Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem for Aug. 28, 2025

August 28th, 2025

A good Thursday morning to you all! Hope everyone has a good Labor Day weekend as we wind down the summer meets, including wrapping up Saratoga. It's certainly been an up and down meet up at the Spa, but I think that’s normal for most horse racing meets. There will always be high and low points whether at the windows, on the track, or in the stewards booth. We press on! 

I wanted to write today about a question I saw posed on Twitter (X as it's now known) by user @brada53472906 this past week. Brad asked, “Should the track announcer at any racetrack be active on social media engaging with fans and bettors?” 

Now the obvious answer is yes and that’s what almost 72% of the several hundred voters said as well. But I think there’s a little more to the discussion and since I work in that realm, figured we’d talk it out here. I think I joined Twitter originally in 2009 and after taking a year or two away and having to get a new handle name, I signed back up in 2015 with my current account @beemieawards. In fact, next month is my 10-year anniversary! 

Overall, I’ve enjoyed being on the site and have zero doubt that being active and engaging with people has been a net benefit for me as a person and in my career. In fact, the Beemie Awards, and the engagement it received, led to my podcast and getting the announcing job at Colonial Downs.  

But to Brad’s point and question, while I think for me the answer is yes, I don’t think it’s as clear cut for some others. I’ve seen social media cost people their jobs in many avenues, including track announcers. I’ve seen announcers and television personalities who have been berated, harassed, insulted, and called names, often for no reason other than people on the internet didn’t like them or something about them. I think most racetracks want their forward facing employees, like analysts or announcers to be engaging online, but I don’t think any company would make or want their people to be subject to harassment in the line of doing their job. 

There are some announcers who aren’t online, and there are some who are but only really promote or just post on their own. Meaning they don’t engage or respond to comments. And while I think it’s good for people to actually engage and respond, I can’t in good conscience say they should have to. I get treated pretty well online compared to a lot of people and even I get down on the online world quite easily. It just can be so toxic. 

I get negative comments once in a while but for the most part, I just ignore those people and try to move on. One rule I have made more use of is not interacting with people who have anonymous accounts. There’s some that I know and have interacted with over the years and have built up some rapport with, but if a new account comes through without a name and face and they come with any kind of negativity, I’m not going to interact at all. I think anonymity gives people too much freedom to be cruel and take shots as opposed to having civil conversation. I get that people have reasons for hiding their name and face, but if you’re going to go at others who are presenting their real self, I think you owe them the courtesy of coming as who you really are.

The other little wrinkle you run into as an announcer who tries to engage on social media is where do you draw the line between work and non-work when you use your personal account for work-related engagement? If someone messages me on my personal account at 10 p.m. with a question about tomorrow's races at Colonial, am I obligated to answer because I promote Colonial on that account? Is there an expectation from the customer that I’m going to 1) reply and 2) reply quickly, to something they say outside of racing hours? It probably depends. I try to get back to people if they’re asking questions kindly and in good faith, but I also want to respect the time boundaries I’ve tried to set between work and non-work time. 

One thing that can make all of this tricky is that our workplace is the place that our customers go for fun. As a general rule I don’t have many guests up to my booth to watch races or get downstairs to meet with people between races because I’m trying to focus on my preparation and work. Plus, I get nervous having people watch me announce, which doesn’t go great for me because I’m nervous as it is (haha). But I’ve taken some heat for that over the years from fans and even from supervisors because it’s certainly a kind of engagement or interaction that some people want. And it's something I used to always try and accommodate when possible, but it just got to be too much. 

Maybe the answer is that the goal for announcers and TV people should be to interact as much as they can in ways that feel good for them and the customers. Whether that be online or in person. I’m probably better at engaging online than I am in person because I’m just an anxious human in person and don’t feel as comfortable engaging in that way. Others might not enjoy the online experience, but might love speaking to groups or customers at the track. But certainly engaging and interacting in general, I think, is a really good thing. 

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

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