Rob Hyland will produce the Belmont Stakes from NBC’s studio in Stamford, Conn.NBCUniversal
After a dearth of live sports on television due to the pandemic shutdown, NBC will air nine hours of it this Saturday, capped off by the Belmont Stakes, one of the jewels in horse racing’s Triple Crown.
While other North American sports suspended action, many thoroughbred tracks around the country kept running and now it will be first out of the gate with a milestone moment on the sports calendar.
“The first major, the first iconic event that will be taking place live, is the Belmont,” said Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBCSN.
NBC will start its live coverage in England, airing five races from the historic Royal Ascot at 9 a.m. ET. It will then air the Premier League match of West Ham versus Wolves. Belmont Stakes coverage will start at 2:45 and end at 6 p.m. All events will be conducted without fans.
The Triple Crown schedule usually starts with the Kentucky Derby, which historically runs the first Saturday in May, followed by the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore two weeks later and the Belmont Stakes in New York three weeks after that. But the COVID-19 pandemic upended horse racing, and now the last leg of the Triple Crown is the first. The Kentucky Derby has been rescheduled for Sept. 5 and the Preakness Stakes will run Oct. 3.
The New York Racing Association didn’t want to run the Belmont last because they didn’t want to run a mile and a half event just a few weeks before the Breeders’ Cup, horse racing’s year-end championship event, said Dave O’Rourke, NYRA president and CEO. This year’s Belmont will not be run at the traditional distance, either, as many horses didn’t have the opportunity to prep for such a marathon. This year’s running will be at a mile and an eighth.
Although there won’t be a crowd singing “New York, New York” when the jockeys and horses come on the track for the race, O’Rourke said NYRA has plans for the event involving tradition and “some surprises,” but would not elaborate.
“This is the opportunity for the nation to see a live event staged in New York after the nightmare everybody has been through the last few months,” O’Rourke said. “We are excited to be back.”
NYRA’s production crew will work with NBC’s crew to produce the race and it will be different than Triple Crown races in the past, given the absence of fans, said Rob Hyland, Emmy-winning producer of NBC’s horse racing coverage.
“We are not going to hang on 30-second shots of empty grandstands, but we are definitely not going to avoid it,” Hyland said. “We will definitely make it part of the story and remind viewers each hour, each half hour of the broadcast of the context of which this sporting event is being contested.”
The race will have strict health protocols, including taking the temperatures of everyone entering the track. NBC cannot have reporters on horseback because of social distancing concerns, but they will have reporters Britney Eurton, Kenny Rice and race caller Larry Collmus on track.
Host Mike Tirico and analyst Randy Moss will be in the NBC studio in Stamford, Conn. Handicapper Eddie Olczyk will be joining the broadcast from his home in Chicago and analyst and former jockey Jerry Bailey will be joining from his home in Florida.
The Triple Crown has long been considered one of the toughest feats in sports because of the timing and length of the races. Given the remade schedule, a Triple Crown winner this year will come with an asterisk.
“The winner of the Belmont didn’t go a mile and a half, that in itself deserves an asterisk,” Bailey said. “The second reason is it isn’t three races in five weeks. It’s spread out from the middle of June to the first week in October. But I think anything in 2020 and any aspect of life has an asterisk.”
