Ray Paulick in recent posts has tackled the executive compensation issue that is a favorite topic, particularly among politicians.
Most people won't make in a decade what some racing executives make in a year. Others won't make in a lifetime what a select few top racing executives make in a year (e.g. Bob Evans of Churchill Downs Inc. and Peter Carlino of Penn National Gaming Inc.). But neither scenario means that executives on the upper end of the payscale don't earn their salaries by rule.
Non profit organizations are a favorite punching bag of salary talk. People have a hard time wrapping their heads around why the top executive of a charity should make $500,000 or why he gets to spend $500 on meals when entertaining benefactors.
It makes perfect sense to me. I'd rather have an executive who is worth $1-million to a company (or charity) receive $500,000 in compensation than an executive worth $100,000 receive $150,000 in compensation. Similarly, I'd rather have a leader who can make a few six-figure deals happen over a four-figure weekend than someone who tries to do a bunch of five-figure deals on a three-figure budget.
In assessing the success (or failure) of anyone's performance, though, the key factor is goals. As racing fans, we all want to believe that the goals of all the different organizations Ray mentioned is to help horse racing prosper, but that's just not the case.
Some groups are for owners, some for breeders, some for horsemen, some for lobbying, some for racetracks, most combine elements of each group, but no one group other than maybe the NTRA exists for the benefit of horse racing as a whole.
It's unfair to criticize the leader of any of these groups by saying, "How can So-&-So make so much money when racing is doing so poorly." Well, if that person is doing his (I almost put "his/her" but that's not necessary in this case. Shame) job then his group could be doing well even if racing isn't.
That, of course, leads back to the common lament that there are too many organizations or as Ray put it, "too many chefs for racing's alphabet soup." Still, stakeholders--owners, trainers, jockeys, racetracks, breeders, etc.--need a voice, and a voice that can affect change and rise up in a crowd is worth a lot of money in a multi-billion dollar industry.
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Ed wrote
ReplyDeleteStill, stakeholders--owners, trainers, jockeys, racetracks, breeders, etc.--need a voice, and a voice that can affect change and rise up in a crowd is worth a lot of money in a multi-billion dollar industry.
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A voice? They have enough darned voices !
Did you not see that (incomplete) list of wasteful salaries?
Where is the voice of horse racing's customer?
You know those downtrodden, aging, taken- advantage-of-horse racing patron that continues to feed these bumbling incompetents year after year?
Obviously neglected and eliminated from the equation while these overpaid suits now plan to rob slot players for their own benefit.
The horse racing industry needs cohesion through a central league office. But that is not going to happen if people "approve" of (and validate) these executives who serve to provide questionable leadership - if at all.
Yes, but when 90% of the staff has been terminated why is Greg Avioli making half a million, especially with all the sexual harassment allegations?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind the high salaries if they were accompanied by a decent progressive tax structure. Even a return to the 50% marginal rates that we had prior to 1980 would be good enough. If Penn National wants to pay Carlino $7 million, so be it, as long as $3.5 million of that goes to finance education and health care.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I forgot, we're not talking about the morons who were in charge of the US government from 2001-2009, just the folks in racing. Oh well. The point about not-for-profits that Ed makes is valid to a certain extent, but the NYRA case is a bit of an anomaly. NYRA really is a state agency, and it's embarrassing for state officials -- for that's what Hayward and Co. are -- to be making so much more than their civil service counterparts.