In its own way, the first quarter earnings report for Flutter Entertainment, parent company of FanDuel, outlines one of the challenges for Thoroughbred racing in the United States.
That challenge, specifically, is that too many times racing is small potatoes for owners of key operations in this industry. In the case of the planned closure of FanDuel TV, this report offered only a few, buried words on the topic the company seems to view as not a big deal.
In late March, Flutter told employees its racing-focused FanDuel TV channel would sharply reduce coverage this year ahead of a planned shutdown by 2027. This announcement sent shockwaves through an industry that has relied on the channel, formerly known as TVG, for more than two decades.
The change, of course, saw concern from industry participants and fans, as well as concern for the channel's many talented employees who have brought races from throughout the country into our living rooms. And, thankfully, a number of sources say the industry is busy at work looking for its next options.
For all of this impact on racing, it's striking that for Flutter, it's no big deal. The change is not noted until the bottom of the fourth page of the company's first-quarter earnings report. It receives all of one sentence in a paragraph devoted to cost savings
Here's the company's full explanation: "We will also be closing down our FanDuel TV racing network and FanDuel Picks product in 2026 to optimize costs and ensure investment is focused on those areas that are expected to generate the greatest returns."
Cost savings are an important topic for the company that reported a 17% spike in revenue for the first quarter but a 38% decline in net income. But its advance-deposit wagering platforms and racing channel likely have little impact on the increased revenue or declining income. Perhaps that lack of impact either way is what made the racing channel an enticing offering to analysts and shareholders looking for more responsibility from a company that has seen its share price drop 59% since late August.
On a conference call earlier this month that followed the release of the first-quarter earnings report, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson did not include the closing of FanDuel TV at all in his introductory remarks and only provided a small amount of detail when one of the analysts on the call asked him about it. Jackson noted the need for optimization and efficiencies.
"The decisions that we took around FanDuel TV and (FanDuel Picks) were relatively easy for us in terms of where we want our focus to be in the U.S. with FanDuel at the moment," Jackson said. "And actually, in particular with FanDuel TV, that set us some good cost efficiency for us."
Just in case the placement of the planned shutdown on page four of its first-quarter report didn't make it clear, nor the short explanation for the end of a channel that provided racing coverage to people throughout the U.S., Jackson made sure everyone got the message with that final short explanation.
In summation: we want our focus on sports gaming and iGaming.
These are the views of the head of a company that handled nearly one out of every three dollars wagered into pari-mutuel pools on racing in the first quarter of 2026, and to date, plans to keep that ADW operation going. For Flutter, pari-mutuel wagering is way down the list, but for racing, it's the second-largest ADW in the country.
Flutter is interested in making big things happen in iGaming, sports betting, and now even prediction markets (after it noticed the success of those platforms whose legality continues to be argued in court).
That's not the type of focus needed for innovation or success in pari-mutuel wagering. Unfortunately, this story is all too familiar, as too many of our racetracks also find themselves in a similar pecking order behind casino gaming and sometimes sports betting.
