Q&A with Breeders’ Cup consultant William Field

When Breeders’ Cup Ltd. launched a strategic planning process in 2008, the company turned to William Field, a sports management consultant who has worked extensively with sports leagues and organizations around the world over the last 25 years, including Premier League soccer.

Field helped the Breeders’ Cup establish four strategic pillars: to explore the feasibility of a single permanent host site location for the Breeders' Cup World Championships; to establish a new Breeders' Cup racing series in partnership with North American and European racetracks; to expand the company’s brand marketing and commercial development programs, with an emphasis on digital marketing and social media; and to take a new approach to nominations to significantly expand the number of Breeders' Cup eligible horses.

Field recently answered questions from THOROUGHBRED TIMES news editor Ed DeRosa and staff writer Jeff Lowe about the process. Following is the first of two installments.

THOROUGHBRED TIMES: Could you give us some background on your task as a consultant for Breeders’ Cup Ltd.? When did it begin, what did it entail, and what was the purpose?

William Field: “I got involved back in November 2008 when Satish Sanan contacted me as part of the process of finding a consultant to support the Breeders’ Cup Strategic Planning Committee, which he was chairing. I think Satish was keen to cast the net beyond those currently involved in the U.S. racing industry in order to get the wider international sports perspective. I’ve spent 25 years working as a management consultant, specializing in the media and sports industries around the world.

Between late December and July, I was working with the Strategic Planning Committee to develop its input to the five-year strategy. The primary focus of that was to create an inclusive process, involving Breeders’ Cup trustees and directors, and owners, breeders and nominators from outside the Board, to develop consensus on the purpose of Breeders’ Cup and consider what strategic principles should underpin its next five years. More recently, I have been working directly with Greg Avioli and his executive team on honing those big picture recommendations into specific strategies for action.”

TT: What were some areas of consensus among industry stakeholders about the Breeders’ Cup’s role in the industry?

Field: “There was strong consensus that the time was right to be bold and to innovate and that standing still in the rapidly changing global marketplace was not a viable option. There was a common view that Breeders’ Cup was performing well, relative to the rest of the industry, and that innovations such as moving to two days (quite controversial at the time) had proved correct. 

There was also strong support for the Championships being an international championships, not just for U.S. horses and horsemen, and that growing international participation and revenues was important to its future. From my discussions internationally, there was strong and widespread commitment to Breeders’ Cup and recognition of its role as the defining world championships of the sport. A number of influential horsemen I talked to around the world said it is racing’s “World Cup.”

The trustees and directors came to the conclusion that the greatest service that Breeders’ Cup could perform for the industry was to focus on its own success and be ambitious about what it can achieve as a flagship for racing.  Racing has so few significant brands—by which I mean events that command the attention of the wider public—that if racing is to attract new fans and demonstrate it is a vital part of the sporting landscape, it must be both visible in the media and perceived of as high status and high quality. So, one of the best things Breeders’ Cup can do to promote the sport and grow the fan base is to present the best possible Championships each year. And anything else that it does in the future should be at a similar level of quality.”

TT: What were some areas of widespread disagreement?

Field: “As you would expect, there were some passionately held views and some tough debates. It is because of the commitment of the trustees and directors, and their willingness to devote substantial time to debating with each other that we have ended up with a strong consensus. Interestingly, the debates were not so much about the bigger issues of which direction Breeders’ Cup should go in the future or its broader purpose, but more about specific tactics, how fast it should move forward and the relative priority of the proposed initiatives. 

So in other words, it was relatively early in the process that the board and trustees agreed on a revised mission and vision for Breeders’ Cup. The mission is to support breeders by promoting the growth of the Thoroughbred racing industry through the staging of the Breeders’ Cup competition. The vision is to be the most prestigious and popular competition in world racing, reflected in the quality of the horses, races and events, as well as in total wagering.

The majority of our time in the past nine months has been spent developing the specific strategies that should be taken to achieve that mission and vision. What I think is important to note is that, following these often animated discussions, the board ultimately voted unanimously in approving the future directions, including the adoption of the four strategic pillars in December of 2009 and further refinement of these strategies at its meeting last month.”

TT: What are the advantages of a permanent site compared to some of the strong points of a rotation or a simple bidding process?

Field: “Let’s start by remembering the new vision for the organization is to be the most prestigious and popular competition in world racing. If you move the Championships around then, once every couple of years, a few tens of thousands of people in a couple of cities around the country get to go to a locally-held Championships.

With a permanent site, as long as the location is the right one and provided a suitable business agreement can be made, so much more is possible. In branding and marketing the event, you can build on each successive year; you can dig deeper into the local sponsorship market, giving sponsors greater confidence and value from their relationship with you; you can unlock new revenue streams relating to long-term seating deals; you can tap into state governmental support in the form of tax breaks and investment; all the services industries (hotels, travel, restaurants, other entertainment) that are so essential behind the scenes can gear up to ensure that the entire experience of attending a Breeders’ Cup Championships becomes truly memorable.

All of the above factors can reasonably be projected to generate significant new revenue, and revenue generation is increasingly important to the organization with the significant decline in Breeders’ Cup nominations revenues resulting from the recent contraction in the U.S. breeding industry. The extra revenue that the event could generate in this scenario can also be used to attract the best possible fields (creating great handicapping events) and marketing the event to the public.

I know people will say, ‘What about [the] Super Bowl; what about [the] World Series—they move around?’ But they are both massively popular sports, which nearly everybody in the country understands and will watch or pay to sponsor almost regardless of location. Racing is a long, long way from that situation. Right now it needs the best possible location on which to build awareness and popularity.”

TT: In what ways were synthetic surfaces a factor in the deliberations?

Field: “Surfaces were certainly discussed but they were not a deciding factor in determining the location strategy.

The consensus of the board was that the U.S. industry’s debate over surfaces may take years to be finally resolved and no one knows what the prevailing view will be five years from now. Breeders’ Cup needs to pick the best location, provided it has a safe and consistent surface. And, while everyone has a view about the merits of dirt vs. synthetic, the discussions within the Breeders’ Cup board have demonstrated that whether you look at this from a U.S. or European perspective, getting the location right is more important than picking a particular surface.”