Promoting racing--- but to whom?

Harness Tracks of America is basically the harness industry's "trade association." One of the things it does for those of us in track management is send a daily "news digest" by e-mail. Over the last year, the venerable Stan Bergstein, who heads HTA, has done more and more "editorializing," with the news.

Yesterday's lead item was Facebook? How about AARP. It discussed racetrack's continuing effort to chase younger crowds and find ways to get them to the track (you know, things like Sports Bars, discounted foods concerts and the like and says, quoting HTA executive assistant Brody Johnson (a really with it guy,imo, who is usually spot on with his analyses) "Crowds are great, exposure is great, but people in college don't have much in the way of disposable income and the next older generation had kids, mortgages, student loans and car payments. Why won't racing accept the fact that we have the target audience with the mots disposable income of any bracket, 45 and older males?"

So, should we be marketing to the young-uns or the old-uns? The answer should be obvious and is that we need to market to BOTH! Brody misses the boat here. The college kids of today may not have disposable income, but if we get them to the track for $1 beer while their alma mater is on the large screen playing B-ball, they will be indoctrinated into the sport and in 20 years they will be our base. Same with those in their late-twenties, early thirties. Show them a good time, something special, and when they get to the point of having disposable income, they will come.

Meanwhile, I do not believe we are going to reach a single forty+plus potential patron, male or female, that has not been to the track in the past. They are not going to start coming all of the sudden, just because they have cash in their pockets. They will go slot-playing, or craps-rolling, or poker playing. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Sure, we have to reach them, but if they do not have a background, cultivated when they were younger, they will not start showing up out of the clear blue sky.

So, let's market to both AARP and A-E-Pi and stop the bleeding!