And the teams wonder why they find it difficult to get sponsors!!!!! I wonder if tv paywalls are actually a good strategy? Brands are becoming more environmentally savvy and seem less reluctant to pay big money to be title sponsors. So if teams earn most of their money from the TV revenue then they can just top up on sponsors? Not good for us fans but maybe the looming recession will hurt the TV companies so new deals wont be as lucrative. Plus tracks might have a better future negotiation strategy with Liberty having to pay to have races. I can't see demand for tracks to get on the F1 calendar being as high as it has recently been. Maybe that is also part of the reason lower budget caps managed to get passed...Interesting times ahead I think.
I can't see how you are going to get the casual fan hooked using pay TV. If it had been pay TV when I was a kid I would never off bothered with F1 and wouldn't be a fan now. Right now the rights holders are racking in money from pay TV, I can't see them changing it in the short term. So it might have to get worse before it gets any better.
I think the way they are hoping to attract new viewers is social media. So they show some bits on Youtube, twitter, twitch etc in the hope people will want more. Problem is they will just be showing best bits, like movie trailers. Then when people see a whole race they will be disappointed as not as much action as they expected. I think they need to make it more about the people including the engineers, strategists etc... There seems to be too little coverage of the little teams. I want to be cheering on the under dogs to gain places but how much have we seem on Williams, Sauber even Haas? OK so this year is a little different but even just interview by video chat would be better. Just look at Gunther after the Netflix on F1, seeing his frustration and passion was great. I almost feel they need more personalities and more techy stuff and dare I say less boring on track tyre saving..
It sounds like Liberty want to return to free-to-air where possible, but are stuck with Bernie's deals which run for many more years. The UK rights aren't up for negotiation until 2026 I think? I agree on the more tech personnel. The only team members we ever hear from are the team bosses. I can appreciate it's part of their role to be the figurehead for TV, and there's plenty that more junior staff can't discuss, but it would be great to sometimes have an insight for those making the calls and fixing things. An interview with one of Max's mechanics after the frenzy on the grid at Hungary would have been great. Or the occasional chat with strategists after a clever decision. What were they looking at to make that call?
This was always going to be the outcome of Bernie lining his own pockets. It still blows my mind how people bang on about how much he did for the sport, when in reality he made himself a billionaire while teams and tracks in the sport have struggled. Lose fans, the sport loses income. It wasn't difficult to see it coming.
I do think Bernie was a very clever businessman and he planned to sell so he did the paywall tv deals knowing that he would make huge amounts and the balance sheet would look great for a sale. Initially he planned to float on stock market but I think the crash in 2005 put pay to that. So he had to hang on in there longer. I believe he always knew that team sponsorship income would suffer and fans would drop off but he was selling so wasn't bothered. He did do things for the teams, like early payments etc but it was all in his best interest. The difficult big now is for Liberty to get the Concorde agreement signed by all asap and start moving forward. I do think the budget caps and performance penalties/boost might help even things up. Unfortunately that will take a good few years to bite.Especially as using this years cars for next year. All the teams will be able to use more of their budget to develop 2022 cars...
Its not just that. Its a big turn off for those who do have sky. Its just not a very interesting sport at the moment. Well for nearly a decade. Too many wrong decisions and slow responses to fix it. F1 Is lucky though that it still gets the viewers it does as there are more interesting forms of motorsport that are not getting exposure of the general public.
I really prefer watching Indy these days, mostly because it's more competitive. That and the occasional super-speedway or sketchy street circuit.
Still concerned for his eyesight which they didn't mention. It was just a mention from his family some weeks ago. Guess we will just have to be patient.
Used to follow it, but once Dale Jr., Retired, I really had nothing left to follow it for. It's just too convoluted these days.
please log in to view this image Not a sight seen today. Two wet weather tyres, very different treads and no doubt compound. The move to one tyre manufacturer, was that a good move or did two mix things up a bit or was it just another factor for team dominance?
The problem with multiple tyre manufacturers back then was that Ferrari had their own track and Bridgestone used to make the tyres to assist Ferrari. So anyone else running Bridgestone was at a disadvantage. They were another thing that was mainly out of a teams control and it was luck that determined if you had the best tyres for each track. I do admire Pirelli as they had the guts to sign up to a contract that the FIA wrote that was designed to have limited life tyres. It was and still is a risky PR move. One thing that could help is somehow making multiple different tyre strategies possible. How to do that mmmm the only way I can think is making pit stops faster (not the actual tyre change put in and out as well), but that cant be done without big track mods or compromising safety. I still keep thinking Bernie and his sprinklers weren't that bad an idea. We need an extra variable to be thrown in. In years gone by when they changed engines between quali and race people made mistakes and we had reliability issues. Now everything is calculated to the nth degree we rarely have reliability issues, should I say that after Carlos DNS x 2 at Spa? I think DRS has helped the can't follow close but at Spa it just made overtaking look so easy not the skillful cat and mouse game we want to see. I keep hoping that 'next year' it will get better... Well not 2021 maybe 2022 but the delay will give Merc and Red Bull an advantage of more time to work on designs. Not sure if Ferrari are beyond hope at the moment, bit like Williams sticking to their philosophy of making as much in house as possible hurt them. I think they need to look at the whole way they work and be more calm and calculating less emotional but that wouldn't be Ferrari....
I wasn't sure where to put this. I'll be honest, when I heard about the protest about the Racing Point I thought it was valid, and worth a smack on the wrist. But the fact that it's gone on for this long I thought it was just BS. After watching the video I'm not so sure. Racing Point getting a pretty major upgrade without spending tokens, while others have to use their tokens, seems really wrong. The only thing that I'm not sure about is why Ferrari are the ones that are protesting.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/53942004 The reality isn't exactly what the headline implied... But it did get me curious about elite cyclists racing around a couple of F1 circuits. They wouldn't all work, but I'd be interested to see it at Spa or Suzuka.
