F1 Parties in US

Lets hope a better TV package is in the works. Coverage in the US is less than ideal. Interesting ideas. Much of the fan base resides in coastal areas. The US is very large.

They could spend more promoting the race than what the race will pay them. Indy couldnt afford to promote it very well or didnt care to. How much money will the current group be willing to spend? It will need sustained promotion to be viable in the longer term.

I saw part of the article. Need to read the rest I guess.

 

If only they could fix the ridiculous times of some of the races due to the locations around the world, that would certainly draw some more casual fans if they could watch the race live in prime time or reliably on Sunday afternoons.

 

I think this will be a massive failure.

 

+1. For the casual sports fan, the 7 hour (or more) time difference with live races being broadcast in the wee hours of the morning are a deal breaker...

Not too many of us that watch the races around 1am to 3am (or thereabouts) here stateside on a regular basis.

I think this is something many European F1 fans fail to appreciate about North American fans...

An American fan (US, Canada etc.) has a lot of dedication to get up in the middle of the night to watch most or all of the races throughout the season

Probably the same reason that NFL football has a hard time getting a foothold in Europe (the time-zone difference putting 3pm games at 11pm at night in Europe... This may be the reason that the European fan of NFL football doesn't watch the weekly games, but only the Championship/Super Bowl games.

Just a theory... but a very plausible one that could go a great way towards explaining why the European sports such as F1 have a hard time getting a foothold on the American public and vice-versa.

Frank

 

The time zone's have always been a known problem for US fans watching live F1, but Australia and Brazil have similar time zone issues for the European races, and they always get healthy live viewing figures ( Brazil gets some of the highest in the world per population).

Showing a full race broadcast re-run the following afternoon easily solves the time zone problem. This is what they do in Europe for the "early hours" races held in East Asia and Australia. And i know from living in south east Asia, they also show re-runs at the first adequate time if needed (do they do this for every race in the US?).

I think the main problem for F1 in the US, like many other "World Sports", is that you have your own self contained sports, that already have the market filled.

If you look at it from the other side, you will see that general sports viewers in Europe know very little, and don't have any real interest in Indy car or Nascar (or Baseball, American Football or Basketball for that matter).

Like F1 in the US, America's "own" sports are only shown on specialist cable or satellite channels, and if shown live its normally very late at night in the UK. And there is also almost no coverage in the national press, and if there is, its so small your could miss it, and its normally only there due to a local being successful (A win by Dario Franchitti might get an inch of column space in a national news paper for example).

A US held Grand Prix can be successfully, F1 at Indy has already shown a market exists. In terms of population viewing figures for F1 is small in the US. But the population is big enough to still make a US GP a successful event, it just needs to be handled correctly.

 

Is that true? I'm not arguing, but I'm not sure even an American car or jockey will "kickstart" the market - Possibly if he (she!?) were a real front runner, probably in a Ferrari (the only name most people know in F1) and challenging for the title. Or a US team with a "studly" American at the wheel...... Maybe..... A newbie, in one of the backmarker teams could do even more harm than good.

Phil Hill was a little before my time - Who remembers if F1 here was perceived differently back then? How "big" was Phil? I remember the Glen and the huge attendances (and *serious* parties IIRC!), but outside that, has it ever had any real following here?

Moving on, I don't think the "time problem" is an issue any longer - We are the Tivo generation - I very rarely watch in the middle of the night, just get up, get coffee and skip the darn ads - May as well be live! It's an excuse, not a legitimate reason for lack of popularity IMO.

I dunno the answers, but suspect a Mark Cuban (personality) or similar could work - The "US Team" becomes the star rather than a rookie driver....

Cheers,
Ian

 

On the U.S. east coast, the European races, when telecast live, usually begin at 8 AM, which is not bad. The problematic races are the ones in the Far East, which typically begin at around 1 to 2 AM.

SPEED typically re-broadcasts each race once, often in the afternoon or evening, but sometimes a day later. Fortunately, the increasing prevalence of DVRs makes all of these times somewhat moot.

 

I think what F1 needs is relevance in the U.S. market, and many equate that with having an American team or driver. But the sport, with or without American involvement, has no presence or relevance in America. Let's face it--Americans like to win, which is why all the hoopla over the Red Bull driver search and Scott Speed fell on its ass. So having one or the other or both won't necessarily broaden the interest in the States, and I'm not convinced a winning effort from them would either. But I DO know that a corny-sounding American racing mid-pack in a foreign series isn't going to light the cauldron. We're not that foreign-averse in this country--every one of our major leagues has popular foreign-born stars. We can get behind foreign stars, that's not the problem. No matter what happens regarding American participation in F1, it's still a sport that will make one whopping visit to this country, is European-centered and generally exists in the wee hours. That's a hard sell no matter who's competing. Additionally, what are the metrics to determine popularity in the US? TV ratings? Race attendance? Magazine sales? Merchandising? As was mentioned elsewhere, many other nations have football and then smaller niche sports like cricket, rugby, etc. whereas the United States has several major league sports tugging for our attention and dollars.

 

Spot on.

These viewing parties won't work.

We have some of these offered in town by the dealers, but I never see the point: It's way too early to go there and when they tape delay them, then I wouldn't want to be with a crowd where some idiot will spoil the result for the rest of the group.

 

The only way it works is if you start the party the night before.

 

I'm too old for that.

The only way it works is for races that fall into our time zones: Canada, USA and Brazil

 

I doubt that.

Races in your own time zone are meant to be attended.

 

formula one has been available to those who wanted it for sixty years. if it was ever going to be popular in this country it would be by now. face it, americans don't want f1. they don't get it. it's just too complex, too multi-faceted. look at le mans. when ford finally beat ferrari no one in this country even knew where le mans was. so even a winning u s team will not interest joe sixpack. it's a case of pearls before swine. getting disinterested people drunk while showing a race on several big screen tvs is a waste of cheap beer and chicken wings.

 

Too complex?

I disagree. Racing, for the most part, is not complex.

Football (America) is far more complex than any sort of automobile racing I'm aware of.

We just already have our own stuff we like.

 

That's an interesting perspective, though I disagree on some points. The United States is the size of 5 or 6 European nations, and over the decades we've created our own forms of entertainment. Even when F1 had two GPs in the US, it was very much a European sport. And don't forget it wasn't until the 90's when F1 had any access to speak of on American TV. F1 is like soccer in that it isn't "ours". The fact that F1 is "complex and multi-faceted" should actually make it appealing to different tiers of people--including those who just like to watch the speedy cars and those who really immerse themselves in the technical side of the sport. To imply that Americans are too dumb vis-a-vis the global intelligentsia, who somehow "get it", is itself a short-sighted statement.

Popular American sports are those we grow up with: football, baseball, basketball. Even rodeo.

 

I agree about the early-morning races, but I watched the three tape-delayed races on Fox with this group and no one "spilled the beans". We all enjoyed the camaraderie, even though we were rooting for different teams and drivers. If one of these groups is in this locale, give them a try. (And they do get some early risers for the early races; for me, their meeting place is just too far to go that early in the day.)

http://www.meetup.com/atlantaf1/

 

I watch F1 in a local biker bar, they think it's IRL.....LOL!

The Grand Prix of Houston threw a bunch of promo parties, with food and hired girls......it worked pretty well.

I ended up dating one for awhile......before she moved back to L.A.

 

While you got a lot of flak over that one, I would agree:

Yes, the US has enough complex spots (I don't understand football, there I said it) and has enough of "its own stuff". All true. But those are not the F1 audiences per se. F1 as a motorsport would be competing against the IRL (remember them?) and NASCAR and that's where tatcat's comment comes in and IMHO fits:

If you truly believe NASCAR is racing then F1 is not for you. Then stay with beer and wings.

That said I still don't get it why F1 couldn't have a following in the US: There are enough folks on here and other boards who show that they get it. I mean amongst 300 million people there ought to be enough souls who really care about motorracing. So I don't think it is anything about being American that prevents F1 from being a success here.

Or to put it differently: The homeland of swooshmobiles from Detroit is also the biggest market for the prancing horse. So there are enough motor enthusiasts in this country who really care about performance, perfection, European styling etc.