By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews | Maryland on the Map, Part 3
The numbers are not flattering, and they are worth sitting with before anyone declares the Pimlico rebuild a success.
The Masters Tournament costs Georgia taxpayers nothing and generates $120 to $151 million in regional economic activity. The Kentucky Derby costs Kentucky taxpayers relatively little — modest state incentives, tourism marketing, no major public capital outlay — and generates $400 to $441 million for Louisville annually. The Preakness Stakes is costing Maryland taxpayers $400 million in bond financing and, in recent years, has generated somewhere between $35 and $52 million annually for Baltimore.
The prestige gap between these three events is real, measurable, and important to understand — not to write the Preakness off, but to be clear-eyed about how far it has to travel and what realistic growth actually requires.
Viewership: The Scoreboard Nobody Wants to Show
Television viewership is the most objective single measure of a sporting event’s national reach, and the gap here is significant.
In 2025, the Kentucky Derby averaged 17.7 million viewers and peaked at 21.8 million — its strongest performance since 1989. It cracked the overall top 100 most-watched U.S. telecasts for the year, one of only a handful of non-football events to do so.
The Masters final round averaged approximately 12.7 million viewers in 2025, peaking at 19.5 million during a dramatic closing stretch. It ranked around 153rd among all U.S. telecasts — the most-watched golf event in the country by a wide margin, but still outside the top 100 to 130 overall.
The Preakness, in a typical year without a Triple Crown contender, draws 4 to 8 million viewers. It does not appear in meaningful top-event lists. It is not appointment television for casual sports fans the way the Derby and Masters are.
That gap matters for one specific reason: broadcast revenue and broadcast investment. The Derby’s strong ratings justify NBC’s substantial production commitment — the pageantry, the pre-race coverage, the fashion segments, the narrative storytelling that turns a two-minute race into a three-hour national event. The Preakness has not commanded that same production investment, and the ratings reflect it. Which came first is a fair question. But closing the gap requires addressing both simultaneously.
Attendance: Where the Preakness Actually Competes
Live attendance is where the Preakness holds its own more credibly. The Derby draws 150,000 to 165,000 people, one of the largest single-day crowds in American sports. The Masters limits attendance to roughly 40,000 to 50,000 patrons per day by design.
The Preakness, in recent years, has drawn anywhere from 40,000 to north of 100,000, depending on weather, competition, and whether a Triple Crown narrative is alive. The infield at Pimlico on Preakness day is genuinely one of the better party atmospheres in American sports — chaotic, festive, and unlike anything else on the calendar.
The problem is not the crowd on race day. The problem is what surrounds it — the state of the facility, the quality of the experience outside the infield, and the week-long programming that the Derby has built around its race day, and the Preakness has not.
The Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, run on the Friday before the Preakness, is the most obvious underutilized asset. Churchill Downs transformed the Longines Kentucky Oaks — the fillies’ race run the day before the Derby — into a major standalone event with its own fashion element, its own cultural identity, and its own significant attendance. The Oaks now draws over 100,000 people on its own. The Black-Eyed Susan is not there yet. It should be a priority.
The Triple Crown Variable
Any honest analysis of the Preakness has to account for the Triple Crown variable, because it distorts every other number.
When a horse arrives at Pimlico having won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness becomes something different. Viewership spikes. National media attention shifts to Baltimore. The narrative writes itself — will this horse do what only thirteen have done since 1978? The 2015 Preakness, with American Pharoah chasing history, was a different event entirely than a typical year.
Maryland cannot manufacture Triple Crown contenders. No policy, no rebuilt facility, no marketing budget creates a dominant three-year-old. But what a rebuilt Pimlico can do is ensure that when those years arrive — and they will, periodically — Maryland captures every dollar of that moment rather than hosting a national spectacle in a crumbling venue that embarrasses the state on live television.
That alone is a partial argument for the capital investment. But only partial.
What Genuine Growth Requires
Closing the prestige gap between the Preakness and the Derby is a long-term project. It requires several things happening simultaneously:
First, the broadcast relationship needs to change. The Preakness needs the kind of production investment that turns race day into a national television event, regardless of whether a Triple Crown is on the line. That means NBC or its successor investing in the Preakness the way it invests in the Derby — not as a sequel event, but as a standalone spectacle.
Second, Preakness week needs to become a destination, not just a race day. The Derby is a week. The Masters is a week. Augusta in April and Louisville in May are transformed cities. Baltimore in May should be the same. That requires hotel infrastructure, programming, and the kind of public-private coordination that Maryland has demonstrated it can execute in other contexts — the CIAA Tournament’s growth in Baltimore is proof of concept.
Third, the new Pimlico needs to deliver on its year-round promise. If Oak View Group and the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority can build a venue that generates genuine revenue on the other 364 days of the year, the economics of the public investment improve substantially. If it becomes a Preakness-day facility that sits largely dark the rest of the year, the critics will have been right.
None of this is impossible. The raw material is there — the history, the Triple Crown identity, the infield culture, the Baltimore market. What has been missing is the sustained institutional will to treat the Preakness as a growth project rather than a preservation project.
Maryland just spent $400 million on preservation. The growth part is still ahead.
Maryland on the Map is an ongoing MDBayNews series on the state’s sporting economy and public investment in major events.
Sources: Maryland Stadium Authority; MTROA public filings; NBC Sports viewership data (2025 Kentucky Derby, historical Preakness); CBS Sports viewership data (2025 Masters); Churchill Downs Inc. investor relations; Louisville Tourism economic impact reports; Augusta Convention & Visitors Bureau; Maryland Department of Commerce; Dennis Coates, UMBC, peer-reviewed economic impact literature; Pimlico redevelopment project filings, Maryland Stadium Authority.
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