News that FanDuel TV will be phasing out its linear television network has shocked employees and fans alike.
If Friday’s news that FanDuel TV’s linear network will be shutting up shop came as a shock to its viewers, one can only imagine – if they didn’t suspect it coming – the reaction of its staff.
An article by Ray Paulick in the Paulick Report suggests that over 100 jobs will be lost by the end this year, the network ‘reducing its workforce by about 60 per cent at the end of June’, with remaining employees continuing ‘through the end of November’.
Andrew Moore, FanDuel’s general manager of racing, told the Paulick Report that in-studio production will start to be cut back from the start of July, alongside a reduction of on-air hosts.
From December, in-studio production will cease altogether, though Moore made it known that the network will still broadcast live racing despite the removal of in-studio production and “any track production commitments” required of the network in 2027 will be fulfilled.
“FanDuel TV will continue to have its same presence from the same carriers on cable television from now through the end of 2027,” Moore explained, having already confirmed that “fans will continue to see all the same races with the same coverage they’re accustomed to throughout the entire Triple Crown season.”
He also clarified that FanDuel will “continue to have our hosts and analysts on-site for coverage of Del Mar’s summer and fall meets, Keeneland’s fall meet and the Breeders’ Cup” and that production from these events will “remain consistent with previous years.”
So, a sudden announcement, if a gradual 20-month phase out.
But what initiated the disappearance of a network that has (it went by the name ‘TVG’ until 2022) been entwined in America’s racing landscape since it launched in July 1999?
It seemed so energised when it had that rebrand four years ago, right?
According to Moore, quoted in the aforementioned article, FanDuel conducted a “thorough review” of its business and the “investments needed to support a linear network didn’t align with its long-term strategy.”
FanDuel as a whole is going nowhere and, according to Moore, both the FanDuel Racing and TVG apps will continue to offer “the same great experience” as they do now.
But the fact remains: America has lost a network dedicated to the coverage of racing.
NBC will continue to air big days, and hope can be drawn from the racing inroads made by Fox Sports in recent years.
Can they fill the void?
“There are groups of fans,” Caton Bredar, one of the network’s first hosts, told BloodHorse, “who don’t know a time without TVG or FanDuel.”
She added that Fox Sports, while “great to have”, covered only a portion of US tracks.
“FanDuel/TVG wasn’t just a platform,” said Mike Repole on X, “it was the lifeline of this sport.”
Writing on the same platform, Nick Luck, one of many overseas hosts to have presented on the network, called the phase down “dismal” and urged Flutter Entertainment, FanDuel’s parent company, to “do better” and “understand the pleasure that FanDuel TV has brought to so many over so long.”
His compatriot Jess Stafford, a frequent face with a FanDuel microphone on big days in Europe, took to social media to say she was “utterly gutted for so many colleagues and fans” and that nothing had given her “more pleasure than bringing international racing to US audiences.”
US – and international – audiences took equal pleasure watching FanDuel’s content, its interviews frequently wholesome, with horses – not wagering – their subjects.
Just take Andie Biancone sitting down with Renegade in the straw of his stall before the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn on Saturday.
Much of racing will be in disbelief, perhaps even denial, as it contemplates the closure of a colourful channel whose end, it seems, will come through managed dimming… down to track feeds until, finally, the lights are switched off altogether.
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