THE stakes have been raised in the battle for Irish racing’s media rights with reports this week that Arena Racecourse Company [ARC] is prepared to offer a guaranteed €100,000 per meeting for live pictures from a handful of Irish tracks.

This late bid, targeted at the five racecourses who are reluctant to sign up with the “preferred” bid from Sports Information Services [SIS] and Racecourse Media Group [RMG], is not yet formal but details are expected to be circulated next week.

In the meantime, the Association of Irish Racecourses [AIR] is preparing contracts for all 26 Irish tracks to sign a new five-year deal with SIS/RMG. A general meeting is likely to be held in April when it is expected that tracks will either sign that contract or take the unprecedented route of opting out and exploring an alternative arrangement.

Paddy Walsh, who steps down as AIR chief executive next Friday, said: “We are finalising the contracts for the racecourses and it has taken a little longer than expected. We’re almost there and once we send those out we will give two weeks’ notice for a general meeting.

“We want to bring all 26 tracks with us but we won’t be putting a gun to anyone’s head. However, I am happy the deal is good enough to bring everyone with us.”

The Irish Field spoke this week to representatives of four racecourses which are unhappy with aspects of the SIS/RMG deal. Their chief concerns are that Horse Racing Ireland is taking too large a percentage of the media rights revenue, and that the deal unfairly favours bigger tracks, some of which are controlled by Horse Racing Ireland [HRI] which was involved in the negotiations.

One manager said: “HRI is getting way over the odds. They say the money goes back to tracks in the form of grant aid but we believe we wouldn’t need grants if we received our fair share of the media rights money. They are only giving us back our own money.

“Another example of this is the €3,500 minimum sponsorship contribution a racecourse must give to HRI if it wants to have an evening meeting. Sometimes we have to stump up €2,000 of that ourselves, which is harder for us to find than it is for a bigger track. The charges are the same for all tracks but when it comes to giving out money, different rules apply.”

Asked to explain why ARC was coming in now with an attractive bid, having lost out in the original bidding process, another racecourse director said: “My understanding is that the original ARC deal was more attractive to smaller tracks but, overall, the SIS/RMG deal offered more to the 26 tracks in total.

“However, it was heavily skewed towards the big tracks. The top five winners in the SIS/RMG deal were all the big tracks and Dundalk, which is obvious if the deal is based on betting turnover.”

The situation is complicated further by the fact that ARC has expressed an interest in buying Dundalk Stadium. The all-weather track stages more than 10% of the entire Irish fixture list.

Pictures from all ARC tracks are shown in betting shops by SIS’s rival The Racing Partnership and broadcast on Sky Sports Racing, a direct competitor to RMG’s Racing TV channel. Newbury will be added to the ARC list from January and this week Ascot signed another four-year deal with ARC.

One Irish track manager said: “British racecourses have a choice when it comes to selecting a media partner. Why can’t we?”