John Pricci's Saratoga Diary


Spa Fans Getting Nickeled and Dimed to Death

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

NYRA CEO Christopher Kay keeps finding new ways to squeeze money from Saratoga racing fans. Admission went up last year. Now 100 picnic tables will carry a charge every day instead of just Travers Day.Watch that number increase. It will cost this season to sit at formerly free seats in the Carousel area. Most disturbing is plans for a multi-million-dollar expansion of the clubhouse are going ahead even though the current regime is supposed to be gone next year. This is an ominous sign that Gov. Cuomo and his puppet Kay are confident they aren't going away any time soon.


MIAMI, July 7, 2015--Saratoga is starting to remind us of Las Vegas. The philosophy of Sin City in the not too distant past was, “We’re going to get your money at the tables and slots, so we’ll stay out of your pocket as much as possible in our lodging, bars, restaurants and shows.”

Then the corporate guys took over. The first thing they did was decree that just getting your gambling money wasn’t enough. The hotel, bars and restaurants had to show a profit, too. Drinks were measured shots, no doubles. In some race books, you had to ask for drink tickets when you made a bet, then turn them in to the cocktail waitresses. If you wanted a premium beer or umbrella drink, they commanded extra tickets. Entertainment in the main show rooms became as expensive as it was back home.

More recently, some numbers-crunchers came up with the concept of “resort fees,” Las Vegas equivalent of airline baggage charges. These fees run as high as $25 a day. This, of course, is nothing more than a way to jack up the price of rooms, which are no longer bargains at face value.

Las Vegas is still doing OK but nothing like it once did. Unemployment, once unheard of, is soaring. Building has come to a halt, with some major projects abandoned unfinished. Homes are selling for half what they once cost. The economy is a factor but Las Vegas has survived previous recessions without the downturn it is suffering.

This brings us to Saratoga, which handles more money per day than any other racetrack in America. Under Christopher Kay, another bottom line corporate suit, a similar nickel and dime philosophy has taken hold. Admission, which was $2 grandstand and $5 clubhouse for what seemed like forever, jumped to $5 and $8 last season. Parking went up, too.

But it doesn’t stop at the entry gate. Previously hard to get reserved seats also were jacked up in price. The result: thousands go unsold on many days.

Picnic tables, ALL picnic tables, were free. A few years ago, Kay put a $100 charge on some for Travers Day. The money was going to racetrack charities, he promised. It did…for one year. Now there will be 100 on sale every day and all the money is going to NYRA’s bottom line.

Kay says there will still be 850 free tables. Anyone want to make an over-under on how long this will stand?

The Carousel area, with scores of seats, has been free throughout its existence. Kay has redubbed it a sports bar and will charge to sit there this season.

Has anyone clued in the Toy Man that there are few sports on TV during the hours races are run at Saratoga? NFL season doesn’t start until the week after Saratoga closes. The NBA and NHL are in their off-seasons. People don’t watch mundane regular season baseball games, most of which are at night anyway, at home. The Carousel “sports bar” is nothing but a way to grab another few bucks out of racing fans accustomed to sitting there for free.

The Top of the Stretch area, my personal favorite, is getting squeezed more each season. First it was pricey catered picnic areas along the rail. Even when they weren’t being utilized, security guards made sure common fans didn’t get to have the up close view they used to have.

A huge tent also has been added against the back fence. So far, fans are allowed to hang out when it is not being rented. By I hold my breath each season that this will change, too. I’m hesitant to call it to Kay’s attention. In any case, an area which used to accommodate a thousand or more fans comfortably is now elbow to elbow with a couple of hundred.

The Saratoga Hall of Fame building Kay is constructing near the Carousel is not only resulting in the eradication of shade trees, it is also is going to cut into the space fans used to have at their disposal.This is where families, which make Saratoga so special, congregate. Keep charging them more and pushing them further from the horses and soon they decide, “This isn’t fun anymore,” and will find other things to do.

Saratoga locals are outraged that the Open House on a Sunday before the meeting opened, a tradition for more than three decades, was canceled by Kay. He said he did it because it wasn’t well attended, which was widely disputed. He also said local charities, which were allowed to fund-raise on Open House Sunday, weren’t as successful as they should be. Kay didn’t quote one local charity to back this claim.

John Hendrickson, who has the title of being Gov. Cuomo’s advisor to the NYRA board on Saratoga issues, was livid that he wasn’t told of the cancellation until it was a done deal. “How can I advise when I’m not in the process?”

Kay let the true reason out when he said the Open House could be revived if a sponsor is found. In other words, as long as it doesn’t cost NYRA a dime. Good will in the local community doesn’t show up on balance sheets.

The most ominous development of all is the planning for a new building, which is being called an extension of the clubhouse. Essentially the plan is to build permanent skyboxes. They will be situated on the other side of the walking path from the paddock to the track, where temporary facilities have been the past several years.

That these are being built for a handful of the super wealthy is bad enough. How about spending some money to substantially increase the number of restrooms for women. It’s a disgrace that they have to wait in endless lines on weekend days.

But the big issue is what business plans a significant, multi-million dollar expansion knowing it will not be there when the work is finished and the bills come due?

Political appointee Kay and company were supposed to be gone this fall, replaced by a return of NYRA to private ownership. Without warning or fanfare, Gov Cuomo extended this by a year. There is nothing to stop him for doing this ad infinitum, especially since there appears to be little to no effort to find a new operator.

That Kay, with the governor’s approval, is moving ahead with this expansion suggests that the current regime plans to be around for a while.

This is not good news for Saratoga in particular and New York racing in general.

John Pricci says:
08 Jul 2015 at 01:32 pm | #
TJ, et al, this is a personal email from my HRI address online received several days ago:

“For this summer’s Saratoga meeting, NYRA has created a full scale ‘gouging plan’ that attacks its most loyal fans--those who buy reserved seats in the Clubhouse or Grandstand for the full 40-day meet.

I’ve had my four seats in the Clubhouse for the last 35 years and renewed them for this year’s meet.(My wife also had four sets in the Clubhouse for 35 years, but this year decided not to renew them, because of the greed shown by NYRA’s ceo Christopher Kay and the rest of the NYRA hacks).

This is what NYRA is doing in 2015, a major step toward ruining the Saratoga experience for its many supporters. For simplicity’s sake to make this easy to understand,

I am comparing the plight of one person with one reserved seat (A), with a second person with zero reserved seats(B).

A. The person with one seat is forced to pay the combined price of the seat, plus the price of admission to the track. For the full 40 days, the cost of this one-seat plan is $757.50.

B. The person with zero seats who needs to pay for clubhouse “admission only” is charged $55 for a season’s pass for the 40-day season [ed. note: via Stewart’s promotion].

This means the guy who supports the track with purchased seats needs to pay $320 for his admission to the track for 40 days while the no-seat person only pays $55 for his 40-day season’s pass.

(Because of higher admission prices for Travers/Whitney days, the $320 admission number used is higher.)

For every seat compared this way, the “seat” person has to pay $265 more for clubhouse admission to the track than that paid by the “no seat” person to get into the track.

For a track customer who has purchased four reserved seats ($3,030), as I did, I need to pay in advance $1,280 to get my four people into the track compared with $220 costs for the non-seat pass person using four entries into the track.

NYRA is unable to grasp that maybe something is wrong here?

NYRA penalizes the seat-buying person and rewards the season’s pass people. That is not a way to run a race track and that covers the very esteemed Saratoga Race Course, once No. 1 in the land.”

Alan Hirsch

howardbeale says:
08 Jul 2015 at 01:48 pm | #
Forget the drugs, casino money being wasted on huge purses, and takeout, guys like this are the main reason for the continued decline in wagering and attendance. With parking, admission, program or racing form, a bite to eat…a place to sit, how much is the average person down before making the first bet? What is the attraction that I would use my limited discretionary income to attend Saratoga? Now I take my $50 or $100 bucks and use my adw account and spread the money around, maybe drinking a beer and munching on junk food.

As someone who has been doing this for over 40 years, the only on track experiences I miss are the camaraderie, the sense of us versus them, (did you see, they made the 6 the favorite) trading bad beats and stories, mixing with backside peeps, and the atmosphere. Now this isn’t the kind of person who the bean counters want to attract. Is it the upscale client who comes once or twice a year and sees it as an outing and not a gambling venue that they are trying to attract? How many people even buy the racing form anymore? They have made handicapping a lost art.
Selling over priced lunches in the dining room is more important than catering to the guy who wants to bet a few bucks and try and make some money. More and more this is the way the industry is heading.

At some point the Saratoga bubble will burst.