I'm a big fan of both sports and I think that one of the big advantages that horse racing has over boxing in terms of popularity is the annual scheduled events that a lot of casual fans still follow. There are a lot of people that don't give a crap about the sport 362 days out of the year, but they still watch the triple crown races. Boxing doesn't have established, annual showcase events of that nature that could potentially turn casual fans into hard-core enthusiasts.
I guess I'm in the minority on this issue, but I frankly don't care if the popularity of horse racing ever returns to where it was sixty or even thirty years ago. What do I care if they right about it in the Chicago Tribune or cover it on SportsCenter? A lot of people seem to care a lot about this issue, but I know I don't. I am actually perfectly happy with the sport's current popularity, and when I go out to Arlington there are usually thousands of kids running all over the place, so I think the idea that there is no "next-generation" of horse-racing fan is something of a myth.
There are dozens of things wrong with this sport right now and yeah, maybe the way it is marketed might be one of them. But I think the powers-at-be should spend the vast majority of their time trying to figure out how to make this sport better for those of us that ALREADY follow (and bet on) it, rather than devoting a lot of time trying to figure out how they can make some teenager switch from poker to horse racing simply through a clever marketing campaign.
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