Victoria’s spring racing carnival under a cloud

Sydney positioning to steal Melbourne’s crown as Australia’s sport capital in the coming months.

Hospitality and catering packages are a big earner for Melbourne’s racing clubs, generating about $100m a year in revenue. Picture: AAP

Coronavirus has clouded one of the nation’s biggest sport and corporate events — Melbourne’s spring racing carnival — threatening a $100m hospitality industry across three Victorian metropolitan racing clubs.

Moonee Valley Racing Club has yet to release packages for its Cox Plate Carnival, and Melbourne Racing Club has scaled back its hospitality offering, ditching marquees in favour of its smaller permanent buildings.

But the Victoria Racing Club remains hopeful it can still accommodate crowds, including at its Birdcage. This is despite the ­national economy remaining fragile after Victoria — which has been exiled from the rest of the country — re-entered a hard lockdown this week to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Hospitality and catering packages are a big earner for the three racing clubs, generating about $100m a year in revenue. At Victoria Racing Club, it injects $65m — a crucial source of income, given it took on tens of millions of dollars in debt to fund its new $120m grandstand.

Adding to the uncertainty is the AFL finals fixture, with the grand final pushed back from the last week of September to the same day as the Cox Plate, on October 24.

With anyone who has been in metropolitan Melbourne — including football players — forced to self-isolate for at least 14 days, speculation is mounting that the grand final could be pushed back even further to Derby Day, which is held on the same day as NSW’s second-biggest race, the Golden Eagle, on October 31.

If the grand final is pushed back to that date, it will create a broadcasting conflict at Seven, which has the rights to the grand final and Golden Eagle. That would also dilute Derby Day audiences, after the Victorian Racing Club sold its broadcast rights to Ten for $100m in a five-year deal in 2018.

Seven declined to comment.

Racing NSW chief executive and Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys told Nine Entertainment the AFL grand final was a “second-rate event”, before ­retracting the tongue-in-cheek comment on 2GB’s Ben Fordham program. Instead, Mr V’landys referred to the grand final, which could be held at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium this year, as a “support event”.

The possibility of moving the grand final interstate from the MCG positions Sydney to become Australia’s sport capital in coming months — and lure the lucrative corporate crowds from Melbourne.

Crowds have returned to racing meetings and NRL games in NSW. But metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, which abuts the city’s north, remains in stay-at-home lockdown.

Racehorses are even banned from crossing the NSW-Victoria border, unlike the Victoria-South Australia border, which is still letting the animals pass. This has interrupted scheduling and, in the early months of spring preparations, with big-money races in both capital cities, trainers will need to make hard decisions as to where they focus their horses.

The restrictions have halted corporate package sales, which normally begin in June, at Moonee Valley Racing Club and Melbourne Racing Club.

“The MVRC are awaiting further advice on how we will be able to accommodate patrons across the racecourse for the 2020 Ladbrokes Cox Plate Carnival before releasing packages. Members will have priority access,” the MVRC said on its website.

Meanwhile, the MRC says all its “events are either postponed, cancelled or operating without spectators”. It has not started selling any corporate packages.

Racing Victoria (RVL) knocked back a plan to push back the Spring Racing Carnival by a month to give space between the end of the AFL season, opting to retain its traditional schedule.

An RVL spokeswoman said the organisation was working closely with the AFL regarding scheduling and was confident it could deliver a “great sporting product”.

“We acknowledge that the challenge for publicity and media coverage from additional competition throughout October is a real one,” the spokeswoman said.

“However, we look forward with optimism at the spotlight that racing will receive in the media landscape this spring and in the knowledge that we have great media partners, in addition to guaranteed free-to-air broadcasts, to showcase our premier races.”

The Victorian government had provided RVL with $16.6m, to help provide coronavirus-affected clubs with “necessary short-term funding until September 30”.

“The investment will ensure that club funding can also be maintained at pre-COVID-19 levels for the period,” the RVL spokeswoman said. Victoria Racing Club, which hosts the Melbourne Cup Carnival, also remained hopeful it could attract crowds.

“The VRC is planning for the Lexus Melbourne Cup to proceed on the first Tuesday in November, as it has for almost 160 years,” a VRC spokeswoman said.

“We are planning for a number of different scenarios for this year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival so that we can emerge from this crisis and stage one of the nation’s greatest events that bolsters not only Victoria’s tourism, hospitality and retail sectors, but the spirits of a nation. Our scenario planning takes into consideration all ­aspects of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, including the world-­famous Birdcage.

“With regards to corporate dining packages, a number of our corporate hospitality clients have indicated their desire to proceed with hospitality at this year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival, should government restrictions permit.”