Image certainly isn’t everything, but it does count for a lot.

A few days ago, my league’s fantasy football draft took place. The mix of people was eclectic to say the least. You had people who ate, slept and breathed the sport and then you had people who thought Tebow was worthy of a first round pick. Together, we as a group of people completely debunked the myth that you actually have to know something about football in order to enjoy fantasy football. This all made me wonder why the same thing can’t happen to horse racing.

The average fantasy football fan who knows nothing about the sport soon realizes that knowledge is power. She then starts watching actual football games in order to gain an understanding of the sport, and winds up developing a cursory knowledge of the actual sport of football. She is easily able to identify the Brady’s, Manning’s and Rodgers’ of the sport. If someone had a reason to pay attention to horse racing for 16 weeks, she would easily be able to identify the Baffert’s, Lukas’ and Pletcher’s of the sport.

So why can’t we get the casual fan to pay attention to our sport for 16 consecutive weeks? It’s because the format of our sport is so alien to the general public that they fail everytime their brain tries to comprehend it. Casual fans always ask me when is the horse racing off-season? They always ask me what is your version of the playoffs? Who is leading the standings?

When I tell them that there is no off-season, we have no playoffs and no one is leading any standings, but the best horse as voted on by some old people will get this thing called an Eclipse Award, they’re figurative heads begin to explode.

We have to steal shamelessly from NASCAR

Our best horses can only run sparingly, so they cannot be the focus anymore. The jockey and trainer have to be the focus. They have to start competing in a season long battle for points and every graded stakes race has to count. I don’t believe that NASCAR is a superior sport to horse racing, but it sure is accessible. The same thirty or so drivers are competing for points each week and there is some team format. We need to have a team format as well.

The economics of racing makes things difficult. The owners have more money than they could ever hope for, so we cannot incentivize them with money, but we can with prestige. I am sure we could have a night each month with seven races-one in each major division, the top owners would agree to compete in each race each month until the season was over. They are not obligated to supply the same horse each time, so for example, Mike Repole could use Overanalyze or he could use Micromanage, but he would have to use one of them. Owners like Mike Repole; guys with bravado and flair would love the chance to put his stable up against the best stables in the country. Every single month there would be an event that would attract interest from the general public because it would be about the owners. Owners always show up, they don’t get sick, they don’t get season ending injuries from a mild gallop and they are rarely ever at a loss for words.

All of the races that we currently have can remain intact. The only thing that would change is when the races are run considering that we need seven major races on the same day. The jockeys and trainers could also receive points towards end of the year honors. With the point system in place, the jockeys would now become stars just like NASCAR drivers. They would be eligible for endorsement deals and would not need to rely on their earnings at the track as much as they used to.

With the attention placed squarely on the owners, trainers and jockeys, years such as this one – a year with no three-year-old stars to speak of – wouldn’t be such a major blow to the sport. The fans would be so wrapped up in the points race between Pletcher and Baffert that they wouldn’t have time to notice that the three-year old division has no superstars.

If owners wanted to compete in this series, they would need a plethora of horses. Turf, dirt, sprinter, router, two-year old and older horses. The days of owners stacking their barns with cheap speed horses would not be gone, but it would be further in the distance, because owners would think with a team building mentality. We could even have corporations sponsor the teams and have jockeys ride exclusively for one particular stable. The casual fan likes the concept of team sports and would certainly comprehend the idea of a jockey riding exclusively for a particular stable.

The greatest benefit would be the image overhaul that would take place. With the team being front and center, horse racing would appear as what it really is – the everyman’s sport. Guys like Repole, Baffert and Zito – guys that people can relate to, would be the ambassadors of the game. Children wouldn’t be ashamed to admit they follow horse racing because guys from “the neighborhood” are in the racing industry, so it can’t be a pretentious county club sport.

In the United States of America marketing is king. While NASCAR markets its sport as something accesible and egalitarian, we market our sport as something perplexing and elitist. So, it should come as no surprise that when a young child from the inner city displays a genuine interest in our sport, those around him then ridicule him. There is a battle going on for the next generation of sports fans, we need to get in the proverbial ring and start fighting.