The Kentucky Derby is a corporate product, not a celebration | Opinion
At some point, the Kentucky Derby stopped being a Louisville event and started being a global product. But real culture doesn’t live in VIP sections.
The Kentucky Derby has been kidnapped and dressed in a seersucker suit. Not stolen in the dramatic sense. No masked men.
No midnight escape. No, this was a rather polite abduction. Signed contracts.
Corporate lanyards. A slow, suffocating takeover by people who think bourbon goes well with a quarterly earnings report. Somewhere along the line, the Derby stopped being a Louisville event and started being a global product.
A traveling circus of money men and brand strategists who fly in, drink just enough mint julep to say they did, and then vanish back into whatever glass tower they crawled out of. They leave behind nothing but higher prices. Because that’s what it is now.
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