Lets hope this Board and management has the foresight that its forefathers didn't have in this area, and still being Government controlled, hope that they don't get hamstrung in the process

The industry can only hope Sandro
At the time we had the jump on everyone with this and yet the PTB could not see how non tab clubs could benefit, yet when explained that they could at least have a bargaining chip with potential sponsors about on track signage being displayed to an outside audience via the Corporate website, with a potential of growing and expanding in future years they still could not see this.

Terrific effort - and would like to know precisely why GRNSW objected.

However, if I were sitting in the chair at Rhodes I would knock it back, too.

The current TAB/SKY program is pretty well chockablock. Part of that is due to TABCORP seeking overseas racing to boost its turnover and the shareholders' returns.

No worries there for midnight trots in UK or France or wherever.

However, big worries if the coverage coincides with Oz racing.

Over the last few years, almost all available holes in the program have been filled - over-filled in many ways. Greyhounds joined in that fun when adding Newcastle and Traralgon meetings to Saturday evening from 2010 - immediately reducing turnover on the premium products at Wenty and Meadows.

There is also the physical issue - it can be very hard to stuff another meeting into SKY without compromising what was there before. Even now greyhound people complain about excessive attention to other codes (usually trots) at some cost to details of the dog races.

However, the killer is that there is a reasonably finite demand for betting opportunities amongst the Australian public. Today the supply of races has tended to exceed that demand - ie the more races offered the smaller the pools will be. It does not radically affect the gallops but it does impact on small greyhound pools. Those pools are already too volatile, especially off-peak, because of the substantial but usually invisible and unpublished impact of corporate turnover - say a quarter of the total action.

The addition of rip-off odds from the corporates to a declining TAB pool has means that greyhounds now have a poor betting product to sell. That has resulted in an increase in the proportion of mugs in pubs, a decline in serious punting and overbetting on favourites. Note that a useful piece of the action now comes from gamblers choosing the NEXT UP options which might be for any code, or from Mystery bets. So our customer profile is riskier than it was, with little sign of a reversal.

The only current hope is the upcoming merger of TABCORP and Tatts, which will increase pool sizes and therefore offer better price integrity. But that will go only so far unless authorities grasp the nettle and start promoting the sport and attracting fresh customers. Sadly, they are not very good at that. Terrible, in fact.

However, that will never overcome the space problem which stops bringing you in. A few years ago that was what led to the demise of Newcastle (Beaumont Park) when they got kicked off Saturday afternoons. Mind you, there could well be other NSW clubs which would put their hand up in competition with you, so you might not win anyway.

Your growth has to be a function of promotion in your local region perhaps including other activities which can co-exist with greyhound racing and bring people through the door. Your website videos will help with that if people are aware of them. Anyway, you got quite good publicity during the ban (with the local MP) so you might be able to build on that.

Utilising non-SKY avenues with William Hill or whoever might look a goer but who will be watching them? Success there revolves around pubs and clubs buying an extra service. Questionable.

I hate having to agree with GRNSW but facts are facts. Sorry mate.

You wouldn't have thought it could be opposition from the NSW TAB

After all, we are locked into 13% of turnover from the ICA so a reduction in provision of product to them wouldn't matter to us anyway

The 13% could actually work in our favour

The TAB would have to fill up the slots with French Trots or Broome Horse racing which is appealing to bet on, as drinking a bottle of rancid milk,

I would have called their bluff if they threatened to chop our slots from Sky, which if we threatened a rival TV channel the corporates would probably welcome

We have the biggest increase of betting out of the 3 codes, and especially in the 18-35's who will be inheriting wealth from their parents in the coming 30 years, and they know it

Any shenanigans from them would open the door for a corporate operator to start up and fund a greyhound channel with exclusive betting rights

Instead, what these mongrels from the NSW TAB do is work with the other codes to drive us down in the political arena via the government inquiries, bans on exports, bans on racing to keep us under the thumb and try to survive on the smell of an oily rag

It's a dirty game, I hope we have the right people in the right spots going forward to be hard enough and smart enough to see the forest from the trees

I can agree with what you have stated Bruce but the reality is what I was proposing was non tab clubs being able to live stream to corporate who through modern technology could easily dedicate a live streaming channel completely different to the current Sky format and was totally dedicated to Non Tab tracks thus boosting interest in the industry, whilst at Temora i could not tell you how many phone calls you would recieve during a meeting asking how a dog went.
i could see many positives in growing interest in the club by being allowed to do this. Certainly a way for any non tab club who had the drive to build and establish there product to an industry that mainly remains unknown to a lot of participants and public, my view was that it could only benefit an otherwise struggling area of our sport without upsetting the current Tab/ sky commitments.

As I said my meetings with GRNSW heads stopped us because of an obvious tab/ Sky vision agreement, Told us it couldn't be done, which we proved wrong the next week when we live streamed it to the website.
Low and behold no more than 8-12 months latter it was being trialed at Capalaba by Tab, but I see better opportunities via the corporates.
I really got the feeling from discussions that there was no support for Non tab country racing tracks with low cost ideas to improve their clubs was totally unsupported, something I hope will surely changed with a new board and CEO.

Funny isn't it Valerie, i first took it to my fellow directors of the GBOTA board before going into GRNSW with a couple of them but support for myself and the progression of the Temora track was not strong.
If you wanted anything done you were fighting alone, that's what i found anyway, politics in this sport is shameful when it comes to who is making deals no one knows about and I will suggest this practice is still going on.

I don't know the fine detail of the Capalaba deal but essentially it involves much the same thing I suggested to you. The club races Saturday afternoon so it has no chance of getting normal TAB coverage. But it was also going broke (it lost its major punters who used the oncourse bookie) then went to a Plan B. I think it also had some support from QGBOTA which, unlike NSW, does not run its own clubs.

Still, however you enlist a corporate bookie, any turnover is that area will tend to reduce betting in normal TAB areas, including to some extent meetings conducted by NSW GBOTA. While the amounts may be small (in which case so too will be your cut) it still invokes the principle of spreading turnover more thinly. Depending on the time of the day/week you will therefore be battling to get the necessary traditional support.

In that vein, you might note that Healesville managed to get a TAB start by shifting to early afternoon Sunday, and later Friday, and away from its longstanding Saturday afternoon. If you even whisper the words "Saturday afternoon" you will get torpedoed every inch of the way by those running the show - first TABCORP and then, a distant second, GRNSW.

And, whoever your desired corporate bookie is, he is also dependent for his life on business gained via TAB-approved sources like RV and RNSW, not on small pickings from less popular clubs. Be wary. Work local.

Again you are so right Bruce with regard to timeslots, I remember I cornered the then CEO of GRNSW and made an approach for Temora (Riverina Area ) well know to suffer extreme temperatures and I proposed that Temora be allowed to trial late night racing timeslots ( no one was running with the last three quarters of the WA meeting at the time) thus reducing stress on greyhounds as the sun was going down and participants although getting home latter could have many of the things needed doing at home done before leaving for the races, we could compliment late night tab racing options by running with the last three quarters of the Cannington meeting in WA. During the summer months I could see this as being a viable option for not only participants and their greyhounds but also a chance to promote the club and increase a low revenue stream, actually any club in a known hot area could have tried this,I again proposed this to my fellow directors as well, so how did this play out you guessed it the PTB decided to run the trial of late night racing at Lismore and got rained out on the coast 4 of the first 6 weeks of the trial while inland NSW sweltered. never even got a chance to display it's true potential and benefits and again a small battling club was done over by industry politics.
i really don't care which club does what but why are country clubs treated so poorly when they do come up with ideas and are prepared to back it up to make it a success, as the old saying goes success breeds success.
i certainly know of other clubs who are prepared to try things but no support is ever given, many ideas will fail but the only time someone truly fails is if they stop trying.
Thus my reasoning for the live streaming option.

Given the rapid advances in technology, you and others might well be able to slowly build the foundations of success by live streaming. After all, SKY1 SKY2 and channel78 are almost simulcasting now. But bear in mind all that is part of a never-ending battle between NSW and Victoria and they do not take many prisoners.

In turn, that might raise your profile levels, get more people indirectly) thru the gate, encourage a local bookie to stand (ie betting on Randwick etc), and so on. Essentially, it would be easier to get in thru the side door than the front.

Politically, over the decades I have never seen any concerted effort to push the non-tab sector. The odd representation on the board would be about it but that's ancient history.

Yet there are two big elements in play. One is that small clubs are effectively nurseries for big clubs and big meetings (for which you get paid admin subs). The other is that each piece of greyhound support contributes to the broad image and the wagering turnover of the state or the nation. It all adds up.

Another factor is that Albury and Wangaratta have been dumped, leaving a large section of the country poorly served. (It is also suggested that is why Shepparton is getting such large nominations. And you already get support from Vic dogs for major events).

That being the case, you would need to make enough noise that everyone knows your worth. Quantify it if you can but it's primarily a matter of spreading the word.

In which case, you have some priceless assets. Wagga is already on prime time TV screens all over the country - from Taylor to Carey and many more. I would guess that your native representation is unequalled in the sporting world. Make a list, tell them the story and keep telling them so they can pass it on. PR mate! News from home. Ambassadors! Eventually the penny will drop.

Forget GBOTA, they don't speak the language. Iemma probably will not be much use but keep telling him anyway (or get NP and SFF to help). Plus see how Mestrov turns out. Educate him.

But, at heart, you cannot succeed just by saying you have 10 nice races. You have to demonstrate more depth and breadth than that.

(And also, you need more sectional times).

Incidentally, I am not sure your Lismore comment is entirely valid. There were several things in play at the time and the North Coast is well placed in that it has lots of dogs - which is also why they are routinely filling up SEQ races - without which Qld would be in even deeper strife.

Bingo!!!

Raelene Castle, Netball, Canterbury and now ARU boss was born in Wagga. Doesn't matter she become a Kiwi. They are everywhere.