RMG & HBA on creating a one-stop horse racing shop

Racecourse Media Group and HBA Media first partnered three years ago, pooling their global horse racing rights.

RMG brought the majority of British racing, as well as all Irish, Dubai and Bahrain horseracing, to which HBA added the Saudi Cup, US Triple Crown, Arc de Triomphe, Breeders’ Cup, Royal Ascot, Melbourne Cup and the Hong Kong International races.This has culminated in the creation of Crown Jewels Racing last year, a package including 20 of the biggest horse racing events spaced out through the year. 

Seb Vance, RMG’s director of communications and international TV distribution, told Broadcast Sport, “Broadcasters who had been showing racing on an ad hoc basis, now have a series which they can promote from one event to the other and therefore create a meaningful horseracing narrative throughout the year. It works for the racing clubs too, with the top-class events leveraging each other to ensure everyone benefits from meaningful international TV exposure. ” 

As part of Crown Jewels Racing, the pair provide condensed live productions for broadcasters who don’t want to show whole events. This has allowed for further integration between races, which hadn’t been as prevalent before. Called CJR Golden Hours, Vance explained that they include, “CJR titles, CJR presenters, and a CJR fantasy game to create consistency and give the sport’s international TV rights an eye-catching new brand. Obviously, each race has its own appeal from some of the most exotic and fascinating settings in the world – from Miami to Saudi, from California to Hong Kong – but they are all linked via the CJR brand, and as soon as one event finishes, we tell audiences to stay tuned for the next. Many of the horses and jockeys will compete throughout the series, which breeds familiarity and added interest for the audiences.”

While moving horse racing to a more integrated season has clear benefits, there are challenges too. This Saturday, 5 April, sees two of the sport’s biggest events, the Grand National at Aintree and the Dubai World Cup, take place within 90 minutes of each other. Vance said, “This unusual scheduling is primarily influenced by the timing of the holy month of Ramadan and a shorter three-week gap between the Aintree and Cheltenham Festivals. Adding to this, an unexpected UAE weather forecast of extreme heat has necessitated a one-hour adjustment to the Dubai World Cup schedule. It presented us with a unique opportunity to showcase two of the most spectacular and contrasting racedays in the calendar within the space of a couple of hours.”

Broadcasters will have the choice of the full Aintree world feed, produced by ITV, and the full Dubai world feed, produced by RMG. In addition RMG and HBA are expanding the RMG-produced Golden Hour to three-and-a-half hours to showcase both events, which Aly Vance will host from Aintree. Around 40 broadcasters in 170 territories are showing the races, with most taking up the combined production. 

Those taking the CJR feed include airlines and cruise lines broadcaster Sport 24, owned by IMG, Indian broadcaster Fancode, ESPN in Latin America and the Caribbean, SportsNet in Canada, SuperSport in Africa, and Viaplay in Europe, which will dub into Dutch for their audience.

In addition, Dubai Racing Channel and Dubai Sports will take full feeds from Meydan and Aintree respectively, Fox Sports in the US will take live coverage of Dubai and show a recording of Aintree, and CNN International and Trans World Sport will feature both races in their World News and magazine programmes. The Green Channel from Japan will show the full feed from Dubai, and is also at Aintree to film a documentary on the Grand National.

Vance noted, “What initially looked like a scheduling headache has actually really caught the imagination – and is a great opportunity to show what a diverse and entertaining sport this is.”