Unlocking racing’s global audience opportunity

Explore the Report

The Horse Racing Audience Opportunity sets out the scale of racing’s global growth potential – and the actions required to unlock it.

View the full report HERE

Spotlight Sports Group, owner of Racing Post and a leading partner to the global horse racing industry, has published The Horse Racing Audience Opportunity – a major new cross-industry analysis examining the sport’s global fanbase and the strategic choices that will define its growth over the next decade.

The report evaluates the current state of audience engagement in racing, identifies the most significant gaps, and outlines a series of recommendations to address them.

The analysis draws on consumer research from GWI, PwC, Two Circles and Project Beacon, alongside consultation with senior figures from leading global organisations including the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Ascot Racecourse, Horse Racing Ireland, the Japan Racing Association and the Victoria Racing Club.

It also incorporates insights from outside the sport, including Formula 1.

The report focuses on five core areas:

• The horse racing product
• The digital ecosystem
• The live experience
• The betting experience
• The structural framework

Each topic has been interrogated with the latest data and insight and includes clear areas of consideration to meet the challenge of attracting and engaging new and emerging audiences in the sport.

Key Findings

• Horse racing’s global fanbase currently stands between 36-48 million. Beyond this sits an addressable audience of up to 200 million people with little or no engagement.
• Fans aged 25-44 represent the primary opportunity for casual conversion, while 16-24-year-old “big event” fans present the most accessible Gen Z growth segment.
• Racing’s digital ecosystem is not currently designed for modern audience behaviour, with discovery increasingly driven by mobile, social and creator-led content.
• When racing is positioned as a sport first, commercial outcomes improve – with evidence from the Hong Kong Jockey Club showing c.70% of new fans later engage with betting organically.

Sam Houlding, Managing Director, B2B, Spotlight Sports Group, said, “As an industry, we are sitting on one of the richest data environments in global sport. What we need now is the courage and coordination to make it work harder for the next generation of fans. Spotlight Sports Group is already investing on behalf of our partners in global racing data, short-form video and products like SmartView to support first-time customers. The next chapter for racing will be written by the operators, federations and commercial partners willing to build it together.”

The report’s findings are reflected in Spotlight Sports Group’s own product development. SmartView, its next-generation racecard, has been designed to simplify the betting experience and is now live with operators across more than 30 countries. Following its adoption by BoyleSports, sessions resulting in a bet have increased by 8%.

Felicity Barnard, Chief Executive Officer at Ascot Racecourse, said,
“At Ascot, we see huge opportunity globally and every major raceday is a chance for us to convert people into lifelong fans. Whether they are here in person or watching from afar, the content we distribute around the live experience is crucial to this. As the report highlights, racing’s digital offering needs to develop and evolve so that it can reach new fans and the insights from this work will help the whole industry do that more deliberately and at greater scale.”

At a pivotal moment for the sport, Spotlight Sports Group hopes its findings will equip racing’s decision-makers with the evidence and the impetus to act, helping to inspire and attract a new generation to the sport.