Guess what? Tonight brings another installment of our first ever EN Blogger Contest Finals. Only slightly less illustrious than American Idol finals, it is still a notable accomplishment for any aspiring eventing blogger. Looks good on any resume, or your money back. Speaking of MONEY, here is Amy Goodusky’s take on our financially-related topic prompt. Don’t forget to play Simon Cowell (pre-X Factor) at the end and vote in the poll.
You can read Amy’s previous entries by clicking here.
MONEY AND EVENTING
If the economy were cast as an eventing parable, it would look like this: a huge, unfit horse, cantering wobbily downhill to a water complex. Once in the pool it would stop and look around placidly as the rider kicked, spectators hollered and the trainer smacked the water with her whip, accruing 790 time faults, elimination, and the dismay of everyone involved, including the rider’s parents who paid the entry fee.
The problem of how to support our collective horse habit in these times seems insoluble. I asked some people for ideas about how to cope with the mounting costs (really, no pun intended) of eventing competition.
Katie Hill, Trainer, Fadanach Farm, Torrington, Connecticut:
In order to fund itself and grow the sport, the USEA needs to look at itself more like a business and less like a club of like-minded individuals. NASCAR is a great business model. Stock car racing started out as a bunch of crazy guys racing on a dirt track, trying to scratch up enough dough for a purse. (Need I point out the parallels here — racing, bunch of crazies, dirt.) Four years ago Fox network paid $1.76 BILLION for the rights to televise NASCAR for 8 years. And this year, 8.6 MILLION viewers watched NASCAR on TV. It will take a while, and a new attitude, but if we follow NASCAR’s model, eventually the Europeans will be trying to figure out how to afford to come over here to compete.
Eventing needs to start thinking of itself as a spectator sport. It should embrace ABC’s Wide World of Sports’ famous slogan “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” Especially the agony of defeat part. Spectators want to experience the thrill of the sport — and some just want to see a car roll over or a horse in a rotational fall. While it would be wonderful if no one was ever injured, and we certainly want to keep working to make the sport safer, danger is in the nature of high-risk sports…from skiing to race car driving to eventing. This danger and those courageous enough to risk it are what could make eventing on TV as profitable as NASCAR. So, more promotion, more TV coverage, exciting stuff.
Creative solutions department: Off track betting on upper level events like Rolex and Burghley with the proceeds going to the events and the eventers. Chief handicapper: Jimmy Wofford, of course. How’s that for “color commentary!”
An anonymous eventer: What if, instead of sponsoring an upper level fence, sponsorship would include payment of entry fees and travel costs for riders meeting certain criteria as a sort of scholarship plan?
Another shy horse enthusiast: We all really like movies about horses, like Hidalgo, Seabiscuit and Secretariat and horses who are in the news, too, like Barbaro and Ruffian. Those horses had tragic ends, but they still garnered national attention. Eventing has Neville Bardos who is not only not a tragedy, but a miracle, but I don’t see any coverage of his amazing comeback outside of devoted web sites and magazines. If we turned the spotlight on our horses there would be more interest, and probably, more money coming in. The Kentucky Derby always has an audience – and that lasts three minutes, not three days. So where is the Over-Fence World of Captain Mark Phillips? We should capitalize on our animal magnetism.
The author’s mother: Disclaimer: My mother has been dead since 2009. Had I asked her, however, she would have winked knowingly and then said this: “Honey- marry royalty.”
