RP Article - Racecourses value for money report

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By Lee Mottershead
7:10PM, JAN 28 2023
 
Nobody would dispute that times are hard.

The pound or euro in your pocket is worth less than it used to be, devalued and made ever more precious by biting inflation. The cost of almost everything has gone up and continues to rise, meaning that for the vast majority of people there is less money to spend in areas that might not be considered essential.

A day at the races can be delightful and perhaps even financially rewarding. It is most definitely not essential.

Against this difficult backdrop, the Racing Post last year launched the Racecourse Prices Index series. During visits to tracks across Britain and Ireland across several months, reporters attempted to paint a picture of what it costs to enjoy an afternoon or evening watching racing. They recorded the price of standard admission and, where available, how much it cost to buy a pint of Guinness, bottle of water and burger.

They even did some taste-testing to assess whether items were worth the demanded outlay. Catherine Macrae found Plumpton's spicy vegetarian burger to represent excellent value at £6. James Burn thought there was little wrong with fish and chips at Wincanton, albeit the £12 charge felt steep. David Jennings had an almost ethereal experience when introduced to the Naas fish pie. Say hello to him at Cheltenham in March and he'll probably still be raving about it.

While prices do, of course, change over time, the vast numbers collected means it is now possible to draw comparisons, make conclusions and seek commentary. How do Britain's racecourses rank alongside those in Ireland? Where will you find the cheapest bottle of water? How does racing stand up against other sports as a leisure experience?

It is time for the numbers to be crunched.

The cost of entry

To an extent, you get what you pay for – although only to an extent.

Entry to the Queen Anne enclosure, with full access to the paddock and winner's enclosure, cost £87 on the opening day of Royal Ascot. If our visit had been made at any other time of year, an equivalent ticket at Ascot would have cost much less.

The enclosures were sold out on Derby day but, had you wanted to get the full Epsom top hat and tails experience, admission to the Queen's Stand would have set you back £115 when tickets first went on sale. For the purpose of this exercise, the £65 quoted for the main Grandstand enclosure has been used. Once again, had we sampled Epsom during its run of July evening meetings, the priciest admission would have been much less pricey, just as the £40 Grandstand ticket at Newcastle was pegged at that level because it was Northumberland Plate day.

Tattersalls enclosure admission for Chester's late May Saturday fixture cost £50 on the day
Tattersalls enclosure admission for Chester's late May Saturday fixture cost £50 on the day
Edward Whitaker (racingpost.comphotos)
The reality, however, is the biggest racecourses sell themselves on their biggest days, which is also when a sizeable chunk of their profit is made. As such, it seems reasonable that some – but not all – of the sport's premier venues were assessed when they were levelling their loftiest charges.

Royal Ascot and Epsom on Derby day topped the table during the RPI series but the third most expensive entry cost was noted on an afternoon that featured nothing more glitzy than a single Class 2 handicap. Chester would not wish to sell itself as a cheap day out but the £50 Tattersalls ticket for Roman Day still caught the eye, with attendance down by more than 10,000 on the figure recorded for the same Saturday a decade earlier. Reacting to "a challenging year for both us and the racing industry", one that "tasked us with some difficult conversations around ticket pricing", Chester has already frozen or reduced some admission charges for 2023.


Down Royal provides some sharp contrast. The track was visited on the opening day of its Northern Ireland Festival of Racing, with racegoers able to pay £20 at the gate for a day's racing that included some of Ireland's most promising jumpers.

If that represented good value, it also represented the picture as a whole for Irish racing. For if one finding stood out more than any other, it is that the 14 lowest admission prices were for cards staged in Ireland. There was also a large degree of uniformity among those charges, with most of the tracks asking customers to pay only €15 (£13.29). Moreover, for that sum they would have had guaranteed access to the paddock and winner's enclosure, something that is given as standard to all Irish racegoers, unlike in Britain.


Assessed by racecourse ownership, the Chester Race Company came out as the most expensive in terms of entry costs at £39, although that outcome was influenced by the £50 Saturday badge at Chester and one of its two sister tracks, Musselburgh, having been visited on New Year's Day, when tickets on the day were set at £45.

At £25.31, the Jockey Club's average entry price was just over £2 more expensive than that of Britain's independent racecourses (£23.16), while even Arena Racing Company's £21.41 was much higher than the Irish average of £15.01 (after conversion from euros).

As one might expect, racecourses in the south of England, regardless of ownership, were the most expensive to frequent, with an average entry price of £25.48.


The price is right?

As guardians of jump racing's twin peaks, namely the Cheltenham Festival and Grand National, plus the Derby on the Flat, the Jockey Club has a pivotal role in judging the price points for British racing's crown jewels – and it believes it is getting it right.

Chief executive Nevin Truesdale says: "If British racing is to thrive in future, we need to make the sport as accessible as possible for everyone – and that starts with the price of a ticket, so we take it very seriously.

"Ultimately, how much we charge for entry to our racecourses reflects a number of factors, including the quality of racing on offer and any extra entertainment and facilities available. Tickets to our smaller courses generally start at £12 in advance and £15 on the day, but we do run various incentives throughout the year, like 'Fiver Fridays' at Warwick and Nottingham. Under-18s also continue to go free throughout the year, a principle that doesn't apply in any other major sport in the UK."

Nevin Truesdale: "If British racing is to thrive in future, we need to make the sport as accessible as possible for everyone"
Nevin Truesdale: "If British racing is to thrive in future, we need to make the sport as accessible as possible for everyone"
Truesdale adds: "As with any sporting or entertainment venue, the cost of attending premium events increases but, taking the Cheltenham Festival as an example, tickets are currently available from £45 and first went on sale in March last year from £35, which for world-class sport at an iconic venue represents great value and would be cheaper than many regular Premier League games, international cricket and rugby union tests.

"There are, of course, more expensive tickets and packages available, and with record crowds of more than 280,000 attending the festival last year, we know those four days remain as popular as ever with racegoers. However, we are not complacent and understand the financial pressures people are facing, so it is really important to have a good range of pricing options."

Punchestown chief executive and Association of Irish Racecourses chairman Conor O'Neill highlights that, just as racegoers have been hit hard by inflationary pressures, so, too, have racecourses, particularly for those showpiece meetings that require huge permanent and temporary infrastructure.

He says: "There is the perception that the big event with big crowds brings big profits – but it also brings big bills. I also don't necessarily think there is a direct correlation between the cost of a ticket and the costs associated with staging an event of the magnitude of the Punchestown festival.

"People's expectations and standards are continuously increasing, which creates a major challenge. Premium standards require premium prices. It's a constant battle to get the balance right and ensure we remain priced at a level that is accessible to the general public."

O'Neill, like Truesdale, feels racing offers a value proposition compared to other sports, as does Paul Swain, the Racecourse Association's raceday experience and communications manager.

"Racecourses do benchmark against other sports, leisure sectors and each other," says Swain. "We and they are always conscious of trying to be competitive and we still think racing is pretty competitive.

"Compared to similar events in Britain, racing festival tickets are actually good value. If you compared Royal Ascot to Wimbledon or F1, the prices are incredibly favourable."

But how favourable?

The RCA's own research compared the sport's 2022 summer Flat festivals to major British summer sporting and entertainment events, including Wimbledon and the British Formula 1 Grand Prix. As well as underlining that racing offers free admission to those aged under 18, in contrast to its leisure market rivals, the RCA states the average racing ticket price was £28, compared to £83 for those competing events. When elevating to premium enclosure prices, the racing ticket rose to £77.

There is merit in the RCA's argument. Tickets for Grand Prix Sunday at Silverstone this year are now sold out, but general admission would have cost a whopping £299. You can still watch the world's top drivers competing on the Saturday, but even then the cheapest price is £179, with children aged below ten allowed in for free. If you prefer tennis, and assuming you don't sit in one of the six back rows, Wimbledon Centre Court seats this year rise from £80 on the opening day of the Championships right up to £255 for either the Men's or Ladies' Singles Final.

A Crucible ticket to see one of the quarter-final sessions at the World Snooker Championships (all later stages are now sold out) costs at least £66. Should you want to see Aston Villa hosting Leicester City in the Premier League on February 4 you will be required to pay upwards of £41.50. Much more expensive is the cheapest £72.50 ticket to next Saturday's matinee performance of Les Miserables in London. Set against all the above, a Tattersalls pass for the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival is priced at £67.

Those wanting to watch Constitution Hill bid for Champion Hurdle glory currently need to pay £67 to watch the action from the Tattersalls enclosure
Those wanting to watch Constitution Hill bid for Champion Hurdle glory currently need to pay £67 to watch the action from the Tattersalls enclosure
John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)
George Foster, UK managing director at the Two Circles sports marketing agency, argues: "From a value-for-money perspective, across club rugby, T20 cricket and the international versions of those sports, racing compares well.

"More interesting, though, are the direct price comparisons. More than other sports, we compare racing with other leisure activities and in direct price comparisons it compares well. Racing is better value or lower-priced than theme parks or West End shows and on par with a National Trust activity. When you add in the fact under-18s go free, racing stacks up really well – and compared to other sports, racing again compares really favourably, one of the main reasons being it has multiple price offerings, providing the customer with choice."

Arguably more debatable is whether racing wins the value race when routine racedays are pitched against what might be considered equivalent or even superior sporting events.


On the days attended during the RPI series, Worcester was charging £24 to see relatively low-grade fare. Admission to Ludlow and Uttoxeter cost £23, while Brighton and Leicester were among the tracks asking racegoers to pay £22. You had to spend 50 pence more than that to get a £22.50 adults' ticket to this week's EFL Cup semi-final game between Southampton and Newcastle. (Children were admitted for £7.50.) It also cost £22.50 to buy a turnstile ticket for the recent EFL League Two match between Colchester and Gillingham but only £7 to enjoy greyhound racing at Romford.

Ireland leads the way

Nowhere is the data clearer than in drawing a distinction between the cost of entering a racecourse in Ireland compared to Britain.

Anyone who views racing accounts on Twitter will likely have seen comments from British racegoers lauding the fact they can go to the Dublin Racing Festival or Punchestown festival for significantly less money than either Cheltenham or Aintree.

As an example, on-the-day general admission to Punchestown in April is priced at only €35 on the Tuesday and Wednesday before rising to €40 for the final three days. Anyone who purchased tickets from September to the end of last year could have secured a 20 per cent discount, while a 15 per cent reduction applies until the end of February.

There is, however, a view within Irish racing that, in simple economic terms, racecourses cannot charge more because their customers would not accept hiked prices.

"Direct comparisons are often made between racecourses in Ireland and the UK but I don't always think they are necessarily balanced," says O'Neill.

"You have to consider that Ireland has a population of circa five million across 26 racecourses, whereas the UK has a population of circa 67 million across 59 racecourses. As a result, the market dictates to a large degree what we can and do charge. You also have to be cognisant of impacting factors such as the current cost-of-living crisis, so that you don't make your product cost prohibitive to people.

"In general, I think Irish racing represents extremely good value for money when compared with other leisure events from concerts to big matches, and when you consider the quality of the racing, the duration of the day out and the entertainment and facilities on offer."

Conor O'Neill: "Direct comparisons are often made between racecourses in Ireland and the UK but I don't always think they are necessarily balanced"
Conor O'Neill: "Direct comparisons are often made between racecourses in Ireland and the UK but I don't always think they are necessarily balanced"
Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)
Stressing the pressures faced by Punchestown and others, O'Neill adds: "Staging an event in Ireland was always expensive, simply because we don't have the selection of providers and volume of options that exists elsewhere. Servicing the site with the basics – security, insurance, energy, temporary builds and staff – has rocketed but the ticket prices haven't increased in proportion at all.

"All that said, the fundamentals of our racing festival are solid and we focus on controlling the controllables. A big selling point for us is that it is a more comfortable raceday experience with fewer queues and less hassle."

The price of feeling peckish or thirsty

Not surprisingly, Guinness was almost always cheaper in Ireland than Britain, although Taunton's £5 pint stood out for the right reasons. Cheltenham's headline-grabbing £7.50 pint of the black stuff topped the table, although numerous British tracks charged £6.50 or more.

Across the British racecourse groups – and excluding the Chester Race Company, as Musselburgh did not offer draught Guinness in January – the average price of a pint was highest at Jockey Club Racecourses, with its £6.43 noticeably higher than the £6.04 average at the independent tracks and the £5.98 Arc average. In Ireland, the comparable figure was just £5.10. As with the entry prices, there is the caveat that some courses might have charged different amounts on other days than the one when we visited.


A number of tracks in Britain and Ireland did not have burgers available on the day we visited, but where they did prices varied enormously, with a Royal Ascot burger costing £9.50 but a Ludlow burger available for only £4. Similarly, at a recent Crystal Palace Premier League match, a burger could be bought for £5.30, whereas you had to pay £9 when watching a game at Fulham. 

Given the quality of burgers, pies and chips will all fluctuate – and not necessarily according to price – a bottle of water provides a neater metric, notwithstanding that racecourses offer free tap water in bars, with more hopefully in future set to provide water filling stations for those who bring reusable bottles.

By far the most expensive water was sold at Chester, whose £3 bottle in late May was a full pound more expensive than those on sale at Royal Ascot and double the price of water at many other British racecourses. However, following what Chester marketing manager Sam Martin describes as "a review of our food and beverage concession pricing part way through the 2022 season", the price was reduced to £2 following our visit, while 25,000 free bottles of water were given to racegoers during the summer heatwave.

Unlike Guinness, water often tends to cost more in Ireland than Britain, with Cork, the Curragh and Leopardstown charging €3.20 (£2.83).


"Racecourse catering is tricky to get right," says O'Neill.

"The costs are more prohibitive than your local pub or favourite restaurant as they operate on a full-time basis, whereas a racecourse operates on a limited number of days throughout the year. As a result, the cost of food and drink will always be a little higher as our catering partners have to source, prepare and serve food, set up and staff venues for approximately six hours of business. You also run the risk of incurring significant losses from a last-minute cancellation or postponement that you have to try to minimise, which can be very challenging."

The RCA believes O'Neill is correct with that assertion, highlighting data from a 2022 collaborative marketing programme carried out with Great British Racing that revealed 54 per cent of those who had attended a raceday in the last three years felt it represented good or very good value for money, up from 43 per cent in 2019.

Stephen Atkin is standing down as chief executive of the Racecourse Association
Stephen Atkin is standing down as chief executive of the Racecourse Association
Former RCA chief executive Stephen Atkin now goes racing only for pleasure and is therefore able to provide an objective assessment, made more valuable given he also served as finance director for the England and Wales Cricket Board.

He says: "I do think you would expect to pay a premium for food and drink at a sporting event compared to going to a pub. The question is what the premium should be.

"What I tended to find when I was at the RCA is there were a lot of people who would talk about the cost of going racing and bemoan how expensive they considered it to be, but when you drilled down it became apparent that they didn't go anywhere else. They had an anecdotal view that racing was expensive but they had no personal comparisons with things like Premier League football or international rugby matches."

Explaining why a Guinness at Cheltenham is more expensive than at other Jockey Club tracks, Truesdale adds: "When considering how to price food and drink we benchmark against comparable venues locally, while also factoring in any associated costs, like temporary facilities and increased staffing to cater for significantly larger crowds. That's why a pint of Guinness at, say, Exeter is £6, while it is more expensive at a world-class sporting venue like Cheltenham, which has very different overhead costs."

Is there room for manoeuvre?

A day at the races can be expensive – but for those who go racing regularly, there are savings to be made, some of which may not be well known.

For £420, you can buy a Go Racing In Yorkshire season ticket that from April 1 provides 12 months of admission to every single raceday in Yorkshire, including the Ebor and St Leger festivals. Any membership of an Arc racecourse also includes entry to all fixtures at all Arc tracks, while a Newmarket annual member will additionally receive admission to more than 50 meetings at other racecourses in Britain and Ireland.

Finest hour: Baaeed and Jim Crowley saunter home at York after demolishing the field in the Juddmonte International
Finest hour: Baaeed and Jim Crowley saunter home at York after demolishing the field in the Juddmonte International
Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)
Shopping in bulk can therefore make racegoing more affordable – but should racecourses be doing more to make themselves enticing leisure options?

"Racecourses, like many sporting venues, struggle to make significant money, and often make very little money indeed through attendance," says Atkin. "The question is, if you reduce the cost of admission, would more people come. I'm not sure the economics support the idea that deep discounting would be an effective way of bringing many more people to racecourses or increasing revenues.

"You might argue racecourses should discount admission on the basis that people will spend money once they are on the track. The problem is they often don't spend money at the track, particularly at the smaller midweek meetings. For that reason, I suspect racecourses would end up making less money because you really can't be sure people who go racing will spend money on hospitality."

Atkin adds: "The economics are quite straightforward. You need to get more marginal revenue relative to the cost of the discount, otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense, other than as a promotional tool. The worst possible thing you can do is attract people to the racecourse and then not give them a good enough experience. To avoid that, you must make sure you have enough staff, but that brings in extra cost.

"I'm therefore sure racecourses do ask, 'If we reduce our prices by a certain amount, would it make any difference to our income?' However, if you have a successful event that is already generating the crowds you want, why would you discount?"

The Jockey Club's chief executive refers back to the cost of living crisis as a reason why he believes racecourses have limited wriggle room.

"In the current climate, we are impacted by the rising price of goods and services in exactly the same way other industries and businesses are," Truesdale says. "We pass on some – but not all – of that cost in order to maintain the revenues we need to reinvest back into the sport.

"Overall, I think the basic cost of attending our major racedays and festivals offers real value for racegoers when compared with other comparable sporting and entertainment events, notwithstanding the extra cost of betting or accommodation, over which we clearly have no control.

"However, we always take on board the feedback of everyone who visits our racecourses and, as we demonstrated when deciding not to extend the Cheltenham Festival, we don't make decisions based entirely on commercial benefits."

Far removed from the festival are those days when hardly anybody wants to come racing. Since sport was staged at empty tracks during the pandemic there have been rumours some racecourses might in future choose to hold certain fixtures without spectators, mindful that most of their income for such days comes from media rights.

O'Neill agrees there is logic in that but stresses it is not an option he finds remotely attractive.

"Regardless of whether you have 500 or 5,000 people on the racecourse, the initial costs to the business remain largely the same," he says. "There are certainly days at Punchestown, and possibly elsewhere, where it doesn't make commercial sense to have the public at the racecourse, as I think was emphasised when we raced behind closed doors during Covid.

"That said, I'm definitely not an advocate for racing behind closed doors. It's often said around here that it's the people who make Punchestown – and it simply wasn't the same when we raced here without people."

That is because racing is entertainment and has meaning only if there are people on racecourses wanting to be entertained. For that reason, and no matter what the cost of a ticket, burger, water or Guinness, racing's customers are priceless.

thanks for putting this up . i see chester comes out of it well !!!!

I don't know which school of economics you went to, if you think that continually demanding, sorry, requesting, to see paywalled articles for free is going to keep the sport's trade paper in business.

Oh no! Can you save a broken chair or sticky tabletop, ronnie?

Did you know that John Stubbs passed away earlier this month? He'd been ill for a while, four visits a day from carers, and had to enter a nursing home. Passed away peacefully the next day. Funeral Wednesday, strictly no black.

Rather ironically there's a rail strike that day. Stubbs would have been the one man who'd have known how to get around it and find someone to give him a lift there.

SFB

Wormwood, loved his ringlets article think it was on a Tuesday in the life.

John Stubbs one of the good guys RIP.

Ronnie,

How the hell does you buying an internet poster a drink pay Mottershead's mortgage?

You are expecting the Post's employees to work for nothing. And you clearly find their work valuable, or you wouldn't keep begging on here to read it.

Regardless of what excuses are given for high food and drink charges at many courses,it must be remembered that admission has also been paid,often at a very high price .Taking this into account there is no excuse for high charges for refreshments.
Different if you hadn't already paid to enter,or taken annual membership.

At the very least admission should come with racecard included

Comparing prices for racing with other sports is totally misleading.  For example a day at Wimbledon

Centre Court(If you're lucky enough to get tickets) would be 5/6 hours or more of action, whereas

a day at Royal Ascot would give you no more than 15 minutes of sport.

and the comparison with F1 British Grand Prix is total nonsense - once a year event vs something that happens at several locations almost every day of the year