NBC Faces Preakness Dip as Racing Mulls Rest and Triple Crown Reset

Yahoo

17-05-2025

Three days after Sovereignty won the Kentucky Derby, the thoroughbred's owners announced they would skip the Preakness Stakes with a plan to compete in the Belmont Stakes on June 7. While the extra rest might improve the colt's odds for a win, it eliminates the potential of a Triple Crown winner this year—as well as the advertising impressions of millions of casual racing fans.
'Load management' has crept into modern horse racing as more owners and trainers seek between five and six weeks of rest for their top horses between the highest profile races. It is a less than ideal scenario for NBC, which holds rights to the Derby and the Preakness. (Fox will broadcast the Belmont.)
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Sovereignty's win at this year's Derby telecast pulled in 17.7 million viewers, a total that includes out-of-home viewing and is the best since 1989. NBC hit a record peak audience of 21.8 million, which was 8% better than last year.
A year without a Triple Crown contender usually costs the network about 2 million viewers. Two Kentucky Derby winners have skipped the Preakness in the last two decades, and fans tuned out.
Country House didn't race in 2019, and NBC pulled in a total audience of 5.41 million viewers. That was a 32% decline compared to the year prior when Derby winner Justify drew 7.94 million viewers to the second leg of his Triple Crown triumph.
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In 2022, surprise Derby winner Rich Strike was held out of the Preakness and just 5.3 million people tuned in for Early Voting's win. That number was a 24% dip from the 2021 race when 7 million tuned in to see Medina Spirit finish third. (Medina Spirit would later have his Derby win overturned for a banned substance.)
Despite the ratings ebb and flow for the Preakness, brands tend not to sweat the numbers as most of the ad inventory in the Preakness is sold before the Derby.
According to iSpot.tv data, the Kentucky Derby averages around 327 million ad impressions, including this year's near-record 362 million. The Preakness and Belmont have smaller ad impression pools of 131 million and 56 million, respectively, over the last three years.
The lack of a Triple Crown contender at the Preakness has stirred up debate over its scheduling. Some people in the horse racing community advocate for the Preakness to run later in the spring, with the idea of giving contending horses more recovery time after running the Derby.
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There's also the TV and advertising angle; a Triple Crown contender brings more casual viewers to the Preakness, but only if it's in good condition to run.
Randy Moss, NBC Sports' longtime horse racing analyst—and not the Pro Football of Fame receiver—has been sounding the alarm about the Triple Crown losing its luster over the last 15 years because of the lack of rest between races.
'Three races in five weeks was once not only considered acceptable, but trainers often gave horses a race between the Preakness and Belmont, and sometimes even between the Derby and Preakness,' Moss said in an email. 'But trainers believe today's horses are not as robust and durable as the horses of yesteryear and that a two-week turnaround is counterproductive to their health.'
In other words, Sovereignty is no Smarty Jones, the 2004 Derby winner who won the Preakness by a record margin of 11 ½ lengths two weeks later. The race at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., garnered 11.6 million viewers, and it remains the biggest Preakness audience of the past 25 years. Undefeated at the time, Smarty Jones had the best chance of a Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978, but he came one length short of first at the Belmont. (American Pharoah won the crown in 2015, followed by Justify three years later.)
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Moss thinks that thoroughbred racing is long overdue for the single change that could make the Triple Crown a watershed moment in sports again.
'All businesses and sports that refuse to adapt to changing circumstances are doomed to fail,' he said. 'The solution for thoroughbred racing is fortunately a simple one: extend the time between the Triple Crown races. And three weeks won't be enough. Four or even five weeks between races is the answer. Then the Triple Crown can get back to what it once was: the best 3-year-olds squaring off in all three races.'
Even without Sovereignty, NBC is leaning on another longtime narrative for the Preakness; the rivalry between trainers Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas. Baffert holds the most wins at the Preakness with eight, while Lukas has seven. As part of the 150th anniversary of the Preakness, the network filmed a talk between the two trainers, Moss and Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey about the trainers' rivalry and their relationship.
NBC is hoping that the rivalry will help create the allure of history as much as the horses do themselves.
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