Like the Triple Crown-opening Belmont Stakes in June and the delayed Kentucky Derby in September, Saturday's 145th running of the Preakness Stakes from Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., saw significant declines both in wagering and television viewership.
Normally run on the third Saturday in May, two weeks after the Kentucky Derby, this year's Preakness – like all three Triple Crown races – was run without spectators on site, meaning on-track wagering was minimal. The Preakness encountered not only increased competition from the sports world – it was up against six televised NCAA football games including Texas A&M at Alabama, Oklahoma State at Kansas and Ole Miss at Kentucky – but both Belmont Park and Keeneland offered a full slate of late afternoon graded stakes races serving as major preps for the Nov. 6-7 Breeders' Cup world championships.
For the day, according to Equibase, wagering on Pimlico's 12-race card was $51,242,631, a decline of 48.7% from the record $99,852,653 bet on the 14-race Preakness Day card in 2019. The Preakness race itself handled $31.7 million, down 49.5% from 2019 when $62.8 million was wagered on the classic race for 3-year-olds.
The wagering declines were similar to those experienced by Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby day Sept. 5 and on the Derby itself, when handle dropped by 49.8% and 52.0%, respectively. Derby Day wagering fell from a record $250.9 million to $126.0 million and the Derby itself handled $79.4 million compared to $165.5 million in 2019.
The Belmont Stakes, which on June 20 kicked off a Triple Crown reshuffled because of the coronavirus pandemic, saw smaller wagering declines compared to 2019. The $67.8 million bet on this year's Belmont Stakes card was down 33.7% from $102.1 million in 2019 and the Belmont Stakes saw a 35.9% decline from $53.2 million to $34.1 million.
Combined, wagering on the three Triple Crown cards fell by more than $200 million, from $453 million in 2019 to $245 million this year, a decline of 45.9%.
Just as many other major league sports have struggled to maintain television viewership, so too have horse racing's marquee events. The combined viewing audience for the NBC Sports telecasts of the three Triple Crown races fell by 47.3% from 26.6 million in 2019 to 14 million in 2020. The Belmont's 2.0 rating was the lowest in 24 years and the 4.8 rating for the Derby – traditionally the highest-rated racing telecast of the year – sank to a 32-year low. The Preakness rating of 1.4 represented a viewing audience of 2.4 million compared to 5.4 million in 2019.
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