By John Burton
OCEANPORT, August 6 – Triple Crown Winner American Pharoah made the 48th Monmouth Park William Hill Haskell Invitational an economic blockbuster.
“We need the big hits like this,” to showcase area businesses, said Monmouth County Freeholder Thomas Arnone, “to show what Monmouth County has.”
Arnone said Sunday’s Invitational thoroughbred horserace, the most watched summer race in 13 years, featuring horseracing’s premier attraction, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and Haskell champion, meant for local businesses.
The NBC viewership peaked at 1 million between 5:45 and 6:06 p.m. as Pharoah cruised to the finish with a 2 and 1⁄4 length victory, being held in the final stretch to avoid injury. More than 2 million viewers watched over the hour it was broadcast, compared to the 2014 Haskell, a 102 percent increase in viewership. They also streamed more than 100,000 live minutes of the broadcast via NBC Sports Live Extra.
Monmouth Park representatives said 60,983 attended the races on Sunday, estimates that as many as 100,000 fans attended over the three days starting with Friday when the super horse star ted free to view work-outs from 7:30 a.m. to 7:50 a.m. Last year’s Haskell drew roughly 38,000 to the racetrack.
It is much too early to have any hard data about what this large event actually meant to Monmouth County tourism and economics. Laura Kirkpatrick, director of the county Department of Public Information and Tourism, said those numbers, which the county gets from the state, wouldn’t be known until probably next March.
But the appearance of the horseracing sport’s leading superstar even anecdotally had a significant impact. And it is expected to exceed the impact of the 2007 Breeders Cup, which brought in $40 million of revenue to Monmouth County.
When you’re talking 6,000- plus people at one event “That’s the Giants playing Dallas (Cowboys)” in comparison, said Gordon Sulcer, president of First Choice Marketing, sports marketing sponsorship agency that works with the state Department of Tourism.
“The restaurants were just solid packed,” in the area, Arnone said, with beach attendance high as well. In addition, “I know we had a huge, huge upswing in our hotel reservations,” he added.
“It was definitely one of the three best weekends we had this year,” observed Robert Hilton, executive director of the Jersey Shore Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Many area hotels were sold out. But shore hotels are largely expected to be sold out this time of year. But what Hilton saw was many more inland hotels, which may not necessarily do the weekend business, either sold out “or they were darn near close to it.”
And since the Haskell, Hilton has taken about 50 calls from people, “who wanted to know what else there is to do,” in the area and are planning to return.
“They had a great time while they were down here and people are talking about coming back before the end of the year,” he said.
In Red Bank, an area dining out and entertainment hub, “It helped tremendously,” said James Scavone, executive director of Red Bank RiverCenter, which oversees the town’s business district. The business district was busy all weekend, Scavone said. “It was great for Red Bank.”
“It was certainly the largest equine sporting event maybe ever,” for New Jersey, Sulcer maintained. And what he saw were young people, maybe 22-35-year-olds, who were making their first visit to a racetrack. And that is a very desirable demographic for entertainment venues and accompanying businesses, Sulcer concluded. “That’s huge,” he said.
“I think we saw what a vibrant racetrack and racing industry in Monmouth County can do as an economic engine to the rest of the business world,” Arnone said. And now “I think we should work to not let it go away,” and work to continue to reinvigorate Monmouth Park, the freeholder concluded.
