What is the point of the FIA it has always been a joke . Bernie has made f1 impo the FIA is like AMA a group of fools just like USAC could have been the greatest but they did no that racing is a sport that is Entertainment USAC never cared about it fans of participants . I believe Bernie is a sales man he wants you to come back happy Bernie is the best thing to happy to motorsport I believe most get mad because he is and makes more money than they do . Nascar was lucky because they in 71 got help from some of the best sales and marketing team in the world RJR now they have there show run by TV people haha the only group till the Internet that had monopoly in entertainment how that working out for the France family .
The idea of a worldwide motorsport body is necessary to regulate and promote international competition. Otherwise, countries would each grow their own formulae, and no international competition could take place; no world championship of any kind. That the present system isn't working as it should is not in doubt, but it's the same for most international bodies, being in sport (FISA, athleticism, cycling, etc...), political (is the UN working ?), trade or humanitarian field. F1 is in limbo (I think, others disagree), because its promoter (Bernie and FOM) isn't looking after all the participants the way it should (small teams, spectators, track owners, etc...) but seems to be only interested in rewarding the top players and maximising profits. OK, I don't expect Ecclestone and FOM to run it like a charity, but there are too much inbuilt bias in the system to pretend it's fair play.
Indeed.... and there's the problem! Bernie is the undisputed master of "divide & conquer". Be it the teams themselves - look at how many times some form of FOTA has failed - or the promoters. IF the promoters could stand united they'd have a pretty powerful lobbying group. That they too are as self serving as the teams themselves means Bernie can continue raping them. So, to answer your question, I don't know "how" they could do it, just that they should try...... Cheers, Ian
The problem is that the people who organize the races (promoters, track owners, governments, etc...) is a quite heterogeneous group, it would be hard to create a coalition. I think that the teams should create that coalition and tell Bernie to STFU. Unfortunately the last time they tried, they f**ed it up.
The real problem is most of the money that supports f1 race coming to a new track is government money . I bet none of the tracks are owned by a individual or group of individuals . Grand prix racing was started by town to support the local community. In the us the tracks went away from road racing because they couldn't sell tickets and make money . They late 20 and early 30 where epic because of the board tracks in the states nothing more epic than going 180 mph on a track with foot long wood splinters coming at you .
Exactly!..... Just the way Bernie wants it..... If they could form a "united body" and tell him, "you know what, screw your paddock club, we're doing our own version without you" he'd have to concede. That they're like the teams - only worried about their own short term interests is just another reason he can piss all over them. They've been "trying" that for as long as I've been watching!..... Even got as far as a race boycott back in the day. But again, they can't agree on the color of the sky, let alone present a united front to which he'd have to listen. Cheers, Ian
You may be interested to know that they are reviving board tracks in Germany, with races attracting between 30 and 50 riders per meeting with small audiences. Germany is resurrecting oval racing at Bielefeld (333 metres with 46 degree of banking, Darmstadt (333m, and 29', and Solingen (338m and 29'), all concrete. But Hanover has a real wooden board track which is 333m long with a 49 degree banking. The Germans call them something like "Murderdrome". It has yet to catch on with the general public.
I saw this on ESPN NFL actually. I don't think it necessarily means that CVC is saying that the direction is wrong. They are probably very disciplined and see perhaps that the value is maxed and they can take the cash and make more elsewhere. Let's not forget they just want to make money, that is really their only interest. Re: Ross - this is more troubling to me honestly. No disrespect to the Dolphins fans, but the current culture in Miami is one of the worst in the NFL. The fact that he would get involved in F1 is bad news IMHO.
Well, that's what happens when a non-profit body like the FIA hands the rights to a commercial organisation. Obviously the later is allowed to make and keep the profit, contraring to the former that is solely allowed to recycle any excess it makes.
CVC is a hedge fund. When the price is right they'll sell. Sentiment, tradition and sport won't enter into the calculus.
Helps also that Bernie conspired to undervalue F1 so that CVC could buy it cheaper...oh wait that wasn't proven...or was it? : ) But to your statement, yah that decision seems asinine; how does that protect the fans of the sport? Which should be a chief concern of the FIA, or any org in charge of regulating a sport.
I often wonder if the interests of the fans, or the participants are still the concern of the leaders in any sport regulation body. F1 is in fact just one area of the huge FIA empire. So, it's not all bad if a commercial organisation runs a championship; any disaffection will affect them and threaten their profit, pushing them to react. That's why Bernie is raising alarm bells when his F1 audience shrinks and he has troubles to sell the show to TV channels and organisers alike, without even talking about the grumbling among the fans and the participants.
I agree - it can work. But the power seems too concentrated in F1. Ultimately, the NFL is a commercial business, but the power is distributed among 32 owners; with 1 of those being a corporation w 360k stockholders (Greenbay). Not that the NFL is perfect, but they have done pretty well in a challenging time.
Was it not the way CART was run? Owned by the teams and run by them? It failed though, so the formula isn't foolproof.
As long as they can bring back the 1980s and 1990s excitement to the fans..i don't really care who is going to own F1 next.
True. But hard to compare CART with F1 or the NFL IMHO. Racing in the US has never been on the level of the NFL in terms of popularity save the Indy 500...at least in recent history. As an example, it is not uncommon for the Pittsburgh Steelers alone to pull 10million viewers on a *pre-season* game which means nothing. I think they hit 30milion viewers for a playoff game last year. A typical Indycar race gets about 500k viewers, with the Indy 500 getting over 6million. F1 supposedly had 425million viewers for 2014.
I take your word for it; I wouldn't know. I don't know if the size of the audience has complete relevance in the financial value of the sport. Take me, for example, I used to attend 2 or maybe 3 GPs in Europe, 40 or 30 years ago. It was a lot cheaper, the sport was more amateurish, shall we say, there was hardly any TV coverage, etc... Now, for the last 25 years, I haven't been to a GP, I watch them for free on terrestrial TV, maybe not live, but I don't care. I don't buy team memorabilia, etc... So, I must be part of a majority of people that don't put a penny in F1, worldwide.
I don't know the exact correlation either honestly. But I know that a ton of F1 revenue comes from the tracks paying to host and the sponsors - but it isn't shared equally - not even close. In the NFL, they share revenue on merchandise and tv for example (probably more things I don't know about)...so even the teams that are terrible benefit from the teams that have cult-like followings and many championships. The rationale being that without the bad teams, there couldn't be any great ones either. Who will you compete against? Now contrast that with F1 and the opinion is largely - oh we are Ferrari, we are Mercedes, give us the money because without us, no one would watch. Well, you can't race against yourself! : ) In the NFL, if you are doing poorly, you get priority to try to get better...because they want the best product. In F1, if you are doing poorly, Bernie criticizes you because you signed a crap contract or you aren't managing your money properly ; ) Gotcha. Yah, that is why I said supposedly - seems hard to figure the actual viewing figures for F1 because it is across pay networks, regular networks, and many countries. Most of the NFL viewership is concentrated in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
