SUN: Racing's media makeover paying off

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Danzig

men bet because of pink shadow rolls?

a few

[philcski]

Originally Posted by Danzig

men bet because of pink shadow rolls?

I bet pink jockey silks

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Biggest red herring out there. If you eliminate Thistledown, River Downs, Mountaineer, presque isle, etc how does that help Belmont and Santa Anita? it is like saying that if MLB got rid of rookie league and single A leagues, MLB would be more popular. The problem isnt and never has been the size or scope of the sport. On the contrary according to many in this thread the 'exposure' to horseracing leads to a fever that the exposed masses catch which makes them become horseplayers.

It makes a huge difference..Maybe not immediately but these horses will ultimately not be raced and the industry will contract to a sustainable level. If each of those tracks have 50 horses that could be raced at a real track that is 300 head racing in a sustainable racing environment. Less trainer, less grooms, less dates, less of everything that shouldnt be.

[freddymo]

More great news from NY.. Apparently by 10/1 the state will choose another slot operator.. LOL and they will open 12 months from that date.. So 10/1/11 slots will be opened for business...SURE

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...ted?source=rss

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Las Vegas's City Center resort, the most expensive hotel-and-casino development to date, bled cash during its first full quarter of operations.

The $8.5 billion City Center, jointly owned by MGM Mirage and Dubai World, struggled to fill its 4,000-room luxury hotel after opening in December. It has only been able to finalize sales of about 100 of its 2,400 luxury condominiums. And it is enmeshed in a dispute with its chief contractor, Perini Building Co., over about $500 million in construction fees.

In the first quarter, City Center recorded an operating loss of $255 million. That includes a $171 million write-down in the value of the project's condos. The company took back $24 million from buyers who forfeited their deposits on condos. Before accounting for the write-downs or other charges, City Center incurred a loss of $32 million.

The success of City Center has implications for the rest of Las Vegas. Other properties along the Las Vegas Strip have always worried that if City Center's occupancy rates remain low, the resort might be forced to discount heavily, sparking a price war that could drag down the broader market.

City Center President Bobby Baldwin joked during a conference call with analysts Thursday that if the trend doesn't improve by next quarter, "I won't be on the call."

But he and other MGM Mirage executives remain upbeat about the long-term prospects for City Center and insist that it is poised to benefit as Las Vegas rebounds from a deep downturn. Already, the number of people occupying hotel rooms is showing signs of improvement.

MGM Mirage Chief Executive Jim Murren said that the company expected to have a tough first quarter amid the recession. "But the trends have been moving sequentially in the right direction," he added during a conference call.

Mr. Murren conceived of the City Center project six years ago as a way to create a new urban center for Las Vegas. He shepherded it through to completion, even as its prospects grew dimmer. The project consists of six towers filled with luxury condos, a 150,000-square-foot casino and three hotels, in addition to a mall designed by Daniel Libeskind.

The construction costs were so massive, that at one point last year City Center narrowly avoided bankruptcy.

On Thursday, MGM Mirage reported a first-quarter loss of $96.7 million compared with a profit of $105.2 million a year earlier. Much of the loss was caused by City Center. The company released preliminary results last month.

The centerpiece hotel and casino, Aria, had an occupancy rate of 63% for the first three months of the year, 22 percentage points below the 85% rate for MGM Mirage's nine other Las Vegas Strip casinos during the first quarter.

So far, investors have been patient, expecting that the property—and the company—will benefit from a Las Vegas recovery. The region continues to lag other big hotel markets.

Las Vegas Sands Corp., which also reported its first-quarter earnings Thursday, offered an indication that the picture in Las Vegas may be improving. The company posted its first profit in two years as its earnings rose 62% in Las Vegas and quadrupled in Macau.

Like Messrs. Murren and Baldwin of MGM Mirage, Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson said he was encouraged by increased group bookings in Las Vegas. But while leisure rates have appeared to jump during the past four-to-six weeks, group rates haven't shown signs of improvement, Las Vegas Sands executives said.

Large Las Vegas resorts like City Center often report higher-than-normal expenses in their first quarter as they ramp up business.

Analysts say the property's true potential and success won't be measured until after a Las Vegas comeback fully takes hold.

"City Center is a worry," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Janet Brashear. "MGM obviously has high hopes and we know the market is going to recover, but the casino world is fickle."

In an interview, MGM Mirage Chief Marketing Officer Bill Hornbuckle said he is planning new marketing campaigns and will continue to use lower rates and promotions to boost occupancy. "Like anything in gaming, luck always becomes a factor," he said. He added that he expects occupancy and room rates to stabilize as the group-sales business picks up. "All signs are good. Remember, the cure-all here is simply time," he said.

Though the construction cranes have gone, City Center is still embroiled in a $500 million dispute with Perini over how much responsibility the contractor should bear for the Harmon Hotel, where serious construction problems occurred. As a result of the discovery of defects there that needed to be remedied, the Harmon building is half as tall as originally planned. Now its opening is delayed indefinitely.

It also remains unclear how much money City Center's condos will eventually bring in. At the height of the market, condo proceeds were expected to bring in $2.7 billion. Now, the number of buyers who will ultimately close on a condo sale is uncertain.

New-home prices in Las Vegas are down about 40% from their peak in 2006, with the luxury condo market experiencing larger declines. The company reduced condo prices at City Center by 30% and has closed on the sales of 109 units so far, for $119 million. City Center provided the loans for those sales. Around an equal number of condo buyers have chosen to forfeit their deposit and walk away from the deal, said Tony Dennis, executive vice president for MGM Mirage's residential-sales division. Mr. Dennis said an additional 600 buyers are in the loan-approval process.

Hotels almost always lose money in the first quarter. Bellagio put Steve Wynn out of business for a couple of years and it had nothing to do with gaming losses and that opened during a pretty robust economy. Just imagine if it had been saddled with an extra 4000 condos to sell and it had to succeed in today's market.

Considering everything, City Center has done fine and it will be a great success. You think Baldwin a fool? Lanni? Murren? Kirkorian?

Vegas is shifting its focus once again as forward thinking people realize that gaming isnt going to keep the town afloat alone forever. The old economy is dead. What will Vegas be fifty years from now? What is city center a big step toward?

Vegas's competition as a gaming center is too great. Asian gamblers will play in Macao (hence the goldrush at the start of the last decade over there) before crossing the Pacific. East coast gamblers can go to Atlantis, Borgata, Mohegan Sun or a million other places that will be sprouting up. Charlestown even has table games on the horizon.

Vegas is shifting toward being a convention town. The days of castles, volcanoes and the french riviera are numbered and they will be replaced by green friendly, sterile black buildings with efficient meeting space in tandem with condensed versions of all we love about Las Vegas. There will still be gambling and nightlife but it will be a piece of the pie, not the whole thing.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by freddymo

It makes a huge difference..Maybe not immediately but these horses will ultimately not be raced and the industry will contract to a sustainable level. If each of those tracks have 50 horses that could be raced at a real track that is 300 head racing in a sustainable racing environment. Less trainer, less grooms, less dates, less of everything that shouldnt be.

So if lower level horses that you already arent betting on arent raced, higher quality racing will abound? If this were sports and there were 30 teams and you contracted 8 teams then yes the quality of player would increase. But this isnt sports and the vast majority of horses at the low levels would not be competitive at a higher level.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

So if lower level horses that you already arent betting on arent raced, higher quality racing will abound? If this were sports and there were 30 teams and you contracted 8 teams then yes the quality of player would increase. But this isnt sports and the vast majority of horses at the low levels would not be competitive at a higher level.

Chuck there is allowance company at these tracks and they would not be at AP or Bel etc but they would HAVE to be raced in claiming/starter conditions..WHY? because the alternatives need to be closed. Then you wouldnt breed some unraced mare that is from an unraced mare to Say Florida Sandy because its only 1000 bucks

The allowance crap at Thistle could race in conditional 10's at AP? Now the fields are larger at AP and the betting becomes more interesting..AND the bettor has few races to spend the gambling buck

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

You are delusional to think that horseracing on a regular basis can market itself into 30000 fans. Honestly horseracing is pretty boring if you arent betting or have some sort of rooting interest.

And all of the fantasy revenue you just created goes directly into the pocket of the track, it doesnt help the grow the racing program or do a thing for those that actually do gamble except make things less conveinent.

Stronachs ideas for Gulfstream were ridiclous from the standpoint of the sport of horseracing. Perhaps for the bottom line of Magna they were great ideas but the idea that people are going to go to a mall, wander over to the track and become horseracing players is crazy.

Gulfstream has racing dates from the beginning of January until the end of april. It sits vacant for basically two thirds of the year. How is this economical if racing is the basis for all of its revenue? That sounds like a pretty poor business model to me. If I opened a restaurant, how am I going to make money if I'm closed two third of the year and when I'm open, I only fill 10% of my tables?????

Remember now, I still have to pay taxes on my swath of South florida real estate. I have to maintain it as well during those off months. How is this economically feasible?

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

Hotels almost always lose money in the first quarter. Bellagio put Steve Wynn out of business for a couple of years and it had nothing to do with gaming losses and that opened during a pretty robust economy. Just imagine if it had been saddled with an extra 4000 condos to sell and it had to succeed in today's market.

Considering everything, City Center has done fine and it will be a great success. You think Baldwin a fool? Lanni? Murren? Kirkorian?

Vegas is shifting its focus once again as forward thinking people realize that gaming isnt going to keep the town afloat alone forever. The old economy is dead. What will Vegas be fifty years from now? What is city center a big step toward?

Vegas's competition as a gaming center is too great. Asian gamblers will play in Macao (hence the goldrush at the start of the last decade over there) before crossing the Pacific. East coast gamblers can go to Atlantis, Borgata, Mohegan Sun or a million other places that will be sprouting up. Charlestown even has table games on the horizon.

Vegas is shifting toward being a convention town. The days of castles, volcanoes and the french riviera are numbered and they will be replaced by green friendly, sterile black buildings with efficient meeting space in tandem with condensed versions of all we love about Las Vegas. There will still be gambling and nightlife but it will be a piece of the pie, not the whole thing.

Vegas has been a convention town for years. However did you not see the numbers showing that group visits were and continue to be down?

Are those guys smart? Sure they are but the reality of the situation is that the numbers that make the thing work are now not even close to realistic and they thought they had an ironclad partner who turned out to be less than that. I am not a Wall Street analyst nor do i claim to have any expertise in the area. But I can read and outside of MGM employees statements, I havent read anything positive about this project and a whole lot negative. When there are rumblings that MGM can go bellyup if this thing goes south, I think your optimism is ....overly optimistic?

By the way there is a 150,000sq foot casino as one of the major pieces of the city center puzzle so to say that it is non-gambling related is not exactly true.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by freddymo

Chuck there is allowance company at these tracks and they would not be at AP or Bel etc but they would HAVE to be raced in claiming/starter conditions..WHY? because the alternatives need to be closed. Then you wouldnt breed some unraced mare that is from an unraced mare to Say Florida Sandy because its only 1000 bucks

The allowance crap at Thistle could race in conditional 10's at AP? Now the fields are larger at AP and the betting becomes more interesting..AND the bettor has few races to spend the gambling buck

Ok Freddy here is a question for you? how many of the owners who race horses at these tracks can or are willing to pay $100 a day to run at the top tracks? That is why they are running there. They all have horse vans and condition books are readily available on the internet.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

Gulfstream has racing dates from the beginning of January until the end of april. It sits vacant for basically two thirds of the year. How is this economical if racing is the basis for all of its revenue? That sounds like a pretty poor business model to me. If I opened a restaurant, how am I going to make money if I'm closed two third of the year and when I'm open, I only fill 10% of my tables?????

Remember now, I still have to pay taxes on my swath of South florida real estate. I have to maintain it as well during those off months. How is this economically feasible?

Again how does it help the racing product? They have a casino and restaurants within the racetrack that are open year round as well as simulcasting, and those things feed money into the racing product.

How is it economically feasible? You keep using projects that are bleeding money as an example of your vision of the future.

The real problem with Franks vision of Gulfstream other than him refusing to listen to anyone about anything is that the area didn't need more retail shops or restaurants, hence the place being empty. Everything sounds great in theory but the reality of the situation is that he is serving what is already overserviced EXCEPT for the racing product.

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Vegas has been a convention town for years. However did you not see the numbers showing that group visits were and continue to be down?

Are those guys smart? Sure they are but the reality of the situation is that the numbers that make the thing work are now not even close to realistic and they thought they had an ironclad partner who turned out to be less than that. I am not a Wall Street analyst nor do i claim to have any expertise in the area. But I can read and outside of MGM employees statements, I havent read anything positive about this project and a whole lot negative. When there are rumblings that MGM can go bellyup if this thing goes south, I think your optimism is ....overly optimistic?

By the way there is a 150,000sq foot casino as one of the major pieces of the city center puzzle so to say that it is non-gambling related is not exactly true.

This statement here is completely clueless.

150k in gaming space out of 16,797,000 sq ft. LOL. Yeah Chuck, its a major piece of gaming. The ventian, by contrast, has 550k in gaming space out of 3.3 million total sq ft.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

This statement here is completely clueless.

150k in gaming space out of 16,797,000 sq ft. LOL. Yeah Chuck, its a major piece of gaming. The ventian, by contrast, has 550k in gaming space out of 3.3 million total sq ft.

The centerpiece hotel and casino, Aria, had an occupancy rate of 63% for the first three months of the year, 22 percentage points below the 85% rate for MGM Mirage's nine other Las Vegas Strip casinos during the first quarter

That is not my quote

nor is this

Mr. Murren conceived of the City Center project six years ago as a way to create a new urban center for Las Vegas. He shepherded it through to completion, even as its prospects grew dimmer. The project consists of six towers filled with luxury condos, a 150,000-square-foot casino and three hotels, in addition to a mall designed by Daniel Libeskind.

seems like someone thinks it is important

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Again how does it help the racing product? They have a casino and restaurants within the racetrack that are open year round as well as simulcasting, and those things feed money into the racing product.

How is it economically feasible? You keep using projects that are bleeding money as an example of your vision of the future.

The real problem with Franks vision of Gulfstream other than him refusing to listen to anyone about anything is that the area didn't need more retail shops or restaurants, hence the place being empty. Everything sounds great in theory but the reality of the situation is that he is serving what is already overserviced EXCEPT for the racing product.

Ahh the shortsighted. Anything entertainment related is doing swimmingly right now isnt it? Besides that, you support my point. Without the other streams of revenue, racing could not survive and going forward more revenue streams need to be created.

I didnt say that Gulfstream was great. I said the idea was great and I believe that he was on the right track its just the planning and execution stunk.

You tell me Chuck how Charlestown thrives? Is that racing product any good? Do you get better odds at the Borgata casino than you do at Trump? Are the slots looser there?

[philcski]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

This statement here is completely clueless.

150k in gaming space out of 16,797,000 sq ft. LOL. Yeah Chuck, its a major piece of gaming. The ventian, by contrast, has 120k in gaming space out of 3.3 million total sq ft.

FTFY

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

The centerpiece hotel and casino, Aria, had an occupancy rate of 63% for the first three months of the year, 22 percentage points below the 85% rate for MGM Mirage's nine other Las Vegas Strip casinos during the first quarter

That is not my quote

nor is this

Mr. Murren conceived of the City Center project six years ago as a way to create a new urban center for Las Vegas. He shepherded it through to completion, even as its prospects grew dimmer. The project consists of six towers filled with luxury condos, a 150,000-square-foot casino and three hotels, in addition to a mall designed by Daniel Libeskind.

seems like someone thinks it is important

Look at chuck trying dance. You said it was a "major piece to the puzzle". That is not what that journalist or anyone else said. 150k in gaming space is a pittance in relation to the size of the place. The idea behind the place is a step away from gaming. The mention of the gaming space is about as important as who designed the mall.

Are you really going to compare occupancy on a new hotel geared to a totally different market to an established hotel geared to an established market...during a recession?????

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by philcski

FTFY

Thanks. The point still stands. No?

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

Ahh the shortsighted. Anything entertainment related is doing swimmingly right now isnt it? Besides that, you support my point. Without the other streams of revenue, racing could not survive and going forward more revenue streams need to be created.

I didnt say that Gulfstream was great. I said the idea was great and I believe that he was on the right track its just the planning and execution stunk.

You tell me Chuck how Charlestown thrives? Is that racing product any good? Do you get better odds at the Borgata casino than you do at Trump? Are the slots looser there?

Hold on a minute. Now everything entertainment related is tanking? So your theory is valid, those pesky details like every project you bring up is hemorraging cash is the fault of the economy?

So Stronach's idea was a good one but the demographics of Aventura/N.Miami/Hallandale/Hollywood have somehow screwed him? The idea for the gulfstream park location was anything but a good idea. Except to you and frank. The idea of night racing and entertainment centers/malls are not original ideas. Freddy Mo would just close it all down.

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by philcski

Happy birthday by the way, old man

Happy birthday Chuck!

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Ok Freddy here is a question for you? how many of the owners who race horses at these tracks can or are willing to pay $100 a day to run at the top tracks? That is why they are running there. They all have horse vans and condition books are readily available on the internet.

Come on? With less racing purses would increase, handle per race would grow, those owners at Thistle would either be priced out, or some other owner. You would have day rates increase A LOT. You would be racing 10 claimers for 30k all the time not 11k. Racing has to contract, it has to have less of everything including owners that shouldnt be the sport.

Did the inner at Aqueduct really need Hedge Fund(half to Super Saver) racing every 5 days to fill the 7500 whle somewhere there are 20 horses at Turfway that should have been in NY or somewhere substantial help filling the card? And yes if there 12 and 3 on the AE list in a 7500 claimer with only 40 races being run in the country on a wednesday in Feb the Handle and the interest would be very marketable.