USA Network lands all three race days of the Horse Racing League's 2027 debut

Gulfstream Park, March 13. Keeneland, April 18. Santa Anita Park, May 15. That's the whole first season of the Horse Racing League, and USA Network will carry every race day live in 2027, according to a joint announcement from USA Sports and the league on November 10.

SportBusiness reported that USA Network has become the first broadcaster to acquire rights to the team-based Horse Racing League. Sportico's Jacob Feldman, who broke the news ahead of the announcement, reported that financial terms weren't disclosed. So the open question isn't the price. It's what a league with three race days actually gives a brand, a track or a network to work with, and how that inventory gets sold.

Twelve races in about nine weeks

Sportico laid out the format: ten squads, assembled through a draft, compete for a championship and more than $10 million in prize money. Each race day carries two contests on turf and two on dirt. The joint release describes the cards more loosely, as multiple dirt and turf races, so the four-race structure is the more specific of the two published accounts.

Multiply it out and the 2027 season comes to twelve races. The league's own boilerplate describes the purse as over $10 million in prize money each year, which suggests the money is meant as a recurring feature of the format rather than a one-time launch splash.

The spacing matters as much as the count. The joint release puts Gulfstream Park on March 13, Keeneland on April 18 and Santa Anita Park on May 15. That works out to 36 days between the opener and Keeneland, then 27 days to the Santa Anita finale, nine weeks from first race to last. All three inaugural HRL race days will air live on USA Network, and Elevate is the league's exclusive partner for ticketing, hospitality and sponsorship sales.

The league pitches itself as bringing season-long continuity to thoroughbred racing, built on storytelling, team rivalries and the draft. With three race days, most of that continuity has to happen between the races. That puts weight on content that lives off the live broadcast, and the league has said as much.

Teams led by celebrities and brands appear in the release as one of the format's building blocks. The league calls itself digital-first and says it will focus on innovative gaming and storytelling that runs across the full season. When HRL announced its leadership hires, CEO Danny Epstien was direct about the audience it wants: he said celebrity partnerships and a digital-first approach are how the league plans to bring a new generation of fans to this legacy sport. Across a five-week gap, the teams carrying famous names and brands become the main link between race days, and gaming gives fans one more reason to stay engaged between cards.

Two outside partners hold the commercial keys

The week before the USA deal, HRL named Renee Wilm chief business officer, J-T Ladt chief marketing officer and Clifford Lidell chief brand officer. In the same announcement, as carried in the full release text published by Paulick Report, the league named Elevate, a global sports and entertainment agency, its exclusive partner for ticketing, hospitality and sponsorship sales.

Put those pieces together and the commercial map is short. USA Network will air all three race days live. Elevate is the exclusive partner for ticketing, hospitality and sponsorship sales.

For a brand partnerships director, that structure has an upside: fewer doors to knock on, and a team-level asset to attach a name to. For hospitality buyers, three dates at three tracks, all sold through Elevate, could leave little room to adjust if a date doesn't fit the client calendar.

The Formula 1 template, at a smaller scale

Greg Maffei, HRL's co-founder and executive chairman, ran Liberty Media from 2005 to 2024 and oversaw the company's purchase and growth of Formula 1. He started the league with Epstien, who founded Skylark, and he is also the founder and CEO of BANN Ventures. When the league launched, Maffei held up F1 as a model, Sportico reported. He sees an opening to package horse racing's competition, history and glamour as a modern media product, much as F1 has done over the past decade. HRL also plans premium live event experiences with plenty of brand tie-ins.

In the joint release, Maffei tied the storytelling ambition directly to USA Network's reach beyond television, onto social platforms. He called USA Sports the ideal partner as the league focuses on "broadening fan interest in our league and attracting new and younger demographic to horse racing." That reads as the plan for filling the gaps between race days: teams, personalities and the horses themselves become recurring content, and the three live afternoons become the payoff.

Epstien framed the network's role in similar terms. "USA Sports understands the value of our content," he said in the release, adding, "We are thrilled to have them as our partner as we launch HRL." Both executives, in other words, pitched the deal as a way to get the content around the races in front of fans, beyond the race-day telecasts.

Scale is the strongest objection. According to Sportico, Maffei sees a chance for horse racing to become a modern media product, as F1 has over the last decade, yet HRL opens with three race days. Whether the format can support that ambition will become clear in how fast the league moves toward its planned expansion to six days of racing.

He gets an early public chance to argue the case. Sportico reported that Maffei is set to discuss the HRL as a panelist at its Invest New York 2026 event on Tuesday, the same day the USA deal was announced.

A new name on USA Sports' rights shelf

USA Sports is part of Versant, and Sportico noted how quickly it has grown its sports portfolio since spinning off from NBCUniversal. HRL joins a slate the release lists as including the WNBA, NASCAR Cup Series, Premier League, Bundesliga, WWE, PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, Pac-12 football and basketball, and League One Volleyball. USA Sports' events run across USA Network, Golf Channel, CNBC and Fandango.

Versant, which trades on Nasdaq as VSNT, also owns MS NOW, Oxygen, E! and SYFY, plus digital properties including Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass and Full Swing. For a league that says it is digital-first and is counting on reach beyond linear TV, the parent's mix of cable networks and digital assets is part of what it signed up for.

Celia Kohl, Versant and USA Sports' SVP of strategy and business development, framed the deal around the format and the tracks, calling it a fresh way for fans to experience thoroughbred racing. She also said the partnership would present the inaugural season "to viewers nationwide live on USA Network." For the network, a three-date spring property is a contained commitment on a crowded rights shelf. For the league, it's national live distribution from day one.

The dates that decide it

The season opens March 13 at Gulfstream Park in Miami.

The clearest signal will come after Santa Anita on May 15: whether the 2028 calendar grows toward six race days. Six would double what Elevate has to sell and what USA Network has to schedule, and that's the number brand and hospitality buyers will be planning around.