F1 TV audience gets a boost in the US - Pitpass.com Interesting. Contrary to what many are/have been assuming.
Some of this increase certainly has to do with the fact that some races are shown 3 times. Twice on NBC Sports and once on NBC. That likely means that much of the increase comes from viewers who are not watching live. Of course, watching live is really difficult in most of the US, so the delayed, prime time Sunday, schedule works better for many. And being on one of the major networks helps too. What really works for me are the races that air at 8:00 or 6:00 am. I get up early any way, and can watch the race live and have the rest of the day to do something else. I'm glad to see the increase but not surprised given the changes in when and how the races are shown.
Critical to the US market is getting to know the drivers. If you can't put a face with the name... if you don't know who's who... you're just watching cars go around the track and what do you really have to cheer for at that point? Why is NASCAR so popular? It's because fans actually believe in their hearts that they know their drivers. It's not really far fetched because NASCAR does a impeccable job at bringing the sport to the fans... and that includes the drivers and the cars and the behind the scenes stuff. F1 on the other hand does very poorly at all of this. Fans have to seek out information on their own. In the US, you rarely see the interviews before or after the races.. you rarely see or hear driver commentary. It gives the impression that F1 is solely for itself and you should just feel special because you're able to watch. I didn't get rabid about F1 until I "got to know" the drivers and their personalities a bit. You're cheering for the driver. If you don't even know who he is... it makes it difficult. I think we all affiliate with a couple of teams, but with the exception of Ferrari, I doubt the team itself is the driving force alone... part of it... but not a huge part. F1 just needs to be more out there... in people's faces. Everyone that I've introduced F1 to in the past few years has become a fan. Once they get a lay of the land, learn who's who... they're pretty much hooked... but F1 makes you jump through hoops to do so. It takes work to dig and find stuff on your own. Most people won't waste the time.
Really ? To understand F1, you are supposed to follow it all year round, not just when a GP visits your country. You are supposed to learn about it, the teams, the drivers, the history, etc... It's more than a show... It's not about chasing autographs, having selfies taken with the drivers or buying regalia, it' s much more than that... If the NFL was visiting Britain for one match, I wouldn't understand, because I don't follow it, and I don't know the first thing about it. But I follow F1, endurance, MotoGP and SBK all the time, so I am familiar with them when they visit our shores.
People here aren't F1 fans. Its just that simple. Nascar was made by the good ol' boys down south and people relate and feel like they know them on a personal level. F1 is very "european" and the drivers dont seem very personable or relatable. They dont have a southern accent or come from modest backrounds (for the most part). I think Nascar is boring and Indycar is definitely better, but same principals. Side Note-NFL has been to Britain on more than one occasion.
If F1 is going to be a sport that one must "study" before becoming a fan, it has likely reached its zenith. How many would-be-fans have the time or inclination to spend to "learn about it, the teams, the drivers, the history, etc..." What is the motivation for the average guy with dozens of sports, and several motorsports, to choose from to familiarize himself with such stuff. Especially when F1 drivers are likely to be 17 year old Dutch boys with no discernible accomplishments to their credit. Besides, the average F1 driver interview is about as interesting as watching paint dry. You start having post race punch-ups in the paddock after a GP and you'll get a lot more fans. That said, I've been an F1 fan since 1961. Stirling Moss was my first driver hero.
Makes sense that viewership is up now that Austin GP is happening and I bet the moderate success of Rush (movie) piqued some American minds. Viewership would increase even further if a driver or team were from the US. If a NASCAR driver headed to F1 you would certainly see an increase in viewership.
Nick, I respectfully disagree and appreciate your tenure as an F1 fan. No matter how it is perceived currently, cognoscenti of automobile racing regard F1 as the ultimate in technology and significance world wide. Providing the current regime maintains a modicum of excitement under the tedious amount of requirements imposed , it will remain the unparalleled standard. I'm not sure if any other form of second division sports entertainment (outside of American college football....hey no flaming, I'm Canadian ) outperforms interest in a 'premier division' segment. If there is, I believe it is only a matter of time before the 'lighter' format succumbs. Providing F1 doesn't create it's own demise, I can't foresee the long term feasibility of tintops. The world is smaller now, Nascar's days are numbered. I believe they'll be gone in 10 years.
Isobel, for reasons voiced on this forum and elsewhere, the mantel of F1 as "the unparalleled standard" is being tarnished by silly rules, the demise of participating teams, the proliferation of "pay drivers", drivers who don't shave yet, championships that are more likely to be won in the rules committee of protest court, the disparity from the top of the grid to the bottom, difficulty of promoting races in countries like Germany, and the sections of grandstands that sit empty (Germany averaged about 50,000 on Sunday over the past 2 years). I have always found your comments here to be well reasoned and insightful, but I am beginning to think that perhaps the term cognoscenti means, one whose head is in the sand. The sport has many issues that it needs to get right.
Thanks Nick for your perspective. You know better than I one of my favourite drivers looked as though he never needed to shave for the first three years he was involved in pro racing, Dan G... . Pay drivers ? They've been around since the dawn of time, Bira and Fonzie de Portago and Revson come to mind among others. The Germans are truly a strange lot, haven't got them sussed to be honest, Vettel and Rosberg right up there with the Merc and yet no support. Odd, never saw any of this with Shoe piloting a Fezza. My point remains static, F1 is the 'ultimate', regardless of how we regard current regulations. In 1989 the cars lost approx.150 hp yet the racing remained interesting. The options to F1 are negligible, until someone devises a new Can Am, we're doomed .
Now you've hit a hot button...CanAm was some of the most exciting racing EVER! Lola, McLaren, Porsche, Chaparral...elegant yet brutal, different but of a type, really fast and really, really loud. If F1 could be more like that...
Outside of the South, even Nascar takes a hit in terms of viewers. NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB are the main sports of interest and everything else gets the backseat. There are pockets of fans for every sport in all the states, but motorsports is pretty far down on the list except in the South and there, Nascar is prominent. It is true that they put the drivers more in your face for the Nascar, but if you are not in the South, that doesn't happen too much unless the race comes to town. I am going to agree the major television station taking over the racing is the reason the viewing went up. I watch everything live very early in the morning, but many will like that they also play the race later in the day.
No surprise here. Everyone in F1 knew having a event in the states would increase viewership here. It may have grown 10%, but that's from a very low base to begin with. More shocking is the 5.6% World wide decline. Before F1 does a victory dance for the USA, they better turn things around in their core markets.
While the CoA in Austin is great, IMHO Orlando or Las Vegas would have been a much better place to build an F1 track.
You may have a point about the silly rules, but I don't understand the rest. Pay drivers? What's the problem? Many started as pay drivers, Lauda, Piquet, even Villeneuve started as pay drivers and brought sponsorship to their teams. What's the difference with Maldonado or Ericson? Empty grandstands? We will see more of them. Spectating sports are on the way out, overtaken by superior media. F1 is no exception. It's TV rights and worldwide audiences that matters, not punters at the turnstiles.
For me it's easier to watch F1 in the US because where I lived didn't have whatever network it was on before, but I do have NBCSN, simple as that. Would be interesting to see how many subscribers to cable TV get NBCSN vs. the Speed Network or whatever it was on before.
I don't think I know anyone in the USA who watches F1 races on TV any longer. I find it VERY hard to believe that "TV viewership is up in the US" for F1. Geez, I used to be avid watcher, and I subscribed to Autosport so I could read about the races, but I no longer have any interest in it at all. No interest in the teams, the cars, the drivers, the tracks, the championship....none of it.
I would qualify as one of the new viewers. I had always been into cars - regular reader of Jalopnik, Top Gear fan, etc., but I had never watched an F1 race before this past season. No one in my family or any of my friends were ever into motorsports, so I just wasn't really exposed to it. I grew up thinking how boring NASCAR was on TV, and assumed all auto racing was that way. However, as someone mentioned earlier, I saw the movie "Rush," and became instantly intrigued. Started looking at old races on youtube and watched the movie "Weekend of a Champion," and the intrigue and curiosity grew. I loved reading about the engineering problems, tire & fuel management, aerodynamics, outsize personalities, and daring of the drivers. I remember my wife thinking I was completely crazy when I set my alarm for the middle of the night on a Saturday so I could watch the Australian GP. I loved watching the first race, but was still in the dark about stuff like KERS, driver personalities, and DRS. Later on in the year, my wife watched the Canadian GP with me and she started to enjoy it as well. She watched the US GP with me too, but has drawn the line at waking up early on the weekends to watch qualifying or the actual race. We had our first child this past year, so hopefully I will have a young fan to watch early morning races with in a few years.
