Mike Tirico will call the Preakness Stakes this weekend for NBC, making him one of the most critical voices in horse racing. Tirico is using that perch to call for a significant overhaul of the Triple Crown schedule.
In an interview Thursday on The Dan Patrick Show, Tirico pushed to move the Preakness back to Memorial Day weekend and the Belmont Stakes to Independence Day weekend to maximize the competitive energy of a horse like Kentucky Derby-winner Sovereignty, who will not run in the Preakness to recover from the Derby.
Beyond Tirico’s knowledge that a holiday weekend would improve TV viewership for his employer, he also believes that the schedule would be more in line with the training regimen of modern racehorses.
“They used to wheel horses back every two weeks. Now, for the most part, the best thoroughbreds only run once every four, five, six weeks,” Tirico explained.
“That’s the normal window. To bring them back on two weeks’ rest from Derby to Preakness never happens during the year for these horses. So then why are you taking 21-plus million people who watched the Kentucky Derby, any momentum you might have built, and give the sport zero chance to build on that momentum?”
Tirico borrowed a popular comparison for a sport with outdated rules, noting how Major League Baseball adapted to sports science and fan habits to regain its audience. The voice of NBC Sports believes horse racing should do the same.
“The Triple Crown has been around for 140-some odd years, you don’t want to mess with tradition, I got it,” Tirico said. “But if you can’t follow this idea with anything that works right now in the sport, then we’re hurting the sport.”
This is a common debate in horse racing, but the sport is challenging to change without a unified governing body. Each race has its own priorities and traditions, and they likely won’t make changes simply because NBC wants them to.
But Mike Tirico is making a broader point about the sport’s overall popularity and health, and that should matter to all its stakeholders.