Brent Dolan, Head of Operations of Greyhound Media Group (GMG), believes the acquistion of the Newcastle/Sunderland tracks by Arena Racing Company (ARC) and that company’s partnership deal with GMG, marks the start of a new era in greyhound racing.

He said: “The first point I would make is that this is not ‘them and us’. The distributors and end users of the product need to work together for everyone’s benefit. I truly believe that we have the best greyhound racing in the world and that working with ARC will create new opportunities for everyone to benefit.

“Between the dozen greyhound tracks owned by both organisations, we will supply 70% of the betting shop fixtures and we still have something like 1,100 evening fixtures that are not currently signed up.”

It was Dolan, who previously worked as a deal maker for SIS, Totepools and Betfred, and secured the recent deal to supply live streaming to Australia. He sees global opportunities for UK greyhound racing.

He said: “This is just the start. There are opportunities for greyhound racing alone, or combined with horse racing, and that would include exploring tote co-mingling.”