Author: Luke Kemeys
This is a novel so I will put the call to action at the front and the context beneath.
How can you and I make the racing industry in New Zealand better?
Passion, value and content.
If you’re having a punt, at the pub with the lads/ladddies, on course, screaming one home in your flat, nailing a quinela, landing a Ted multi. What ever!
Let all your mates know – snap it, gram it, bebo it, what ever you use, be proud of it. Showcase it. Highlight the excitement.
Passion is intriguing, it’s infectious, it spreads, it smacks you in the face, makes you want in.
All of a sudden your friends are asking ‘why did you back that?’, ‘why are you going to that?’, ‘who the fark is Ted and why do you have a cardboard cut out of him?’, ‘why are you getting a photo with that 4ft bird?’, ‘you’ve got a share in what?’.
Tag @boysgetpaid in your gram snaps, we farking love watching it, every one of them. We’ve been there. Done it. Still do it.
We can be the change, the momentum, the contributors, the people that give the next enthusiast an industry to work in.
We can’t control prize money, decisions at the high end, legislation.
We can control what we do for each other, whether we get our mates involved, the content/passion our friends and circles see.
Numbers are what will help our industry prosper, involvement in it, in what ever form that takes, the rest, the big dogs can try to take care of. We can have all of the prize money in the world but if no one knows or gives a fark, it won’t be sustainable.
Look at Lotto, it’s on every Saturday but we forget/don’t always care. Strangely EVERYONE knows when there’s a $25mil jackpot, everyone wants in, but you’re even less chance of winning because more people are in. Why? Because the content changes – suddenly everyone’s talking about it, talking about what they’d do if they won $25mil. People don’t want to miss out, they’re emotionally invested- content and value.
Remove Lotto, insert ‘crypto’. Repeat.
These are basic fundamentals of capturing attention and capturing the dollar. If you are an industry participant and you need people’s attention but aren’t doing anything to capture it, you will lose. Blame yourself, not the market.
The competition for attention and the disposable dollar is at an all time high and if you do not provide content and value, expect to be less competitive than those in your space that do.
We can do this for Racing as a collective. This should have already been happening but it hasn’t. Tough sh*t. It’s our job now.
Whilst everyone is talking and booking their next meeting to talk about what got talked about prior, before we can talk about what we can talk about next, I suggest we all take a slightly different approach. It’s called farking doing.
With the hype around Winston’s announcement that NZ Racing will be reviewed by one of the smartest minds in the game; we can influence what won’t even be thought of, reviewed, understood or implemented following the review.
Boys Get Paid has plugged a hole in the industry for the punter and the younger generation. Easily too. Patiently.
This didn’t just ‘happen’. Ted didn’t just ‘turn up’. NZs most interactive punter’s club didn’t just ‘come together’. We all didn’t just make 8,500 new mates by mistake.
We are a part of something, together.
There is more strategy in place here that many of the people leading this industry will ever understand and grasp – it’s not their fault though. The world has changed, the internet levelled it.
Strategy you don’t care about, because you’re getting what you deserve – community, a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, value and content.
The racing industry rested on it’s laurels, sleeps, expects it to be 1950, expects things to be better, expects more for doing nothing. Wants to talk and talk and talk. Some of it anyway.
Look at some of the racing stables – Te Akau, Pike Racing, Bakers, Marsh Racing. You’ve heard of each of them. These stables are all winning our attention because they provide value and content. Simple as that, not because they have more money.
Boys Get Paid has and had no money, never did, you’re still here. Value and content.
If I want to back a Pike horse, I know I can go to their FB page and find information on that horse – V&C!
I truly believe there is no group or community on Facebook like this in NZ – if there is, I want in and I will study and learn to do better for BGP!!
What a time to be alive and resurrecting the game.
To the BGP family reading, thank you.
To industry participants reading – go do something, stop waiting for someone to do it for you.