Boxing and horse racing occasionally revive from their mainstream slumber with big events: pay-per-view fights and thoroughbreds vying for the Triple Crown.
There is an element of capriciousness to both. Not all pay-per-view bouts are worth the cost. And none of the 12 horses in position to win the Triple Crown since 1978 have won the Belmont Stakes.
The possibility that American Pharoah — the winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes — can change history will be played out June 6. And it is a virtual guarantee that the sudden, temporary burst of interest that accompanies a Triple Crown possibility will dramatically push the Belmont Stakes’s viewership substantially higher.