In the UK we live for sport. Saturday afternoons will see football grounds up and down the country packed to capacity to watch their favourite team, and in a lot of cases there will be little riding on the game. Likewise, cricket and both forms of rugby will attract audiences as well as commanding prime slots on the television channels that deliver us non-stop sport.
Although, they don’t receive the mega-money that the Premier League does which helps football grow and attract new fans.
What’s happened to the dogs?
However, one sport that has slowly appeared to lose it’s fanbase is greyhounds. Yet, the excitement still exists. Placing your bets, lining up by the finishing line and then watching as the runners battle it out to win. Punters get a thrill, as they would the horses, but the demand doesn’t seem to be there.
In 2008, it was noted how the sport had gone drastically downhill, with tracks facing closure across the country and nothing significant has been done to arrest that decline since.
It highlights how going to the track was part of the lifestyle growing up in generations before us, but that has completely changed nowadays.
In fact, if anything it’s been made harder for tracks to continue, as you can find all of the races on at the bookies. Punters can sit with their slip in hand, watch the race from the warmth of a shop and then go home if they want.
Sky increasing exposure
As well as watching from the bookies, Sky are also showing some of the best races and cards of the year. Take the Gold Collar final, you can look online and preview the race, which was then shown live on Sky Sports 3. To prove the unpredictability of sport, hot favourite Swabys Millward nor exciting bitch Gubu would not make the top two out of the five runners.
With Sky giving the sport more mainstream exposure it can of course begin to attract new fans. It will show all of the latest races and you can find all of the information you want about the greyhounds online. It may be doing a little bit to attract fans back to the tracks.
Yet, whilst the exposure is good for the sport, it is still hard to envisage it rekindling the popularity that it once had. Although, when you do watch you will realise the excitement is still there, the unpredictability is there, so check out your local tracks to help revive the sport, as it faces an uncertain future.