Breaking Down Impact of American Pharoah's Potential Triple Crown Victory

Will it actually be bad for horse racing if American Pharoah wins the Triple Crown? 

That might seem like a ridiculous question on the surface. After all, there hasn't been a Triple Crown winner since 1978. Seeing a horse break the drought would be historic and make horse racing the center of the sporting world, at least temporarily. New fans would surely come flooding in after seeing American Pharoah become a legend. 

But how long would they stick around? What does horse racing really have going for it, on a broad scale, beyond the pursuit of the Triple Crown? 

Yes, individual events stand on their own, namely the Kentucky Derby, which is an excuse for many folks to drink in fancy hats and throw their money at horses they know little about. The Derby is as much about being seen as it is watching the horses run, as much a party as it is a sporting event.

The cultural fascination with the Kentucky Derby won't disappear once a horse wins the Triple Crown again. 

But how many casual fans are going to keep coming back to horse racing year after year once the Triple Crown drought is lifted? 

In the years following the Triple Crown, probably a decent amount. Horse racing will earn a few new loyal fans with a Triple Crown winner. But once the Triple Crown loses its mystique, many casual fans may lose their interest in the races altogether.

After all, people watch or ignore the Belmont Stakes almost entirely based on whether a horse goes into the event with a shot at the Triple Crown. If folks have seen a Triple Crown winner and the tension that comes with a horse defying recent history is gone, the Preakness and Belmont could become irrelevant events for the casual crowd. 

Now, there is a counterargument here. The Boston Red Sox probably didn't lose fans when they broke their World Series drought. Good things don't generally chase people away. 

But the Red Sox are a regional team, and Boston is a sports-crazed town that identifies closely with its team, and baseball is a more popular sport than horse racing. Not only that, but the Red Sox play every season whereas the horses change each and every year. 

Sure, maybe there are fans of jockeys or trainers, but it's highly unlikely most casual fans of the sport could even name a jockey or trainer. 

Here's another way of looking at it. In the aftermath of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight—the matchup everyone had been clamoring for that pitted the two major superstars of the sport—there isn't much for the casual fan to look forward to at the moment. Nobody really cares about seeing a rematch since the recent bout was so dull, and there aren't any other major superstars people are excited to see. 

The tension and drama boxing had built up was predicated on what boxing fans weren't getting—Mayweather vs. Pacquiao—more than on what people were actually seeing. I suspect, in a few years, horse racing could face a similar predicament if American Pharoah takes home the Triple Crown. 

Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a whole new generation of sports fans will fall in love with horse racing and American Pharoah will inspire it. Maybe very little will change, with the Kentucky Derby remaining a fixture on the sporting calendar and the pursuit of three straight wins at the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in the span of a single month still intriguing folks. 

But there is always the possibility that a generation of casual observers will get their Triple Crown fix and move on to the next thing. There is always the possibility that a Triple Crown triumph will steal the sport of its most marketable pursuit.

And that has to be the most frightening idea of all for horse racing enthusiasts—that the pinnacle of the sport also becomes the beginning of its slide into irrelevance.