Horse racing has no fan base. Other sports are regularly on TV, not HRacing. The leagues make huge amounts of revenue selling commercial time during their events, not HRing. In Seattle, a city with no team, the NBA sells exponentially more swag than Emerald Downs ever will. The sale of LeBron James jerseys at Northgate Mall alone out paces the sales at the EMD gift shop for an entire meet.
A body with no head is just a carcass. I have no idea how horse racing would get around state involvement to form a national executive board, one with teeth, but that is what is needed, if for no other reason than to coordinate marketing.
We've had this discussion here a million times. No reason to bring it up here. But other sports aren't reliant on gambling to survive. The NFL, MLB, and the NBA would all be every bit as healthy as they are now if gambling on their games were outlawed and pushed back into the rear rooms of the laundry mats.
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