Ascot hopes to cash in on new breed of fan after throwing open its doors

Ascot hopes to cash in on new breed of fan after throwing open its doors

It began with a slow trickle of punters, filing through the gates with their picnic hampers and their deckchairs shortly after eleven on Wednesday morning.

Free thinkers: Ascot racegoers take advantage of the free admission to the course on Wednesday Photo: AP

By Jonathan Liew 8:36PM BST 27 Apr 2011

Follow Jonathan Liew on Twitter

Comments

In short order the trickle became a steady stream, and then a gush, the like of which Ascot has not seen for many years. Not on a nondescript Wednesday afternoon early in the Flat season.

Nor was this the regular Ascot crowd. The white tie and tails and the ladies’ hats the size of shopping baskets were conspicuous by their absence.

By and large, these were ordinary Joes and Joannes, dressed for no occasion at all. By late afternoon, over 26,000 of them were inside, lured not by the watery sunshine or the intriguing racecard, but by that very British pursuit of getting something for nothing.

This, it is hoped, is the future of racing. For the whole of April, racecourses up and down the country have been engaging in a curious experiment: letting the public in free for a day. Most venues have restricted the offer to a few hundred tickets, but Ascot is one of the few throwing open its doors and doing away with admission fees altogether.

Imagine Premier League football clubs granting free admission for, say, the first game of the season, and you have some idea of the audacity of the enterprise.

It is a scenario that is barely conceivable in most sports, and certainly not at a venue as prestigious as this. But Ascot’s decision to go completely free is a symbol of racing’s desperation to tap into new markets, to broaden its appeal beyond the hardened but dwindling kernel of existing racegoers. In a sport founded upon gambling, this may be the biggest punt of all.

In it tercentenary year, Ascot has a strong motivation to drum up support as the Flat season gets into full stride. While its Royal meeting in June will always be well-attended, it is hosting a new event, the British Champions’ Day, in October. Billed as the Champions League of Flat racing, it claims to be the richest-ever Flat racing event ever seen in this country, with an estimated purse of £3 million. So as well as selling racing as a sport, Wednesday was about selling Ascot as a venue.

The free day may not have cost Ascot too much in revenue — in fact, with increased betting and catering revenues, they were optimistic of breaking even — but the precedent it sets is a dangerous one. Record companies and newspaper proprietors will readily warn of the perils of giving your product away for free. Can people enticed through the gates by the lure of free racing be persuaded to part with £26 for admission to British Champions’ Day?

Upon this question does the success of the venture hang. A total of 28 race meetings at 25 courses have been designated as free, an expansion from a similar experiment last year, which featured just nine courses. Research from 2010 suggested that the initiative generated around 40,000 extra spectators, the vast majority of whom were new or lapsed racegoers.

Encouraging signs for the umbrella group Racing For Change, which has organised this month’s giveaway.

More unquestioningly than most, Ascot has bought into the new strategy.

“There is an argument that says that if you allow people in for free, it devalues the event,” says Ascot chief executive Charles Barnett. “We don’t adhere to that at all. It’s one of our smaller race days, we normally wouldn’t expect a big crowd anyway.

“The majority of our crowd will be first-time racegoers who will never have been to Ascot before. If they enjoy it, maybe they’ll come back and pay next time.” But enough about strategies and revenues. What did the punters make of it?

An unscientific sample of racegoers found that surprisingly few of them were experiencing racing for the first time. Neither of the two newcomers I did find said it was likely they would return later in the season.

Instead, it was the middle ground between the regular visitor and the absolute beginner that found the initiative most appealing. “It’s the quality of the racing that is the most important thing,” said Phillip and Pat Jones, who were members at Ascot in the early Eighties but hadn’t been since.

“Ascot have definitely got their act together in the last few years, since they underwent the redevelopment. We actually live nearer Newbury, but we’re going to renew our memberships here.”

That, ultimately, may be the real growth area for racing. Too many have fallen out of love with it; too many have drifted away. By bringing them back, the sport will go a long way to restoring its status, not only as the sport of kings, but of the rest of us too.
Telegraph.feedsportal.com