Obviously if free it would stand to reason that viewers would increase, but I would be interested to know what the difference is between the free service pre sky and the pay service since. I suspect that F1 has a far lower following than a lot of other sports, most of which have all gone down the pay tv route. I'm in noway defending CVC or Bernie, but the current situation is as much about the changing of consumer touch points and trends as if is about The greed of the people who are prepared to benefit from it.
Someone's off the Christmas card list please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Formula 1 too focused on protecting small teams - Fernando Alonso http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122199
It's the 'I'm alright jack' mentality that is the issue. Alonso is probably thinking that without all these pesky little teams getting in the way, he could have scored a lot more points this year. Damn those crap teams finishing ahead of him all the time[/
Oh yeah, F1 is practically brimming witb I've always argued that F1 only cares about the small teams! Hang on...
Alonso also likes Indian cuisine.... hmm I agree with him though. Ideally that's how f1 should be but it can't when there is an astronomic difference between the top and bottom. Who the hell is going to waste a billion in 3-4 years before their car is even competitive. Your better off not taking part at all at the moment
If all teams were getting a good slice of the pie, they could all afford the reintroduction of more testing and we could all enjoy a level, competitive field. Sadly those at the top of the pile won't call for this until they're at the bottom of the pile. Something needs to change and fast, because the sport is probably in a worse state than I can ever remember. What's annoying is that it's not hard to fix, but nobody is willing to do it. Look at how Force India and Sauber were treated when they were calling for change.
It's ridiculous, 'Mercedes and Ferrari have too much power" but "how dare force India say something, let's block all TV coverage of them". And Mercedes have only been in the sport a few years, who gave them all that power?
And the state of F1 also has nothing to do with Bernie wringing as much money out of circuit owners with hosting fees they can't afford, so we end up going to stupid countries that no one has heard of just because their governments are happy to stump up the cash for a few years. It is almost embarrassing that Bernie can talk about others having too much power in F1, when you look at what he has done!!!!
I'd be interested to know what the viewing figures really are like at the moment. I (and many others I know) stream the races when they are on Sky, you can get a decent 720p stream which is plenty really, and I doubt we get counted in the viewing figures. Must be a fair number worldwide who find ways round the paywall. I think thats one of the biggest problems at the moment. In fairly general terms motorsport fans don't seem to follow football that enthusiastically. This makes getting a sky package a bit wasteful as you end up paying how ever much it is a month for anything from 0-1 to a tops of 3 races a month. If you only watch the quali and race then you're going to be paying for about 50-60hrs of F1 a year. Unless you're quite into other sports it's hard to justify paying a subscription. I know the sound of F1 is a bit of a sore spot for many but it doesn't really bother me. I do like a screaming engine but my mind sadly just fights me and tells me that the noise is wasted power that could be instead making the car faster. The cars these days aren't quieter because they have silencers, they're quieter as they are being more efficient, or to make it sound cooler, being more powerful. They also want to make the cars 5s faster a lap. I'm not against this at all, faster is better, faster means more cutting edge ideas. But you can't expect this to make the racing better. Yes you might get more mistakes and therefore more random results, but does that actually make the race better? Unexpected can be good but it can also become expected if it happens a lot. The starting point to fix F1 is to make it at least vaguely fair. I don't care who you are, no one should be paid more than someone else simply for turning up. Those doing better should be rewarded. But being given $100m before even turning a wheel, well thats hardly fair. Kind of guarantees you will do well in the championship, and therefore get even more money. Until this basic level of fairness is fixed Bernie doesn't have a leg to stand on, and Alonso and co should try and show some understanding, his statement just looks pathetic when you consider the hurdles the small teams face compared to the big ones. Come on EU, make a decision on all this.
Well said BLS. I don't watch football, cricket, or rugby at all. So I won't pay for Sky Sports just for F1 it's way too expensive. I watch live BBC or RTL + BBCR5 or for practice find a stream. I can't see how anyone could track that I watch via RTL but at a guess as long as the same metrics are used to estimate viewing figures they should be able to compare year to year. There is way too much disparity between the 'prize' money that is handed out. All teams who complete the season should get 'attendance money'. By all means pay this over the next 12 months to encourage them to come back next year. Then money based on points and to a small degree I do agree with historic payments but not so big as they currently are. Maybe the historic money should be based on last 10 year manufacturers championship position. That way a new team would eventually get historic payments for doing well over time. A bit like the balloon payments and the Premiership if you get what I mean. FIA made a huge mistake in not putting a price cap on PUs but they can't revoke that as the manufacturers created a business plan on what they thought they could sell PUs for, you can't move the goal posts after 2 years. By all means set a cap when regs change. Then again look at uni fees, although they are set as a max what percentage of unis set fees at max??? The aero is not relevant to road cars, hybrids are. So reduce aero, make the front wing only 2 elements, a max rake angle, and much bigger min dimensions for body work in 'coke bottle' area so it doesn't have an impact on aero. So the emphasis is on mechanical grip and the cars can get close without hurting tyres/cooling etc.
Season review is on iPlayer if anyone has an empty hour to fill. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...-lewis-hamilton-making-history-f1-2015-review
Best thing that could happen to stop these royalty payments is for BT SPORT or someone similar to make a big **** off offer to the smaller teams and mid-pack teams in F1, agree deals at the classic tracks that Bernie doesn't care about, respect, or understand, and leave F1 with the power 4 (Ferrari, merc, red bull and McLaren) on its arse, wondering where it all went wrong. Stick some V10 engines in the back, inviting the likes of Audi, BMW, Renault, et al to support the show without needing to spend lots on a complex engine, and go and race. Go to San Marino, Turkey, Monza, Hockenheim, Nurburgring, Adelaide, Estoril, Magnt Cours, and go and have some fun. The fans would lap it up in my opinion. Modern F1 just seems too far removed from its actual concept- super fast, exciting, energetic, passionate racing. Of course it would be better if F1 incorporated this instead but sadly F1 is now feeding the manufacturers and money men rather than them feeding the sport.
Whilst BT might be one option, Red Bull themselves were touted as another. If they made a similar offer, with perhaps the only condition being Red Bull logos on every car, they could effectively transition from sinking money into running a team, from profiting off running the whole series. I presume the other competitions Red Bull organise don't all cost them money.
Lewis Hamilton didn't even get in the top 3 of SPOTY. Probably more due to the bore and turn off the sport has been.
I think it just goes back to the TV coverage statistics - how many people actually watch Motorsport in the UK? I think last year only 600k actually voted for SPOTY in total or for Lewis (I can't remember), but either way it shows the lack of interest.
Many of the others faced some form of competition, so I can't argue that he's missed out on something he deserved. Mercedes HPE probably deserve team of the year for consistent excellence however - did they get a mention? Tyson Fury, nearly twice as popular as Hamilton, and his sport is PPV. I don't know what to make of that?
