Is this the sign that all is not well?

I vote spirot for new F1 Supremo...and you forgot to bring back the "grid girls!"

 

The price dropped this year about $300 and GA is quite reasonable.

The same seat I paid $2100 for last year I paid $1400 this coming race. That's for all 3 days, including entertainment (which was really quite good both years).

 

I remember paying $360 CAD for Canadian GP tickets grandstand 12, all 3 days and I was at the track the whole day because of all the support races, and there was even a Good Charlotte concert included. Times have changed but F1 is wayyy too expensive for me these days.

 

Another subject I have been saying for several years, and especially when Liberty bought out Bernie.

I never thought the numbers added up, especially when they quote viewership numbers
in the USA that were just plain over-the-top false, let alone stupid. There is no way that F1
viewer numbers in the USA are 4X those of nascar viewers. ZERO way, especially today.

And I keep asking: where in the hell does Red Bull come up with the money to:
(This list is from 2019, I know it's changed a little)
They are the title owners of:

• FC Red Bull Salzburg (Football)
• RB Leipzig (Football)
• New York Red Bulls (Football)
• Red Bull Brasil (Football)
• FC Liefering (Football)
• Red Bull Racing (Formula 1)
• Scuderia Toro Rosso (Formula 1 sister team)
• Team Peugeot-Hansen (Rallycross Racing - Red Bull sponsors)
• EKS Audi Sport (Rallycross Racing - Red Bull sponsors)
• Red Bull KTM Factory Racing (MotoGP)
• Red Bull KTM Tech 3 (MotoGP/Moto2)
• Red Bull KTM Ajo (Moto2/Moto3)
• EC Red Bull Salzburg (Eight Time Ice Hockey Champions)
• EHC Red Bull Munchen (Ice Hockey)
• Red Bull Extreme Sailing Team (Sailing)
• Red Bull Skate Team (Skateboarding)
• Red Bull Surfing Team (Surfing)

As well as promote their own products in advertising?

I don't know about you folks, but when I go to bars, I don't see folks having
a 'Red Bull and Vodka', for example, near as much as I did 15 years ago.

Here's my useless opinion:

Most of us here are of age that we grew up watching motorsports on TV, and
attending some events.
Today, kids are not really watching motorsports on TV, they may be playing
GTA on a Playstation, I don't see many kids at an F1 race, not anywhere near
like there used to be.
And when I see the grandstands and paddocks at races, especially F1 races,
I see a LOT of 50+ aged people wandering around, not many 20-somethings
unless they are an R&B music star or some other 'elite' Hollywood snob.

I have an idea: Pay a driver - in ANY series - 2 million a year max, for a start.
Not enough?
We'll find someone else, good luck finding a day job that pays NEAR that much.
But nobody would ever do that, they seem to forget what drivers were paid years ago,
2 million a year is a fortune.

And to be fair, we see a loss of a lot of fans attending nascar events, too.
A lot of tracks have either removed grandstands totally, or they cover them
with HUGE tarps with sponsor names on them.

I know everyone is asking 'how do we get more butts in the stands?', and a lot
of it comes back to economics, and maybe availability - it has to be very affordable,
especially TODAY, and people, especially kids, need to meet, if not just SEE the
drivers in-person, so they can maybe identify with them?
How many of us on here met a driver when we were kids, and that was 'our guy' forever?
That's really hard today, totally impossible for F1, nearly impossible for IRL, but is still
doable for nascar.

Yeah, I'm old...

 

I agree with that too. However, F1 viewership being in significant decline is not just race attendance (which is very expensive), it must also be through their F1 TV app and of course normal TV networks.

The attendance costs are simply atrocious right now. Was it a grand for cheapest ticket in Miami? What a joke. I paid a little less than that for Zandvoort 2023 but still didn't think I got value for money. Expect to pay as much as tickets for food drinks and (local) travel, not even your plane tickets or hotel/airbnb costs.

 

Red Bull is HUGELY popular in Europe. It's everywhere. Every petrol station. It's more prominent than Monster, which in turn is insanely popular in the States.

When Red Bull threw that men of the edge of Space that little stunt earned them around a billion in advertising alone, just to let that sink in. Literally tied the man in a space suit to a fancy balloon and let gravity take care of the rest lol

 

But enough to pay for everything they do? I suppose...

I think a whole bunch of these extraneous things like 'sports drinks' are in for a fall...

 

Google-->"RedBulls annual revenue"

Your going to be surprised at all those cans RedBull sells.

 

I think the ideas can be dollarized, but you need to build the ladder into F1 - and show how people get there, and build the excitement. Here in the South east of the USA college football is way bigger than the NFL, yet the superbowl commands so much $$ and attention. show how the rookies of tomorrow get to F1 - highlight F4 and F3, etc... there is more than enough $ to go around and keep it healthy. BUT as you know if you have been in the Paddock in the last 20 years, its about GREED - overt un bridled greed.... that will never change.

 

There are 5 things in Vegas that I like:
Spa at Caesars
Joel Robuchon's restaurant
Bouchon at the Venetian
Huge Tourneau watch store at Caesars
Leaving Vegas

F-1 is not going to be one of them. I was at the 82 race as a kid... it was hot, and horrible in general.....

 

Come to Norfolk and try getting into a restaurant without pre booking - they are all full!!

The price of admission is simply ridiculous, a family of four to the British GP General Admission just under £1200.

I bet it will be sold out though!!

 

In the 1990s, Austin had a music festival where every beer company had booths, the price was reasonable, and everyone had a good time.

A few years later, one company (Miller) bought the beer rights, and It was no longer a fun place to be.

The whole event folded in the early 00's.

 

I watched NASCRAP religiously from 1965-through-2002...
Then all of a sudden--it was not the same.
Bill Elliot's 1987 pole position at Daytona still stands--and it was an accident free race !!
But, it's just not the same......

 

I think they are hiding the true results from all of us. If veterans like us pretty much are fed up with such a long useless calendar, i can imagine how fast the new ones will give up.

 

Well I am quoting national stats here.
In London and the South East, many restaurants have closed, and pubs are going out of business too.
Travel agents say people spend less on holidays, and the sales of new cars are declining.

 

That is a fair assessement but not just restricted to the SE in my experience.

 

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I was at the 82 Vegas race. The track sucked but the cars and drivers were great. It was the last race of the season and after the race, all the teams pits were filled with spectators buying swag. A petite girl bought Nelson Piquet's drivers suit from the race. I bought a spare windscreen from Bruno Giacomelli's car, a mechanci's cotton jump suit and a short sleeve shirt, my wife got a short sleeve shirt from the Renault team. It was a wild time when the teams sold off stuff they wouldn't be using the next year and didn't want to have to ship home...and the pit crews pocketed the proceeds. The hotel made it so you had to walk through the casino to get to the track, and the casino hated the race fans because they had little to no interest in gambling. Yes it was hot as hell that weekend but we all loved it. There was a real sense of closeness between the fans and the teams. Some friends and I used the collected swag the following year at the Long Beach Grand Prix, to slip past the guards and get into the garage on Thursday. We were all in heaven. That was a golden time in F1.

 

Losing money? It's a trash product that isn't worth watching, much less spending money on. If they think it is bad now, just wait till next year.

Hilarious that Stefano Domenicali is running the show. Did they expect him not to ruin it after his disaster stint at Ferrari? Guy couldn't run an F1 team and they let him run the whole thing.

Too much inbreeding in F1.

 

Its not at all impossible, just expensive to meet your drivers today. Ferrari charges about $6K to $15 K depending on the race. I think Monaco right now is on sale at $10K Euro... so $12k ish -US? But I get that its not like way back when...and we are really talking the 70's when you might see a driver out side the paddock. But since the mid 80's the Paddock was locked down, and you needed credentials to get in , but it was easier than today. in the 80's you could be an independent journalist or photographer and actually make some money in F1. by 1988 that was all over. Bernie took that away as well. after 1993 it was down to a hand full of Photographers that were "credentialed" for F1...

 

I actually watched the race, it was a great battle down to the end for P2 & P3

 

During the Long Beach GP F1 days, the Alfa Romeo Owners Club bought an entire grandstand for the weekend, and had a Friday night party in the best hotel, attended by the entire Alfa F1 team including both drivers and Carlo Chiti. My wife flirted with both the drivers and they eagerly signed her poster. The following year the party was held at a club members home...a bus brought the team from their hotel. The team also smuggled in some spare parts for the club member's T33. A few years later...I think it was 1985...Alfa was the marque at Monterey. Fangio was there to drive the 158 Alfetta. He and Stirling Moss both graciously and happily signed my program. Those days are what real F1 was all about...and what it could be like today. All it will take is a nice little palace revolution followed by a big downsizing back into a sport vs a business.

 

I had credentials to shoot Detroit - 1982 thru 1988.
The last 2 years were a real PITA to get those credentials, but I did.

And your comment "after 1993 it was down to a hand full of Photographers that were "credentialed" for F1" -
I think that actually started in 1988, maybe 1987.
What I was told at the FIA Credential desk was 'we are only giving FULL credentials to journalists that photograph
five or more F1 events per year'.

THAT was to take direct aim at photographers in North America, where there were precisely FOUR
F1 events per year (USA 2, Canada, Mexico).
It required you to fly to another country to shoot at least one event in order to meet the minimum limit of five events.
Most would not do that. I was going to, even got my passport, but I never went.
It is really easy to shoot 6, 8, 10 events in Europe and qualify for full credentials if you live in Europe,
what the FIA was doing was practicing 'protectionism'.

The end result (for me) was I got full credentials - EXCEPT for Hot Pits during the race itself in 87 and 88, which was fine as I had
no interest in going into the pits on a raceday, and never went (into the pits during the race) during the prior years in the first place.

Side note:
I remember one of the bigger Ferrari Clubs rented a large space on the top of a building
that overlooked the exit of Ford Tunnel, heading to turn 15.
One year, Rene Arnoux crash his Ferrari, and the part of the nose cone that had the '28'
on it landed virtually 5 feet from me, it flew over the fence.
I heard guys from that Ferrari club yelling down at me 'I'll give you $500 for that', another guy
said 'I'll give you a thousand', another said '$2,000', but JUST as I was slipping it into
my big camera bag, a corner worker came around the corner, saw me doing that, and took
it from me. If he would have been even 5 seconds later, he would not have seen me do that.

My guess is he sold it himself, or it's in his man-cave.

 

Yes, As a Kid I remember seeing the drivers at Watkins Glen at various restaurants. usually at the Glen Motor court,... Ferrari used to go to the Downtowner for dinner.... in the early 70's on Saturday you could see team members eat there around 9 PM. Couple of times we stayed at the same hotel as some of the teams - at Bandol in France we usually stayed at the same place as Williams and Brabham.

 

I remember Detroit well. that is how I started to go to all the races. I convinced my dad to sell pictures to F1 magazine ... I forget the exact name, but it only lasted a couple of years, but then he got to sell some pics to LAT, and then to Route en Pista in Italy, and Auto Hebdo in France. We got to know Anne Richard who handled F1 marketing and Paddock club, and sold some pics to them. Then in 88, you had to have " circulation" and letters showing a contract from various "National outlets", Ann was helpful in getting us a FIA journo card - it was blue with the film perforations on the side, and hologram in the middle. - still have it, at the end of the year they would peel off the hologram and demagnetize the strip. Funny thing is I never ever used the magnetic strip anywhere in F1 for years, I dont even think they did anything. ( in 89 I used my old card and copied it for a friend, and we went to Monza. ) What I really liked back then, is you could walk the perimeter of the track, there were very few places off limits. at Monza I would go to Ascari on the inside right where they came up from the dip and turned left then right.... it was amazing to see them do that so fast. At Paul Ricard We'd hang out at Cygnes entry point, you would see the brake disc glow like crazy, made some really good pictures. Imola was Aquae Minerale when they had the chicane there... again down hill, great braking and then they shot up the hill. At Hockenheim it was boring almost no good places to shoot, so we'd usually do saturday at the chicane out back, and then stay by the entry of the stadium. once in a while we'd go to the pits, but usually it was so packed you could not get any good shots. In Montreal the best place was right at pit entry, as they turned to the left for the chicane... but year after year they would pull you back from the wall.. in 92, I was there when Mansell started to celebrate and ran out of fuel.... you could feel the vibration of the car going through the corner, and then the gust of wind & brake smell....