{"id":420701,"date":"2025-09-13T09:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T09:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/420701\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T09:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T09:08:12","slug":"is-british-horseracing-nearing-its-breaking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/420701\/","title":{"rendered":"Is British horseracing nearing its breaking point?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is an online version of our Scoreboard newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here<\/a> to get the newsletter delivered every Saturday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here<\/a>, or explore<\/a> all FT newsletters<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big weekend for FC Barcelona, as the Catalan club readies for its first home game of the new football season. <\/p>\n

The bad news is that the match won\u2019t take place at Camp Nou. The \u20ac1.5bn renovation of one of football\u2019s most famous venues drags on<\/a>, with the city council recently rejecting Barca\u2019s request to host Valencia and 27,000 fans in the middle of a building site. <\/p>\n

Instead, the game will take place at Estadi Johan Cruyff, a pocket-sized ground on the outskirts of town. It is normally home to the Barcelona women\u2019s team, and has capacity for just 6,000 people. The revamped Camp Nou, when finished, will hold 105,000. <\/p>\n

The club will only allow the 16,151 people who held season tickets during the two seasons spent at Barcelona\u2019s Olympic Stadium to buy tickets<\/a>, and if demand exceeds supply there will be a lottery. <\/p>\n

For a club that so sorely needs cash, the prospect of playing more home games in front of tiny crowds is a disaster. There may be scope to move back to the Olympic Stadium, but a packed out music schedule including Lady Gaga and Katy Perry makes that a real challenge. <\/p>\n

This week we\u2019re looking at a row over how betting on horseracing should be taxed. Plus we ask if quick-fire tennis is what the sport needs to reach a broader audience. Do read on \u2014 Josh Noble, sports editor<\/p>\n

Send us tips and feedback at scoreboard@ft.com<\/a>. Not already receiving the email newsletter? Sign up here<\/a>. For everyone else, let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n

In the global horse race, the UK is falling behind<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the great and the good of British horseracing gathered in a conference hall opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London to mark something that had never happened before. For that one day, no racing took place anywhere across the country. The sport decided to go on \u201cstrike\u201d (or at least shift fixtures) in protest at a planned change to the way betting on racing is taxed. The Racing Post newspaper printed a black front page. <\/p>\n

Currently online gambling on horseracing and other sports is taxed at 15 per cent in the UK, while the rate for online casinos and slots is 21 per cent. The Labour government has proposed \u201charmonising\u201d the rates to \u201ccreate a level playing field\u201d. To racing, that simply looks like a tax increase. <\/p>\n

Those running the sport believe it should continue to be taxed differently due to its social importance and cultural heritage. Thoroughbred horses, after all, require a lot more looking after than virtual roulette wheels, while hundreds of thousands of people turn up to watch what is still the country\u2019s second most popular spectator sport. <\/p>\n

Other sports, such as football, have huge TV deals with broadcasters. Racing relies on the money it gets from bookmakers to pay the rising bills. <\/p>\n

The worry is that a higher tax rate will be the breaking point for the already very strained finances of horseracing. Affordability checks designed to stop problem gambling have already had a cooling effect. <\/p>\n

Reducing the profits of bookmakers through higher tax will mean taking money out of the system. Betting companies currently spend significant sums to sponsor race events and to carry the live broadcast feeds from racecourses to their betting shops across the country. Higher taxes will reduce that spending power, and might prompt some bookies to prioritise marketing for their other, cheaper products. <\/p>\n

Prize money for the races themselves, already a big challenge in the UK, would then go down even more, fuelling a further exodus of horses as owners look to race elsewhere. The quality of races might then decline and the downward spiral accelerate. <\/p>\n

The British Horseracing Authority warns that changing the tax regime could cost the sport \u00a360-70mn a year and send it into \u201cirreversible decline\u201d. <\/p>\n

Those inside the Treasury think the warnings are overblown, and have yet to make a decision on the issue anyway. <\/p>\n

Racing bosses had been hoping to get more money via the state, not less. They came close to agreeing a new funding formula with the previous UK government that would have resulted in a modest increase in the amount of cash the sport gets from the betting \u201clevy\u201d \u2014 a cut of betting profits mandated by the state. But the general election prevented it being signed off. <\/p>\n

Without more revenue from somewhere, British horseracing will struggle to remain competitive in a global market place. Prize money elsewhere is higher \u2014 whether that\u2019s Japan, Australia and the US, or Ireland and France close to home. While prestige still counts for a lot \u2014 few can top the pomp of Royal Ascot \u2014 it isn\u2019t enough. <\/p>\n

This current fight is about trying to fend off what those in the sector see as a real and immediate threat. But winning it won\u2019t change the way the wind is blowing. <\/p>\n

Why tennis needs tie-breaks more than ever\"\"Tennis: tough trade \u00a9 Kena Betancur\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Love, 15, 30, deuce, advantage, game. The tennis scoring system might make perfect sense to ardent fans, but it isn\u2019t the most intuitive for casual viewers.<\/p>\n

The International Tennis Federation\u2019s official partnership with Tie Break Tens, announced this week, shows the governing body\u2019s growing appreciation of simplicity.<\/p>\n

In TB10, as the competition is known, the first player to score 10 points wins, though a 2-point lead is required. No games, no sets, just tiebreakers, the sudden death game usually played when players have put themselves and fans through 12 games of a set and grabbed six each. An entire tournament can wrap up in two hours or so \u2014 a far cry from the three-to-five set marathons tennis is known for. <\/p>\n

Players have fought for $2mn in prize money at 13 elite TB10 tournaments since it was founded in 2015.<\/p>\n

Shorter, simpler formats are emerging as sports attempt to reach casual fans, who are valuable to sponsors, broadcasters and organisers. They spend money diehards don\u2019t \u2014 and there are a lot more of them.<\/p>\n

While purists scoff, the England and Wales Cricket Board has won over international investors with the creation of The Hundred, a 100-ball competition that does away with some of the jargon of Test cricket (those matches can go on for five days, so tennis fans can\u2019t complain).<\/p>\n

In football, Baller League and rival Kings League have experimented with an influencer-first approach that targets viewers on social media and ditches the traditional 11-a-side format in favour of smaller teams.<\/p>\n

NFL, the US powerhouse, is pushing flag football to increase grassroots interest, while rugby sevens, a shrunken version of a game known for fielding 15-a-side, delighted crowds at Paris 2024.<\/p>\n

Formula 1 holds faster \u201csprint\u201d races. Saudi-backed LIV Golf is named for the Roman numerals that correspond to the 54-hole format.<\/p>\n

Tennis has its own problems. The season is gruelling, a global tour where something is happening every month. No wonder the ITF has promised that TB10 isn\u2019t going to compete with the existing tennis calendar but complement it.<\/p>\n

Then you\u2019ve got the fragmentated ecosystem that spans the Grand Slams \u2014 the Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open \u2014 the Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women\u2019s Tennis Association. <\/p>\n

And there\u2019s the threat of padel and pickleball, two racket sports gaining traction with amateurs and professionals alike.<\/p>\n

Luca Santilli, executive director of tennis development at ITF, told Scoreboard that a lot of tennis clubs had benefited from padel and pickleball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there\u2019s a growing appetite for new formats of play and we want to be part of it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think there is room for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ITF\u2019s recognition of TB10 addresses the need to find the next Carlos Alcaraz or Aryna Sabalenka. Under the governing body\u2019s plans, young players will learn TB10 through the ITF\u2019s development programme for juniors. That could lead to Olympic ambitions (flag football will join the programme in Los Angeles in 2028). Don\u2019t worry if you\u2019re a lapsed adult amateur, the ITF wants you to play TB10 too, just not at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tradition of our sport is our strength but sometimes slows us down in a fast-evolving world. With this partnership we believe we can talk to more people of all ages,\u201d Santilli said.<\/p>\n

Highlights\"\"Kawhi Leonard: aspirational \u00a9 Mark J. Terrill\/AP<\/p>\n