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Friday, December 14, 2007

Making Stuff Up (Part 2)

- I wrote the other day about TVG's agreement with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (Monmouth and Meadowlands), based on a story on Bloodhorse.com which reported that the deal was "exclusive" with respect to television and wagering rights. However, Matt Hegarty reported the next day in the Form that the agreement allows the NJSEA to sell wagering rights to other companies.

"It's really the best of both worlds," [a NJSEA spokesperson] said. "TVG has the most widely distributed television network, and we get to take advantage of that, and we still get access to the other account-wagering companies." [DRF]
This arrangement is similar, though not identical, to the one currently in place in California which allows the ADW's to take wagers from any of the state's tracks regardless of which network their broadcasts are exclusive to.

Bloodhorse.com subsequently changed their story, but quoted TVG's original release which stated that it had “renewed its exclusive television distribution and account wagering rights agreement” with NJSEA. That statement was just not true. When pressed for an explanation of the language in the release, TVG's David Nathanson issued the following statement to The Blood-Horse: “We are pleased that the NJSEA chose to extend our existing agreement.” Nathanson may have the same PR coach as the Knicks' Isiah Thomas.

The agreement however does not permit NJSEA to sell wagering rights to all ADW's, but Magna/Churchill's TrackNet Media is on the list, and a deal is said to be in the works.

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Alan,

When this deal was announced last year, I assumed that it meant that I wouldn't be able to watch the races from Mth since I don't use TVG. That didn't prove to be the case so I'm assuming this is just an extension of the same deal.

OTOH, I can't watch the races from New York because of TVG and, as a result, I pay less attention(and make fewer bets). I've often wondered how much TVG pays NYRA because their arrangement has to hurt the handle.

Anonymous said...

We had a long discussion about TVG and exclusives last year and there is no reason to re-hash that...but considering the nature of the agreement, and TVG "making stuff up," I would say that it is crystal clear that the exclusive model is dead.

Let's open up all signals and let the best ADW win!