The Breeders’ Cup Classic, the richest and most prestigious race of the two-day Breeders’ Cup event, is scheduled to go off at 6:25 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 1 as the sixth race in the nine-race slate of Breeders’ Cup stakes scheduled for Saturday, the organization announced on Tuesday.
This is the third year in a row that the Classic has been scheduled in a slot in the middle of the Saturday slate, rather than its traditional spot at the end of the card. The positioning allows the race to be televised live on NBC’s flagship broadcast station.
This year’s Breeders’ Cup is being held at Del Mar in Southern California, the third straight year that a California track has hosted the event.
The Classic will anchor a 3 1/2-hour live broadcast on Saturday on NBC starting at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. Five other Breeders’ Cup races will be broadcast live during the window, starting with the Turf Sprint (3:41 p.m. Eastern) and followed by the Sprint (4:21), the Distaff (5:01), and the Turf (5:41).
NBC, which has a revenue-sharing deal with Breeders’ Cup on the event’s broadcast rights, made a major financial commitment to college football three years ago, and its pre-game coverage of the sport begins at 7 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays. That has necessitated pushing back the Classic when the Breeders’ Cup is held on the West Coast to ensure major-network coverage.
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Three Saturday Breeders’ Cup races – the Mile (7:05), the Dirt Mile (7:45), and the Filly and Mare Turf (8:25) – are scheduled to follow the Classic, with all three broadcast on the USA Network and live-streamed on Peacock, NBC’s subscription streamng service. The first Breeders’ Cup race on the Saturday slate, the Filly and Mare Sprint (3 p.m. Eastern), will also be broadcast on USA and Peacock.
Four of the five Breeders’ Cup races on Friday, Oct. 31, will be broadcast on USA and Peacock during a four-hour window starting at 4 p.m. Eastern. The Juvenile Turf Sprint is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. Eastern, followed by the Juvenile Fillies (6:25), the Juvenile Fillies Turf (7:05), and the Juvenile (7:45). The final race of the slate, the Juvenile Turf (8:25), will be available on Peacock and FanDuel TV.
FanDuel will show all of the races live through a simulcast of the Breeders’ Cup Players’ Show, which is geared toward bettors. The simulcast will also be available on Breederscup.com, the Breeders’ Cup mobile app, all major account-wagering platforms, and at simulcast outlets, Breeders’ Cup said.
For the first time this year, the Players’ Show will also stream live on the Breeders’ Cup’s official social-media accounts on YouTube, X, and Facebook, as well as on Peacock.
In a statement, Breeders’ Cup said that the expansion of live coverage to its social-media accounts “reflects a trend seen across other leading sports properties: the fusion of broadcast television, streaming, and social media to meet different fan segments across multiple touchpoints.”
Since shifting the Classic three years ago to an earlier time slot, handle has risen on the Saturday card, according to figures compiled by Daily Racing Form. Last year, handle on the Classic was up 15.4 percent compared to the Classic in 2023, which had one less horse in the field and went off approximately one hour later than the 2024 edition.
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