Primetime Derby?
 

I was listening to the reairing of Steve's show (sorry, Steve it was a pretty day out, I had to catch you later) and with Steve Haskin's point that Saturday primetime not working as well for scripted shows and I've always heard it described as a graveyard, I wondered what everybody's view here was.

Do we need to just get used to the idea and try it out over time for graded races at Churchill to make sure it's not just novelty that things went well the Friday they did it? Is it a horrible idea? If it's good to do it on a Friday, should they consider going from Ladies' Day to Ladies' Night and run the Oaks that way instead? I'd imagine all the stuff going on at night before the Kentucky Derby, I wonder if it might stir some horses up when they could use a good night's sleep. I don't know that I have enough information to analyze myself and develop an opinion. I'm still brainstorming pros and cons along with what they'd need to prove first if they did do it. One of Steve's callers said something about an overlap of the NFL Draft and the Derby next year, but that's the first I heard about that. I just thought I'd mention it as an aside.

Here is Steve Crist's original thoughts on an evening Derby... Haskin made a good point that a cold, rainy first Saturday in May would be make for a particularly miserable Derby experience; a point Crist hits on as well. Interesting conversation/concept...

Night and Day
Crist Blog | June 24, 2009

http://cristblog.drf.com/crist/2009/...t-and-day.html

There's been a lot of talk here the last few days about the feasibility of running the Kentucky Derby at night, prompted by Churchill Downs's three-Fridays experiment with night racing that began last week. My initial impulse was to regard this as nothing more than idle and fanciful speculation, as no one at NBC or Churchill Downs has ever seriously proposed moving the race into primetime, but a couple of smart people in the television world tell me it's not the craziest idea they've ever heard.

I was not the caller, but this was pointed out in the Sunday Boston Globe by NFL writer, Mike Reiss:

The NFL draft now starts around 3 or 4pm, so it's first round would run concurrent with the Derby, if all of this ends up holding true. ESPN is also one of the outlets that has gavel to gavel coverage, along with the NFL Network.

Overall, it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure the pros outweigh the cons of a prime time Derby.

I'd be all for this idea. The weather excuse is not a good one, because a cold, rainy afternoon isn't great either, but you can still expect 140,000 + would show up. The extra advertising revenues could outweigh any negatives on that one of five years that weather may be an issue. Open the gates at noon instead of 8am, first post at 2pm with the Derby at 9pm. Selfishly, I might actually get more than 3 hours of sleep on Derby eve....and the thought about the Oaks at night is really interesting.

cdfan
 

I think a nighttime Derby would not be good for the surrounding neighborhoods. Sunset Derby Day is after 8pm, so you're looking at least 9pm. 150,000 people flooding those small neigborhood streets after dark, I think safety issues would arise.

The Oaks at night would be interesting, but having the Oaks on Friday night and then having an early post time for Derby Day (9:30 CST this year) might be more than what the CD workers could bear.

After seeing the insane popularity of Friday nights at CD, it isn't that ridiculous of an idea.

Did you go?

It's too effin' hot fo' me.

Yes. It was effin' hot alright for this Yankee for the first few races, but once the sun started setting it was OK. It was off the hook. Absolutely ridiculous. One of those moments where you're like "what f*cking took you so long to figure out this would be great?"