A new dawn at Sky Sports Racing

Television coverage of horseracing underwent a seismic shift at the turn of the year. From January, the two satellite channels that broadcast every single race in Britain and Ireland, Racing UK and At The Races (ATR), rebranded as Racing TV and Sky Sports Racing respectively. Racing fans were plunged out of their comfort zones as the two channels unveiled brand-new presenting teams and, even more significantly, a host of changes to track listings and fixtures.

Ascot, the biggest individual prize of all on the racing calendar, will switch to Sky in time for the Royal meeting in June, while Chester will also be on Sky Sports Racing from May. Coverage from all 26 Irish racecourses has moved to Racing TV, though. Premier fixtures like Aintree’s Grand National meeting in April and the pinnacle of the jumps season, March’s Cheltenham Festival, will also continue to be aired on commercial terrestrial channel ITV, as horseracing saddles up to penetrate our TV screens in 2019 more than ever before.

As part of the rebrand and major overhaul, ATR relocated from Milton Keynes – where it has broadcast from since 2012 – to Sky’s enormous studio complex in Isleworth, west London, and EGR Marketing was invited there for a behind-the-scenes media junket in December. National newspaper journalists flocked to the event and were especially eager to find out who the Sky Sports Racing presenters would be.

The channel got off to a good start by persuading Sky Sports News’ horseracing specialist and anchor Alex Hammond to come aboard from day one. She was the first face on screen when the Sky Sports Racing cameras started rolling as the channel went live on 1 January. Hammond, a born-and-bred racing fan, has worked at Sky since 2003. She will be joined by a crack team of racing experts including Jason Weaver, Luke Harvey, Matt Chapman, Mick Fitzgerald and Hayley Moore, alongside new addition Freddy Tylicki, a German jockey paralysed after falling from a horse in 2017.

So what’s the big idea? The rebrand should improve ATR’s coverage of horseracing, both through significant on-track investments and through utilising the tried-and-tested Sky Sports method of adding drama, narrative, insight and innovation to sport and televised sporting contests. Teal has been selected by Sky’s design team as the colour of choice for Sky Sports Racing, and that is abundantly clear as it dominates the walls of the newly created, tailormade Sky Sports Racing studio.

Back to the future

The studio is a futuristic bubble of technology and my first impression is that studios look much bigger on TV than they do in real life. It feels a little claustrophobic, but perhaps that is because half of the country’s racing media are packed in to a room meant for just a few presenters. There is a desk at each end, with one a traditional news desk with presenters sat behind it as you’d expect to find on Sky Sports News, for example. But running parallel is a sofa set-up designed for casual interviews. Think more Soccer AM, than Gillette Soccer Saturday.

“It was important to us to give Sky Sports Racing the Sky Sports treatment so as soon as the customer turned on, they felt as if they were watching a Sky Sports channel,” says Duncan East, head of directors at Sky Sports. “We use two very flexible and agile studios for lots of different sports, whether it be Monday Night Football or our NFL coverage, so we have taken that look and feel and created a bespoke racing set and studio space,” he adds.

The new Sky Sports Racing studio

Between the two desks is a narrow walkway where space is an absolute minimum due to what looks like a state-of-the-art Scalextric set. Two pieces of thick black tracking intertwine throughout the studio like weeds of ivy snaking their way along the floor and climbing the walls. ATR’s director of broadcasting, Rob Dakin, reveals that these are automated camera tracks and cutting-edge technology designed, along with everything else in the studio, to be as efficient as possible.

The two main cameras are controlled remotely in the control room and they can be pre-programmed to learn thousands of different movements. Need Hammond to do a piece to camera about leading fancies for the 3:15 at Newbury? No problem. Just press 1. Need to zoom in on the face of horseracing pundit of the year Weaver as National Hunt star Might Bite storms over the finish line? That will be pre-set 114.

“This is an automated production facility,” says Dakin. “The obvious thing is that there are no cameramen, but two robotic cameras on rails triggered from the gallery. It looks like we are saving headcount but actually the opportunity with the cameras is that you can pre-programme thousands of different moves and save them. The great thing is they don’t need overtime or tea breaks and they never come into work with hangovers,” he jokes. “The automation is not about saving headcount because we were a very lean team anyway. It has given us an opportunity to improve the workflow and produce better programmes,” he adds.

Alongside the in-studio cameras, ATR has made a commitment to vastly improve racetrack coverage. Joining Sky Sports is a significant opportunity for the business to improve its output, so quality of footage should be a priority. ATR’s previous content deal with SIS ended in December, and while it was fit for purpose when the channel was still ATR, it was extremely limited. The footage was not in HD and there was little variation in camera angles. This will all change now that RaceTech is providing the pictures for Sky Sports Racing, and the switch to HD is long overdue.

“It is all well and good having a lovely studio and some nice graphics but the first thing we needed to do was invest in racecourse coverage,” says Dakin. “The great thing about January is that we are going HD finally – that has been a long time coming and a clear frustration for us.” As well as HD resolution, Sky Sports Racing will use dedicated cameras for the start of races at all tracks, as well as dedicated finish line super slow-mo cameras as standard on all coverage of UK racing.

These upgrades are simple but necessary if the casual racing fan is to stay tuned in. Camera trucks at racecourses will also be kitted out with super slow-mo cameras to enhance the drama that viewers expect from Sky Sports coverage. “This was an important addition because it allows you to create those memories and moments like [Liverpool manager] Jurgen Klopp darting onto the pitch in the last minute,” says East. “These are moments that live with the customer forever and become iconic.”

Press conference at the launch of Sky Sports Racing

To further enhance viewing pleasure, ATR has made a commitment to have a presenter at every racecourse, while RaceTech will help fire racing TV coverage into the 21^st century through the use of drone cameras. “Adding additional cameras on the ground is always difficult, so drones offer us a unique opportunity,” says Dakin. “It provides terrific coverage of racing where there is limited space and it becomes about enhancing the replays and the analysis,” he adds.

There are around 12 TV screens in the studio, all of varying sizes, and each one is adorned with what Sky calls ‘Hero Shots’ – stunning high-resolution pictures of professional sports people that are used to introduce competitors during televised events. The biggest screen must be 80 inches and is equipped with the latest touchscreen technology to allow for top-class punditry and analysis.

Sky Sports viewers will be familiar with ex-footballers Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher drawing gyrating red rings around error-prone defenders on the channel’s hugely popular Monday Night Football (MNF) programme. The plan from the powers that be is to re-create this impactful analysis for horseracing, and we get a walkthrough of the new tools when East clicks on the race leader with his finger to highlight the position of the horse at specific points throughout the race.

This in-depth analysis is arguably what sets Sky Sports apart from rivals like BT Sport. Neville’s insights on a Monday night often shape the news agenda for the week ahead and MNF viewers tune in just as much for Neville and Carragher’s debates as they do for the televised game. It remains to be seen whether this will translate to a horseracing audience, and ATR admits this is one of the biggest challenges they face.

The catering conundrum

Previously, many ATR viewers only tune in to keep an eye on the horse they had money riding on. Will they be willing to sit tight through hours of analysis aimed at recreational horseracing fans? Only time will tell, but ATR CEO Matthew Imi is confident that catering for casual punters is one of the best ways to grow the channel in its early days.

Asked whether he was expecting a significant increase in viewers as a result of the rebrand, Imi said: “Good question. Time will tell but we do hope that it does increase. Firstly, we will receive a lot of promotion through the various Sky Sports channels and also the look and feel of the channel will cast our net slightly wider. The intention is not just to maintain the traction of the channel for core racing fans, but also to attract casual sports fans that may not have sampled the sport yet.”

And it would be fair to say that in regards to this approach, ATR is in safe hands at Sky. The director of content and production at Sky Sports, Steve Smith, reveals that creating programmes for casual sports fans, while trying not to alienate the hardcore fanbase, is an eternal struggle and a key dilemma faced across every channel in the broadcaster’s portfolio. After decades spent perfecting the balance, Smith is confident they can transfer the same skills to horseracing in 2019.

“That is the constant discussion we have at Sky Sports,” says Smith. “How do we make main events appeal to a wider audience and how do we keep the core audience happy? It happens with a lot of our rugby coverage too. How do we change our approach for the Lions or England internationals versus club rugby and rugby league? We know fundamentally that when we cover club rugby, we are appealing to core fans, but the skill of the great broadcasters is that they can do that without alienating the core,” he adds.

Later, the event included a Q&A session and The Guardian’s racing writer Greg Wood would not let the issue of potentially alienating the core fans lie. Racing punters are creatures of habit after all. They care about the horse they have backed, and often only that, and the unspoken feeling in the press room is that the shiny bells and whistles that viewers associate with Sky’s coverage may not be replicated with racing as easily as the broadcast execs expect it to. “What about those punters who have backed a horse and simply want to track its progress throughout the race?” asked Wood. “If they aren’t interested in the arty camera shots, are you not risking cheesing off the core audience?”

Smith replied: “Editorially, it is all about answering the question. We’ve eluded to the drones and the technology but that is all about building the event. What you absolutely don’t want to do is not answer the question. If we run replays on football, and you still don’t know what has happened, we’ve let our customers down,” he adds. “We will have to do that with our approach to racing coverage first, and then it will be about building the drama and the excitement like we do with our pay-per-view boxing events.”

Sky Sports Racing hero shots

I don’t mean to keep banging the drum for MNF, but for quality Sky Sports coverage, that is where the benchmark has been set. Before the pre-match tactical analysis was introduced, Sky offered football fans the opportunity to watch individual players and track their positional movements through a tactics camera accessed via the red button during games. This was a little too niche and wasn’t widely popular, but it proves the technology is there. This could be a solution to the casuals versus hardcore fan issue when it comes to racing coverage. Serious bettors could use the red button to follow each race from the point of view of the horse they backed.

“The majority of the two million people watching Liverpool against Manchester United will want the director’s cut, and the same will be true of racing,” says Smith. “But being able to service those two needs is the key. We can serve the hardcore customer and the more general customer, but if we are doing too much arty stuff and not answering the key questions, it simply won’t resonate well.”

Four-leaf over

While many horseracing fans will be grateful for a much-needed injection of drama from Sky Sports, a unanimous disappointment among both casuals and the core will be the loss of rights for Irish racing. Neither ATR nor Irish racing wanted the split, but it occurred after Horse Racing Ireland signed away picture rights to SIS back in 2016. SIS has since ditched ATR and sold the rights instead to Racing UK – Sky Sports Racing’s biggest competitor. The switch was badly received by Irish racing, and the biggest concern is that Irish fixtures on Racing TV will be cast aside in favour of British broadcasts because the channel is owned by British racetracks that need television revenue.

To soften the blow, the Sky Sports Racing executive team worked tirelessly throughout 2018 to seal exclusive deals with Hong Kong Jockey Club for Asian fixtures, France Gallop and PMU for French racing, and NBCUniversal for US fixtures like the Kentucky Derby. Bill Barber, industry editor at the Racing Post, is among those sceptical that foreign fixtures are enough to fill the Irish racing-shaped void. “French racing is bread and butter racing,” he said during the Q&A. “How will you get the ordinary British racegoer to get excited by it? It is not exactly a substitute for Irish racing.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as bread and butter racing,” refutes ATR’s Imi. “I’m not sure France Gallop would see it that way. There is more interest now in British racers and trainers going over to France, so there is a story to be told there. French racing has never done an exclusive broadcast deal before. They don’t do these types of deals, so it is an exciting opportunity,” he argues.

And Imi is a smart man. He understands the gravitas of losing Irish racing coverage, which is why ATR has refused to close the door on bidding for it down the line: “Time will tell if the decisions made have been good ones or bad ones,” he philosophises. “We work in media rights cycles and at some point, Irish racing rights will come back on the market and we might be there to have a conversation.” He adds: “But that happened a while ago. We have moved on since then and for many months now, we have been focussed on this new business and this new channel.”

Many deeply entwined with horseracing feel the sport can only benefit from joining Sky Sports. The coverage, the commentary and the camera work will all improve in 2019 as the broadcaster imposes its strategy and its brand on ATR. It is still early days, but if Sky Sports Racing can add Irish rights to the schedule in the not-so-distant future, it will become the full package and a force to be reckoned with.