Why isn't F1 popular in the States

Have you tried motorized bath tubs?

 

The biggest problem why F1 doesn't do well here is because lack of interest. All I here from people that went to the Detroit Grand Prix when it was here in Detroit is "I can't see the whole track and look at those funny little european cars". Most People who are into racing only like Nascar, Ford, Chevrolet, the drivers and they can see the whole track. You got to remember that in the early years before cars there was horse racing tracks all over the place and that's why oval racing in cars grew here on short dirt ovals. Personally I think racing will decline here in the future because most kids today don't care, their too much into video games, or weird stuff. Hopefully I'm wrong about that but I just don't see the interest much when I talk about racing to folks. When I tell people I use to race and I'm really into racing they ask what kind of stock car did you race? I tell them I raced a Formula Ford open wheel seater and I get a strange look and they come back oh on a oval?

No Hope for F1 or open wheel in this country !!!!

 

I would disagree. Its not a lack of interest, it is a lack of exposure. And I really believe that once the IRL and Champ Car get over their respective stupidities, open whell racing in the USA will catch on very quickly.

 

Lack of exposure is not it, F1 doesn't have fenders and they don't look like Fords,Chevys, and now Toyotas or go in circles so you can see the whole track. You can plaster F1 on very billboard and TV ad and it won't change a thing. You'll get some to look and go but most will want to see the good old boys on Sunday.

 

There is no one reason why F1 is not popular here.

FFT: Demographing most of our ages here, most of us grew up watching AJ Foyt, Al Unser, Bobby Unser, Mario Andretti, to Johnny Rutherford, Tom Sneva at Indy.
We watched these guys when the NFL wasn't so popular, was still fairly new to the mainstream media, and the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB wasn't on TV MUCH, ESPN didn't exist... have you ever seen film from the first 4 Super Bowls ? The stadiums were nowhere near sold out.
It's no real secret that all sports really took off in this country with Cable TV in conjunction with ESPN, CNN, TBS, WGN, USA took off.
ALL of the major sporting groups in this country saw this, and were very serious about what they could do to interest the fans, but F1 didn't.

But there is no ONE reason why open-wheel racing isn't so popular in this country.

 

Well I hope you guys are right and someday open wheel will be popular here like the good old CART days but I'm not going to hold my breath. I support open wheel and endurance racing and try to watch as many as I can, I've raced or been involved with open wheel racing for 32years.
I think alot of racing fans here want to see that #8 or #20 car race around and turn left all day. I'm like an alien hanging out with people that are into Nascar they don't know much if anything about F1.
I just can't get into racing that gets at the end a yellow, green, white, checker.Then the guy running second nails the leader and spins him out for the win, to me that not racing it's a show. But thats why it's popular and F1 is not in the eyes of many.

 

I do believe that it really is a lack of exposure. At one time, like in the 1960's and 1970's, open wheel racing in the USA was a big deal. The Indy 500 was, and still may be, the single largest one day sporting event in the world. We had USAC/CART, we had F5000, all of this attracted a really strong spectator base. Most of the nation, if not the world, knew the names Foyt, Unser, Andretti. Few if us knew names like Bandini, Parkes, Hill. The USA race fan was exposed to F1 when Jim Clark, Graham Hill, raced in the Indy 500. Until then, F1 was considered a European sport "made up of long haired ***s (gays in modern terminology)".

NASCAR was primarily a southeast USA phenomenon, Carolinas, Georgia. Few people outside of that region knew the names Curtis Turner, Firebal Roberts, Joe Weatherly, Fred Lorenzen, Yarborough, Panch, etc.

Two things happened that started in the 1980's and culminated in the 1990's. First, a second revolt occured in US open wheel racing (the first being USAC to CART) forming the IRL and Champ Car, and second, the owners of NASCAR hired some of the best PR people in the country. After 5-7 years of in-fighting, Champ Car scheduled their first event on the same day as the Indy 500 which immediately made the race fan have to choose (I will never forgive Penske/Ganassi), and instead of choosing, a large percentage of these fans looked for another form of motor sport to follow.

That is where NASCAR's PR people stepped in. They took Jeff Gordan's face and his ability to enunciate and made him the NASCAR poster boy that even teenage girls would recognize. NASCAR driver's took a page from the Neil Bonnet school of proper interview techniques. Up until then, only Neil knew how to look at the camera, speak clearly, SMILE, and promote his sponsors properly. Fans started tuning in because there was a race virtually every weekend to get AND KEEP their attention. More recently, NASCAR approves incredibly funny TV commercials, which help the fan identify with the drivers.

Then early this century, a third event occured that brought NASCAR to the attention of the world. Dale Earnhardt Sr was sadly killed. The Intimidator was gone. I was there that day, and to this day can not understand why, and miss watching one of the all time true racers in any form of motor sports. He could do things with a car at 180 MPH that no other driver could do, even our beloved F1 heros. His death was reported as the lead story over all the other BS in the world on the nightly news for 2-3 days running. Imagine. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Time, etc. Even the non race fan took notice and began to wonder what they were missing, so they started tuning in, and the NASCAR PR folks knew exactly what to do to take advantage of this new interest. The rest is history as they say.

When my now 16 year old daughter was younger, I introduced her to motor sports. We went to both Champ Car (Mid Ohio) and NASCAR (Daytona)events. She had nothing to identify with in Champ Car. But when a three year old saw the Skittles car, her eyes opened. She had something to cheer about. That is a big part of NASCAR's success, it has something for most everybody to cheer about. This same child would look at me in shock as I would jump up and down when watching the BTCC. I used to tell her that when she was old enough to date, the guys would be impressed that she knew who Dale Earnhardt Sr, and Michael Schumacher were. And they are.

For the non technical race fan, ovals do have an advantage as you can see most of the action. If only more road courses were built in a stadium fashion. I know there is one used by F1 in Europe, and one in Brazil.

Back to the original point, open wheel racing in the US can be popular again, but it will take Champ Car getting over itself, and joining IRL. Not the other way around for as long as the IRL controls the Indy 500, they are really in charge. I do not see open wheel racing ever catching up to the momentum it had in the 1980's, but I do see it becomming something that more visable than it is today. Like it or not, Danica Patrick was the best thing that happened to US OWR in the last 10 years. Unfortunetely, there is not one coherant series that can benefit from her fan base.

Until F1 gets over its self importance, I really doubt it will be any more popular than it is today in the USA. They have nothing to offer the vast majority of American race fans as we can not identify with much of the F1 world. Not the sponsors, not the cars, not the drivers.

Gotta go, heading to Homestead for the NASCAR finale today. My NASCAR favorite also drives a red car.

 

EXCELLENT POST!!! You said it all!!

Like in every schism in an organisation (sporting, political, etc...), people don't just split in two: some also go home. In this case IRL V. CART, many went to NASCAR which cleverly exploited the public discontent.
The CART race you mentioned, on the same day as Indy 500, marked a turning point in the fortune of open-wheel racing in the States; it never recovered from that war.
With single-seater relegated to a second series, what chance has F1 to look anything interesting to the American public? The teams and drivers are even more remote from the fans, and the rules keep being tampered with. It will be difficult to harness the enthusiasm of the American paying fans to watch what is - compared to NASCAR - a very poor show. The hardcore US F1 fan base is too small to substain a GP.
Like NASCAR or not (sometimes I have my reservations too), there is not another series that knows how to entertain the spectators like it does, not only in the States, but Worldwide.

 

And I would add the following having never seen an oval race until I was in my 40s -

#6: You cannot tell who is leading without a sophisticated position board, which was not too late to create an audience

#7: F1 has no US tradition - its been a national contest since the 20s in Europe

#8: The US public are not really interested in National contests unless hyped by the press (occasionally) and US sports are not played internationally as in Baseball, Football and Basketball except (occasionally) at the Olympics, which also is a big yawn

#9: Win on Sunday and Sell on Monday has not a US marketing theme. Euros perceive that some of the F1 technology carries over to their Ferrari, Renault or Merc. But every Bubba knows there is no connection between their F250 and the version on the track

Drum roll....

#10: (and there may be a better #10) You cant see the whole track in F1 or Sportscar racing. NASCAR and oval racing with frequent yellow flags, allows several races to develop in the course of one event and all are capable of being watched from anywhere on the track.

 

I was trying to be brief - fact is that peak interest in the US does not center on international competition of any kind. The Russia/US Olympic Hockey is probably the only exception in recent generations whereas the Euros, Latinos and Pacificos get truly worked up and exhibit more than Superbowl exuberance annually over various sports and in particular (of course) soccer when it relates to Nationa meets. There being relatively little money in the US participation in the F1 world, most of the motor enthusiasts are ALMOST as indifferent to F1 as they are to CART/INDY. So I believe the point is valid.

Furthermore without names of cars that relate to average US driver experience (as in NASCAR) but more important, US drivers, its a big yawn to watch in person and only slightly better on TV. I have had the benefit of doing both simultaneously at a suite during the Indy event and I saw evidence of this everywhere.

Two other points - US interest in Soccer is motivated by our Latino and Euro populations of whom a very small proposrtion can identify with the gzillion dollar F1 efforts; and the Indy tradition in no tradition compared to European events - plastic, contrived, difficult to access, and a scene of singularly boring activity by Euro standards anyway.

 

Its a fact that the majority of North Americans are ignorant to the culture outside their territory, mainly European and Middle Eastern. For instance, F1 and Soccer, 2 of the most multicultural and international sports are not popular in the US, simply because they are so.

We love our football and NASCAR and dirt track oval racing, and until we accept other worldly forms of sport, and shut out other cultural enjoyments, will we ever appreciate what they have to offer.


Circuit racing is dying in N.A., why has IRL (oval) overtaken Indy/CART in popularity? Why has CART gone bankrupt? Oval is King in the US!

Our own domestic track racing is dying, why would we care about others?

 

And likewise, most of Europe is ignorant of American football, NASCAR, dirt track racing, CART, IndyCar, baseball, ect...and all of Europe is also completely oblivious of low taxes, speedy-quality medical care, underarm deodorant, cheap gas and much more.

 

That answer makes no sense. "American Football" is strictly "American", why would Europeans care about it? We never asked them to.

Your comments are very hasty, if it wasn't for Europeans, we wouldn't have football, medical care or racing of any kind.

 

<enters thread, looks around breifly, leaves thread quietly closing the door behind him>

 

So what...Europe has pretty much served its purpose and the USA need to and will look to Asia in the future...Europe will be third world in a couple of decades...or less if it continues to be taken over by Islamic-fascist at the current rate...

 

Thats a good point, and I agree that there must be new avenues of growth. F1 has recently entered China, I am certain that will only last a few years. China likes to be entertained until they can come up with a better idea, and keep the money in their country. No European or US business has privately entered the China marketplace, it is simply not allowed there. I think F1 and the FIA are wasting their time in China.

Chinese people make $225.00 a month salary, they cannot even afford to buy a car or house, why would they afford to waste money on an F1 race? That is why China is trying hard to make a car for under 5000$ Why would they care about expensive F1 cars as well?

 

Ain't that the truth.

 

This thread is long and has many abstract arguments.

IMHO the reason is very simple for why Americans do not like F1...

N.I.H. (not invented here)

It's an altogether too common mentality among Americans that whatever we come up with is worth watching/doing and whatever anyone else invents is not. Our biggest sports are invented in the good ole' USofA

baseball
basketball
football

 

hahahaha i just read this comment...

"Europe will be third world in a couple of decades"

...wow, the things that go through people's heads. I am just picturing an aged Tony Blair covered in mud being filmed for one of those Christian children’s Fund commercials.

 

Yes, and Europe is saying that USA is oblivious to healthy food, proper eating, and world peace. Ain't that the truth.