NTRA Senior VP/TV & Sponsorship Basil DeVito "has
resigned from his position" effective October 25 and will
"return" to the WWF where he once held the post of COO,
according to Matt Hegarty of the DAILY RACING FORM. One
anonymous NTRA exec: "We can't compete with what [the WWF]
offered; we'd have to pay him more than we pay [Commissioner
& CEO Tim Smith]." DeVito was "responsible for the NTRA's
overall" TV strategy and was "instrumental in creating" the
NTRA Champions on Fox series. He also "pushed for the
acquisition" of Winner Communications, which provides
"stocks of file footage" to the organization. The
aforementioned exec "acknowledged" that the NTRA "had not
hit its revenue projections for corporate sponsorship," but
added, "That's absolutely no fault of Basil. ... A lot of
companies don't want to be associated with racing because of
the gambling aspect." NTRA officials said that there are
"no plans to replace" DeVito and that the organization's
"management team would assume his responsibilities on an
interim basis" (DAILY RACING FORM, 10/13).
