow teams or athletes on social media. The following of personalities is the dominant mode of social sport engagement. (GWI, 2025)
52%
19%
52% of 18-44-year-old sports fans follow 11 or more sports
Attention is spread thin and every sport is competing for relevance. A clear narrative and visible season progression removes a key barrier to engagement with this audience. (GWI, 2026)
While major events attract sizeable attendances, casual racegoers are not being converted into regular racing fans. (Project Beacon, BHA)
19% of the UK audience believes "only big events are worth watching"
19% of the UK audience believes "only big events are worth watching". While major events attract sizeable attendances, casual racegoers are not being converted into regular racing fans. (Project Beacon, BHA)
Consistent with raceday-driven consumption, not season-long engagement or interest in the sport's leading players. (Audiense data, 2026)
Engagement spikes on Saturdays and Sundays
The following of personalities is the dominant mode of social sport engagement. (GWI, 2026)
70% of sports fans aged between 18 and 44 follow teams or athletes on social media
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The sport's age-old dilemma has revolved around trying to persuade those who enjoy a day at the races, perhaps for social reasons or as general sports enthusiasts, that racing is worth more of their time, interest and money. For too many people, racing is indecipherable. They do not understand how one race, day or festival is connected to everything else. While British jump racing is easier to explain due to the dominant position of the Cheltenham Festival, to which all roads lead, Flat racing in most countries has a less obvious narrative structure, both in individual jurisdictions and globally. All too often, casual fans do not understand the importance of what we know to be the best races. As a result, they do not fully appreciate them and are not encouraged to develop their racing journey. While someone who saw Frankel winning at Ascot, Goodwood or York by a huge margin would have been easily able to understand his superiority over his rivals, that same person could easily claim they had seen a low-grade race at one of the sport's smaller venues won with similar ease. How and why should they understand the quality difference between the two? While attempts at creating series in racing have often failed and quickly been discarded, there are exceptions to that rule, one of them being the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series, which last year consisted of 93 races across 15 countries. Similarly, golden ticket races for the Melbourne Cup have strengthened year-long interest in Australia's greatest horse race. Japan's pyramid model has also proved highly effective. By splitting the season into two halves and positioning Group 1 races in the spring and autumn, action constantly builds towards an exciting and easily understandable crescendo. In particular, two of Japan's very biggest races, the Takarazuka Kinen and Arima Kinen are scheduled at the end of the first and second halves of the year, providing natural grand finals. With places in the races linked to fan voting, followers of the sport have a further reason to remain engaged and feel valued.
How can racing respond?
Sam Houlding Spotlight Sports Group, Managing Director B2B
“Racing has a product problem that isn't really about the product. The challenge is that for too many potential fans, it arrives without context. They don't know why a race matters, who they should care about, or where it sits in any broader story. The sport has extraordinary raw material, and that's where we come in. We're content specialists, and we're finding new ways to tell racing's stories on the platforms where new audiences actually live. The bigger opportunity is to connect the sport's major events into a season-long narrative, even a linked global series that fans can follow from one meeting to the next. Give casual fans a storyline they can get behind long before they ever open a racecard, and you've changed the relationship with the sport entirely.”
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Strengthen racing season narratives for the benefit of casual audiences Sequencing major races into a season-long journey would help fans follow racing's story. By establishing a clear easy-to-follow season structure and making key moments more intuitive to follow, the sport's often complex story would become more easily understandable outside its cognoscenti. Casual fans do not currently understand the importance of racing's big events. By providing better context, the sport would boost its prospects of attracting new young audiences and generating excitement. Audiences need to understand what is at play and why any major race or event truly matters. Racing must give those audiences reason to care. Developing midweek content outside of the major festivals (through storyline build-up and offering access to key characters) could provide a platform to bridge racedays and create a reason to follow racing in between its signature occasions.
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Calls to action
"A horse can go into the Derby worth £500,000 and come out worth £20 million. Racing is operating at the highest global commercial level - that's a story we should be telling."
"The JRA's pyramid structure, culminating in Group 1 races, is simple and easy to understand, keeping customers engaged with racing for the long term. This structure captures spectators' interest, not just on Group 1 racedays but also throughout the lead-up to them. This is crucial for customer retention."
Sam Houlding Spotlight Sports Group
"The biggest opportunity is turning major race meetings into part of a broader season-long journey, where each event builds anticipation for the next and creates an ongoing narrative for fans."
"A more consistent seasonal narrative across global Flat racing would be transformational for the sport."
"The racing product needs to keep evolving - supporting new audiences on course is critical to long-term engagement."
Clear, accessible rankings systems for key personalities (horses, jockeys, trainers) can develop fandom The metrics by which success is measured are inconsistent and can be confusing. To help consumers better understand the sport and its principal characters, existing rankings systems should be built on to create a unified set of progression pathways, ranking and qualification routes that enable fans to more easily follow and engage with their favoured participants. Racing must lead with the sport, not the betting In order to attract the widest possible audience, racing should be sold as a sport, not a betting product. While wagering income is vital to the sport's financial health, the marketing of racing as primarily a betting product is not the best way of maximising that income. Indeed, promoting racing as an elite international sport is much the optimum way of attracting (and not deterring) middle to high income earners, general sports fans and potential commercial partners. Applying this model has brought enormous success to the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC), which has found that exposing new customers to the sport in the broadest possible terms inevitably results in those who have a gaming propensity then naturally choosing to bet. Once that happens, there is evidence from racing and other sports that those who do bet are more likely to become loyal followers.
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"When racing is presented as a sport first, around 70 per cent of new fans eventually engage with wagering anyway - the fandom comes first, the betting follows."
"The strongest racing experiences are built around emotion, atmosphere and helping people fall in love with the sport itself - creating a long-term engagement beyond betting."
The DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM
Evidence from the Hong Kong Jockey Club shows that approximately 70% of new fans introduced through the sport, rather than betting, eventually engage with wagering organically.
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CHAPTER 3
There has been a revolution in the way people follow sport. For many young people, the idea of watching anything on television, even live sport, is a thing of the past. New audiences now consume sport on mobile devices. They discover it and maintain an interest through social and creator-led content. They want (and expect) to enjoy it via streaming-first, short-form digital experiences. Other sports have readily embraced the pressing need to adapt what they do and how they present it to the changing needs of current and future audiences. Racing needs to be chasing the same people - and those people have the same demands. 85.9 per cent of the racing audience is mobile first, with peak engagement between 6pm and 11pm (GWI, 2026) 36 per cent of sports fans aged between 18 and 44 stated they had watched sports highlights on mobile in the previous week (GWI, 2026) 18-24 year olds are 120 per cent more likely to watch highlights on social media than 55-64 year olds (PwC) Influencer data shows the racing audience is influenced almost entirely by racing voices, indicating that the narrative is built for existing fans, with limited accessible entry points for a new audience (Audiense data, 2026) Like racing today, F1 faced challenges in how to expand its ageing fanbase. The sport was traditionally seen as complex, male-dominated and focused largely on Europe. Its media rights, content and digital platforms were fragmented across different organisations, making it difficult for new fans to engage with the sport. Also like racing today, F1 had no single digital entry point. F1 was transformed under the ownership of Liberty Media, which centralised digital rights and created unified, narrative-led content, ensuring consistency across markets. F1 gained a single fan-facing digital ecosystem owned by the rights holder - and the impact was extraordinary. The sport's global fanbase grew from 500 million in 2017 to 830 million in 2025. Suddenly, F1 had not only a vastly bigger audience but also a completely different audience. Half the sport's fans (52 per cent) are now under 35, while 47 per cent of fans are female. In a further positive development, 50 per cent of F1 fans are now new fans, having followed the sport for only five years or less. Where F1 has led, racing could follow. Fragmented rights, accounts, content and platform make it more cumbersome for new fans to engage with the sport. F1 has shown that a joined-up global data infrastructure is the foundation of any digital ecosystem. Stakeholders in racing have consistently referenced the absence of a single unified racing database and argued that pooling data - much of which is already provided by Racing Post - into one central source would be a precondition for any audience-facing digital platform.
Chris Duncan Spotlight Sports Group, Group Chief Operating Officer
"The strategy at Racing Post is built around one central idea, becoming the definitive digital home for global racing, not just for the hardcore punter but for anyone who wants to follow the sport. Racing Post already aggregates more global racing data than anyone else in the world. We are focused on making it intuitive and uniquely useful to a new generation of fans, alongside the experts who already know where to look."
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There has been a revolution in the way people follow sport. For many young people, the idea of watching anything on television, even live sport, is a thing of the past. New audiences now consume sport on mobile devices. They discover it and maintain an interest through social and creator-led content. They want (and expect) to enjoy it via streaming-first, short-form digital experiences. Other sports have readily embraced the pressing need to adapt what they do and how they present it to the changing needs of current and future audiences. Racing needs to be chasing the same people - and those people have the same demands.
(PwC)
18-24 year olds are 120% more likely to watch highlights on social media than 55-64 year olds
120%
(GWI, 2026)
36% of sports fans aged between 18 and 44 stated they had watched sports highlights on mobile in the previous week
36%
85.9% of the racing audience is mobile first, with peak engagement between 6pm and 11pm
85.9%
Influencer data shows the racing audience is influenced almost entirely by racing voices, indicating that the narrative is built for existing fans, with limited accessible entry points for a new audience
(Audiense data, 2026)
A decade ago F1 faced similar challenges to racing in terms of how to expand its ageing fanbase. The sport was traditionally seen as complex, male-dominated and focused largely on Europe. Its media rights, content and digital platforms were fragmented across different organisations, making it difficult for new fans to engage with the sport. Also like racing today, F1 had no single digital entry point. F1 was transformed under the ownership of Liberty Media, which centralised digital rights and created unified, narrative-led content, ensuring consistency across markets. F1 gained a single fan-facing digital ecosystem owned by the rights holder - and the impact was extraordinary. The sport's global fanbase grew from 500 million in 2017 - the year Liberty Media completed its takeover of F1 - to 830 million in 2025. Suddenly, F1 had not only a vastly bigger audience but also a completely different audience. Half the sport's fans (52 per cent) are now under 35, while 47 per cent of fans are female. In a further positive development, 50 per cent of F1 fans are now new fans, having followed the sport for only five years or less. Where F1 has led, racing could follow. Fragmented rights, accounts, content and platform make it more cumbersome for new fans to engage with the sport. F1 has shown that a joined-up global data infrastructure is the foundation of any digital ecosystem. Stakeholders in racing have consistently referenced the absence of a single unified racing database and argued that pooling data - much of which is already provided by Racing Post - into one central source would be a precondition for any audience-facing digital platform.
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Create a single, unified digital entry point for new fans Racing has close parallels with F1 in being a global sport in which there is a clear connection between races and participants in different jurisdictions. As such, the sport would benefit from the presence of a joined-up data-rich front filled with innovative modern content that potential fans can reach and be engaged through. Adopt separate strategies for audience acquisition and long-term retention While it is imperative that racing becomes attractive to more people and demographics than is currently the case, it is no less important that it retains the support and enthusiasm of existing fans. Different audiences engage with content in different ways. Ensuring that the method of engagement is specific to these different audiences will help to draw them in and keep them actively interested. Racing would benefit from having separate acquisition and retention strategies, with social and creator-format content for under 35s and CRM, segmentation and channel-matched comms for retention. The Victoria Racing Club (VRC) has actively followed this split approach, with its younger members now receiving texts, not emails. One size does not fit all. Carefully constructed and customer-suited relationships between the sport and its fans are crucial in achieving long-term engagement.
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"Second-screen experiences, live visualisations and broadcast overlays have the potential to make horse racing significantly more engaging, immersive and accessible."
"We've invested heavily in global racing data and multi-language content because we see unified global coverage as the future of the sport."
"When racing data is unified and accessible, the sport can create far stronger digital experiences for fans. A truly connected global racing data ecosystem would transform how audiences engage with the sport."
"The future is building one-to-one relationships with customers through data, CRM and personalised engagement."
"The strongest audience strategies are built around understanding distinct customer needs and behaviours."
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Build a digital and content system that turns racing's characters into drivers of sustained fan engagement The deeper a fan's interest grows, the more they want and enjoy informative, entertaining and extensive content that satisfies their more developed interest and demands. For new fans, creator-led, social-first storytelling is the most effective route to connections with a sport's big names. Racing should further invest in participant-led storytelling to give new fans recognisable characters to follow across a season. Casual viewers need a reason to follow racing beyond racedays. This could be achieved by elevating jockeys and horses into followable characters with their own stories told through short-form video and behind-the-scenes content, thus creating an emotional connection with consumers.
"We're investing heavily in short-form video - meeting audiences in the formats they engage with."
"Trainer access, stable content and behind-the-scenes storytelling are powerful tools for building deeper fan loyalty."
The LIVE EXPERIENCE
Younger audiences represent the strongest opportunity for growth, with 16-24-year-old sports fans 20% more likely to attend live events than older audiences.
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CHAPTER 4
The importance of pleasing divergent customer groups is never more important than during the live racing experience, at which racegoers who go racing purely to watch racing and those who simply enjoy a social day at the races must both head home with smiles on their faces. Once again, there can be no one-size-fits-all solution. Different people want different things; different days demand different treatment. On a quiet Monday afternoon at Catterick, Southwell or Yarmouth, it can be expected that almost all those in attendance have been motivated by the prospect of watching racing and trying to back winners. Yet while that represents the sport's bread and butter, it is not the sort of product that will sell racing to the largest possible audience. The biggest days need a special sort of treatment, a reality that racecourses around the world have already acknowledged and acted upon. A prime example is the VRC in Melbourne, which in recent years has had considerable success in turning around the fortunes of the Melbourne Cup Carnival following a period in which engagement weakened alongside negative media coverage linked to a spate of equine fatalities. The VRC sought to reposition the carnival as a major entertainment event, one in which top-class racing was the prime, but far from only, attraction. Flemington's owners wanted its most prestigious festival to evolve into a broader entertainment and cultural experience capable of attracting younger and more diverse audiences. Ahead of the carnival, the VRC delivered focused marketing campaigns, sought to expand international reach through the Melbourne Cup Tour and worked with data and insight agencies to better understand attendee behaviour. During the carnival, a racecourse was turned into an entertainment precinct, with world-class sport being complemented with similarly impressive entertainment, including a post-racing concert by high-profile music act DJ Fisher, who also made appearances through the afternoon - a race was named after him - and promoted the carnival through social media and live fan engagement. Different locations around the site were devoted to different audience groups, some of which were focused on family groups and equine welfare. The revival worked spectacularly well. The Melbourne Cup, the carnival and racing more generally have become increasingly fashionable with a young audience that itself became marketing tools for the sport by chronicling their visits on Tik-Tok and Instagram. The numbers tell the same story. Since the final pre-Covid carnival in 2019, there has been a 49.5 per cent increase in attendance by those aged between 18 and 29, while the four-day total attendance in 2025 was 286,000, the largest since 2018. If other racecourses can replicate Flemington's success, there is a valuable opportunity to grow audiences and create new racing fans. To do that, however, the live racing experience has to deliver what the modern customer wants. Another excellent example of that in action is France Galop's series of Thursday night evening meetings, Jeuxdi by ParisLongchamp. These are heavily targeted towards a young afterwork audience and have been tremendously successful, with young Parisians now regularly coming to France's premier racecourse from May to July. Although post-racing DJ sets have been essential to Jeuxdi's success, the young racegoers engage with the racing and are encouraged to experience it through staggered admission prices, which are at their most expensive to those who arrive late. France Galop made a further bold move in May this year when switching two Group 1 races from their traditional Sunday home to a Thursday evening, thereby ensuring new racegoers were exposed to some of the sport's very best horses. In Melbourne and Paris, racing is being opened up to potential new fans, just as it has been from one week to the next in Hong Kong and at arguably the most famous of all festivals, Royal Ascot. It can be done.
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The importance of pleasing divergent customer groups is never more important than during the live racing experience, at which racegoers who go racing purely to watch racing and those who simply enjoy a social day at the races must both head home with smiles on their faces. Once again, there can be no one-size-fits-all solution. Different people want different things; different days demand different treatment. On a quiet Monday afternoon at Catterick, Southwell or Yarmouth, it can be expected that almost all those in attendance have been motivated by the prospect of watching racing and trying to back winners. Yet while that represents the sport's bread and butter, it is not the sort of product that will sell racing to the largest possible audience. The biggest days need a special sort of treatment, a reality that racecourses around the world have already acknowledged and acted upon. A prime example is the VRC in Melbourne, which in recent years has had considerable success in turning around the fortunes of the Melbourne Cup Carnival following a period in which engagement weakened alongside negative media coverage linked to a spate of equine fatalities. The VRC sought to reposition the carnival as a major entertainment event, one in which top-class racing was the prime, but far from only, attraction. Flemington's owners wanted its most prestigious festival to evolve into a broader entertainment and cultural experience capable of attracting younger and more diverse audiences. Ahead of the carnival, the VRC delivered focused marketing campaigns, sought to expand international reach through the Melbourne Cup Tour and worked with data and insight agencies to better understand attendee behaviour. During the carnival, a racecourse was turned into an entertainment precinct, with world-class sport being complemented with similarly impressive entertainment, including a post-racing concert by high-profile music act DJ Fisher, who also made appearances through the afternoon - a race was named after him - and promoted the carnival through social media and live fan engagement. Different locations around the site were devoted to different audience groups, some of which were focused on family groups and equine welfare.
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The revival worked spectacularly well. The Melbourne Cup, the carnival and racing more generally have become increasingly fashionable with a young audience that itself became marketing tools for the sport by chronicling their visits on TikTok and Instagram. The numbers tell the same story. Since the final pre-Covid carnival in 2019, there has been a 49.5 per cent increase in attendance by those aged between 18 and 29, while the four-day total attendance in 2025 was 286,000, the largest since 2018. If other racecourses can replicate Flemington's success, there is a valuable opportunity to grow audiences and create new racing fans. To do that, however, the live racing experience has to deliver what the modern customer wants. Another excellent example of that in action is France Galop's series of Thursday night evening meetings, Jeuxdi by ParisLongchamp. These are heavily targeted towards a young afterwork audience and have been tremendously successful, with young Parisians now regularly coming to France's premier racecourse from May to July. Although post-racing DJ sets have been essential to Jeuxdi's success, the young racegoers engage with the racing and are encouraged to experience it through staggered admission prices, which are at their most expensive to those who arrive late. France Galop made a further bold move in May this year when switching two Group 1 races from their traditional Sunday home to a Thursday evening, thereby ensuring new racegoers were exposed to some of the sport's very best horses. In Melbourne and Paris, racing is being opened up to potential new fans, just as it has been from one week to the next in Hong Kong and at arguably the most famous of all festivals, Royal Ascot. It can be done.
66% of racegoers rated socialising as the most important aspect to their day out (Two Circles, racecourse data) Younger audiences represent the strongest opportunity for growth, with 16-24-year-old sports fans 20% more likely to attend live events than older audiences (55+) (GWC data, 2026) Spend on food and beverage is three times higher among Gen Z when entertainment is included at events (TSC internal consultations) Gen Z fans on average expect to pay $70 more on tickets than older demographics (PwC fan survey) 62% of younger fans value unique, memorable live experiences (PwC fan survey) To bring on board that waiting audience, there needs to be a pre-, during- and post-event approach.
Post event Sustained engagement beyond raceday is key to driving repeat visits Expand the use of racecourses as year-round social, entertainment, business and community destinations, not just event day venues, leveraging non-racing events (concerts, festivals, conferences) to bring in new audiences Maximise the use of attendance data to drive repeat visits and ongoing engagement
Pre event Early engagement can shape attendance and experience Invest in data and understand the target audience to create bespoke engagement strategies Expand awareness and brand equity through partnerships and community initiatives
During event The on-course experience is key to deepening engagement Create moments people want to capture and share, extending reach beyond the venue Give people reasons to stay beyond the racing (music, food and social spaces) Invest in high-quality infrastructure that makes people want to return (including upgraded LED lighting)
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"Audience expectations around live events have never been greater, especially for younger fans who see sports and entertainment events as much the same thing. The reinvigorated Melbourne Cup, Longchamp's Thursday evening meetings and our own Royal Ascot illustrate how top-quality events create a virtuous circle, attracting aspirational audiences who share their experiences on social media. For live audiences, the sport and the experience around it are inseparable, and investing in both is essential."
Tom Kerr, Editor of the Racing Post and Spotlight Sports Group Content Director
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Elevate the entertainment beyond racing alone The action on the track must be at the heart of the raceday experience but the major racing occasions need to be treated and sold as must-see, fashionable entertainment events. The additional entertainment should be treated as a core driver of attendance, not an add-on to racing, with music, food, culture and social experiences integrated into the core product. The wider experience around the live racing has to become more engaging, social and immersive. Integrating the non-racing entertainment into the raceday experience will increase customer engagement with the sport, particularly among newer fans. Pre-event marketing and entertainment through the day should also be carefully tailored to different audience types, such as core racing fans, families and younger social racegoers. Build a stronger data and fan understanding The sport's efforts to gain a greater understanding of its customers through the collection of data are essential and should be prioritised in order to gain a clearer understanding of what drives first-time and repeat attendance. Expand reach and relevance through partnerships and brand building By investing in partnerships with global brands, the sport could extend its reach beyond core racing audiences.
"Entertainment has to be woven into the racing experience, not simply added afterwards."
Elevate the entertainment beyond racing alone The action on the track must be at the heart of the raceday experience but the major racing occasions need to be treated and sold as must-see, fashionable entertainment events. The additional entertainment should be treated as a core driver of attendance, not an add-on to racing, with music, food, culture and social experiences integrated into the core product. The wider experience around the live racing has to become more engaging, social and immersive. Integrating the non-racing entertainment into the raceday experience will increase customer engagement with the sport, particularly among newer fans. Pre-event marketing and entertainment through the day should also be carefully tailored to different audience types, such as core racing fans, families and younger social racegoers. "Entertainment has to be woven into the racing experience, not simply added afterwards." Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, HKJC "Before, it was one message to one audience. Now it's about understanding that different segments engage in completely different ways." Kylie Rogers, VRC "The strongest raceday experiences are built around the needs of distinct audience segments." Simon Fraser, 1/ST "I don't think the main issue is format. I think the bigger problem is the content we distribute around the live experience." Felicity Barnard, Ascot Build a stronger data and fan understanding The sport's efforts to gain a greater understanding of its customers through the collection of data are essential and should be prioritised in order to gain a clearer understanding of what drives first-time and repeat attendance. Expand reach and relevance through partnerships and brand building By investing in partnerships with global brands, the sport could extend its reach beyond core racing audiences.
"Before, it was one message to one audience. Now it's about understanding that different segments engage in completely different ways."
"The strongest raceday experiences are built around the needs of distinct audience segments."
Felicity Barnard Ascot
"I don't think the main issue is format. I think the bigger problem is the content we distribute around the live experience."
The BETTING EXPERIENCE
The sport should concentrate on intuitive betting formats that are easy to understand and move away from offering solely those that require a reliance on deep racing knowledge.
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CHAPTER 5
Racing and betting are inextricably linked. Save for those jurisdictions in which gambling is forbidden, betting on racing is an integral part of the sport's fascination for many of its customers. Indeed, without the opportunity to bet, a significant percentage of punters would turn away from the sport. The fascination of trying to find a winner and then backing your opinion with money deepens emotional investment in racing, encouraging audiences to spend more time with the sport, follow narratives more closely and engage more frequently. Although changing political and societal attitudes to gambling have made the relationship difficult in some sectors, betting remains a vital tool in racing's armoury. Thanks to advances in ambition, technology and collaboration, it could be further developed to grow the sport.
Racing ranks seventh globally for sports betting, behind football, cricket, basketball, tennis, motorsports and boxing (GWI, 2026)
Racing sits on a rich data environment, yet some of the data is not yet sufficiently accessible or digestible. Opportunities exist if that can be tackled.
31% of sports bettors cite "feeling informed" as their primary trigger to bet (Statista, 2025)
24.14% of sports bettors are under 25 versus 20.70% for racing bettors, highlighting the growth opportunity for racing within younger age demographics (GWI, 2026)
Racing bettors under-index against sports bettors across younger demographics and in-play betting.
20.70%
24.14%
31%
TH
SPORTS BETTORS
RACING BETTORS
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Simplifying the betting experience can yield only positive outcomes. There is consensus among senior industry leaders that new audiences feel intimidated when trying to bet. There is a commonly held view that using easier to understand interfaces, language, mechanics and onboarding journeys is essential to making betting feel more accessible, intuitive and enjoyable for first-time or casual users. This applies equally to betting off course and at racecourses. Traditional racecards can feel overwhelming and hard to navigate, particularly for inexperienced punters, while complex layouts, dense information and unfamiliar terminology often create friction in the betting journey and reduce engagement. Spotlight Sports Group's solution was Smart View, which simplifies and modernises the betting experience through an intuitive game-inspired interface. The product leverages 40 years of Racing Post data, machine learning and customer research to create the ideal racecard experience. It helps customers quickly understand races, compare selections and make more confident betting decisions, creating a more approachable experience for new and existing audiences. There is already evidence to show Smart View is fulfilling its brief. It has been adopted by three major betting operators with a reach across more than 30 countries. An impressive 93 per cent of customers said they would use Smart View to inform their betting selections, while since being adopted by BoyleSports, customers who use the Smart View card are eight per cent more likely to place a bet. Another success story, and an example of what can be achieved with foresight, is the Hong Kong Jockey Club-led World Pool, which has created a global betting pool across high-profile international races and racedays, in the process delivering valuable new income to racecourses and racing clubs. World Pool combined separate pools across individual jurisdictions to create one massive pool, whose sizeable liquidity was attractive to high-stakes punters. Its popularity continues to grow, with year-on-year turnover up by 24 per cent in 2025. Moreover, World Pool has succeeded not only in boosting global betting turnover, it has also increased global awareness of the sport's crown jewel contests and festivals, thereby helping to erode the historically parochial nature of some racing fans and punters.
"The betting experience remains one of racing's biggest untapped levers. Too many potential customers arrive at the racecard and immediately feel out of their depth. The sport needs to think about the entire journey a new customer takes, from first encountering racing to placing their first bet, and design that journey around them rather than around decades of convention. Smart View was built to address that specific moment, making race data readable and the first betting decision feel achievable. The eight per cent uplift in bets placed since BoyleSports adopted it tells you the demand is there."
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"Richer information consistently drives deeper betting engagement."
"The JRA runs a free horse racing lecture course for new customers at racecourses on every meeting day, helping beginners understand how to bet and engage with the sport from day one."
"When data is visualised effectively, it transforms betting into a far more immersive experience."
"The next opportunity is turning global betting infrastructure into a meaningful audience experience."
"World Pool has demonstrated the transformative potential of globally connected wagering."
Simplify betting products through more intuitive, easy-to-understand formats The sport should concentrate on intuitive betting formats that are easy to understand and move away from offering solely those that require a reliance on deep racing knowledge. Make racing's data more accessible to more people The World Pool has shone a spotlight on the rewards linked to expanding the accessibility of international betting products. The sport should continue in the same vein, positioning global betting as a broader, more accessible product and simplifying access to global pools and markets for new audiences.
Develop betting as part of the wider experience Betting should be integrated more naturally into live and digital experiences to ensure betting enhances engagement, rather than acting as a barrier. The end result should be that customers progress from casual participation to more engaged betting over time. Such an approach has been adopted by the VRC during the Melbourne Cup Carnival, at which racegoers can choose between more than 150 racecourse bookmakers and the club's wagering partner TAB, which offers an array of outlets, an app and representatives helping inexperienced customers. The carnival generates roughly ten per cent of Victorian racing's total annual wagering turnover.
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"The betting experience should feel intuitive and accessible for first-time audiences."
“Our focus is building a betting product that genuinely reflects how fans experience Formula 1, using the narratives, strategy and moments within the race to drive deeper engagement."
STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORK
“Racing does not need a single governing body to unlock its next era of growth, but it does need a shared conviction that a larger and more global audience is good for every stakeholder in the sport”
Mark Renshaw, Chief Executive Officer at Spotlight Sports Group
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CHAPTER 6
Racing is not like other sports
The vast majority have a single universally recognised global governing organisation. Football has FIFA, athletics has World Athletics and cricket has the International Cricket Council. Racing has no equivalent. The advantages of placing control at international level have been seen in rugby union. World Rugby sought to create a more aligned and effective global governance model to support the sport's long-term growth. With 134 national unions operating across different markets, there was a need for clearer strategic direction, stronger coordination and a more coherent international competition structure. Using its centralised governance model and mandate, World Rugby conducted an overhaul of the international calendar to a more connected and commercially sustainable global competition framework. That work generated in excess of £565 million for reinvestment into the sport between 2020 and 2023. Racing has also benefited from jurisdictions working together, often sacrificing sovereignty in some areas at the same time. In Europe, the European Pattern Committee regulates the sport's top Flat races, ensuring nations work harmoniously with each other for the benefit of all. The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities and the Asian Racing Federation continue to do excellent work, while World Pool has shown the commercial benefits - and more besides - of transnational cooperation. At a national level, the Japan Racing Association provides a fine example of what can be achieved with strong domestic coordination and centralisation. While the existence of huge numbers of rights holders will ensure racing is never governed along the lines of rugby union, football, athletics or cricket, there is potential for and reasons why closer alignment between countries would represent a win for racing.
Mark Renshaw Spotlight Sports Group, Chief Executive Officer
"Racing does not need a single governing body to unlock its next era of growth, but it does need a shared conviction that a larger and more global audience is good for every stakeholder in the sport. At Spotlight Sports Group, we're committed to being part of the infrastructure that makes deeper alignment possible, connecting the data, the content and the commercial frameworks that will allow racing to present itself to the world as the truly global sport it already is."
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Global racing could benefit from stronger coordination around audience growth Stakeholders recognise that fragmentation across rights, governance, data and commercial structures can be a barrier to building a clearer, more connected global sport and audience experience. Stronger coordination across jurisdictions, rights holders and commercial partners has the potential to create more coherent products, narratives and fan experiences, while a better sharing of infrastructure could power improved betting content, fan engagement and digital experiences. Future growth may depend on clearer alignment around how racing collectively presents and promotes the sport globally.
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"More connected structures could help racing build broader audience understanding and engagement."
"Formula One demonstrated the power of turning a fragmented sport into a globally compelling product."
"There is a real opportunity to align major international racing festivals more clearly."
"Racing needs globally consistent data to create a more connected international product."
There is ever greater competition for people's time and interest. That is a challenge racing shares with other sports and leisure activities. It also faces certain threats largely peculiar to itself. Inactivity is no longer an option. In all parts of the racing world, there is a pressing need to act today in order to secure the sport's tomorrow. If it is to maintain its relevance, racing has to make more people want to follow its story. To do that, sports fans and entertainment and big event fans must be turned into casual racing fans. More of that group then have to be converted into core racing fans. We believe that is eminently achievable. The calls to action outlined in this report provide an opportunity to strengthen the sport's foundations and enable future growth. They are recommendations already supported by some of the industry's most insightful and powerful figures. Words and thoughts must now be turned into action.
CONCLUSION
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Let’s Continue the Conversation
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