ARC made counteroffer in final weeks
It was a coup for Arena Racing Company, which undermined a planned sale of two greyhound racing arenas by UK bookmaker William Hill to Sports Information Services. According to the Racing Post, ARC closed the deal that was made with SIS in February.
As late as this month, an article on the SIS website said the company was “currently in the process of acquiring Newcastle and Sunderland stadia from William Hill, demonstrating our commitment to the sport and our confidence in greyhound racing as a betting product.” ARC apparently came in with a counter-offer in the final two weeks before the deal was closed. According to ARC, it will take over both greyhound stadiums and their collective 160 employees.
“We are really delighted to have moved at pace to acquire the tracks and join our new partners at GMG as part of a long-term deal,” said ARC CEO Martin Cruddace. “We very much look forward to working with the great teams at both stadiums and developing our relationship with the greyhound industry.”
Together, Newcastle and Sunderland present 520 greyhound racing fixtures a year, of which 384 are part of the BAGS schedule.
“We are very pleased to welcome ARC and are delighted that they see the merit of working closely together in producing what we aim to be the best greyhound racing available anywhere in the world,” said GMG Director of Operations Brent Dolan. “We look forward to working with BAGS to continue to produce a cost-effective and value product for the UK licensed betting offices market and to export GMG racing worldwide.”
The Post called the turnabout “the latest in the media-rights merry-go-round involving the UK’s betting-shop market” and said it will strengthen ARC’s new betting-shop channel, the Racing Partnership. ARC has also joined the Greyhound Media Group, which represents the media rights of 12 greyhound tracks and almost 70 percent of greyhound fixtures shown in betting shops through the Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service.
SIS still holds the rights to distribute BAGS content until the end of 2017, at which point those rights may transfer to the Racing Partnership. The outcome for SIS in that case would be a dearth of live betting-shop content until the start of its media rights deal with Racecourse Media Group in April 2018; until then, SIS would have only horseracing coverage from Ireland and Chelmsford City and its remaining greyhound action from the UK and Ireland, a situation that could limit its pricing ability.
The Racing Partnership has its own problems, with Betfred and Ladbrokes-Coral yet to sign up to the service. That’s costing ARC millions of pounds in media-rights income, the Post reported.
