From http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=28073 I absolutely agree. Sport is becoming too coorporate anyway. This is a ludicrous idea.
This is non sense and short sighted. Bernie should be smarter, there are ways to make money without antagonizing fans. The rationale is behind this idea is that many GP organizers lose money on the actual event, so why bother even trying. If a VIP GP is staged I for one would not watch it on TV ! On the other hand it would be great to have a normal GP at Paul Ricard. It's a great track with a lot of history (good and bad).
Disgusting. Bernie is loosing touch with reality. Given the ticket prices I thought we had established the VIP GP already in Monaco.
Just because tickets are expensive that doesn't make it a VIP event. A VIP is someone who doesn't pay for their ticket!
First off, I agree with all that's being said here. And, if a difference is to be made, no offense intended, lamenting here will not create it. If the fans (especially ticket purchasers) know or were to know of such exclusive activities and disapprove, a way to get the attention of those in power (including Bernie through those to whom he is accountable) would be by lamenting directly to the sponsors themselves. Imagine the attention that might be paid by the major sponsors in F1 if they were to recieve droves of letters from fans exclaiming their disdain and posting to no longer support their products and services should such activities increase, continue or fail to be corrected. ~Exclude me and I'll exclude you...~ Put simply - jeopordize the bottom line and the issue will be acknowledged. Wanna make a difference in racing? Go where the money truly is - the sponsors. When they feel the heat, things change... even Bernie can't deny that. Nothing happens overnight but ultimately the customers are still in control, they simply may not realize it. NASCAR seems to understand this very well. Call them what you will but they seem to have marketing and product loyalty genius. People freely admit that they purchase products/services based on their fan loyalty to a driver or team.
Yep. And beyond that, ticket prices are a lot cheaper for a nascar race. There are several reasons for that. And Bernie lost sight of reality around 24 years ago. Luckily, people don't live forever.
I'm not convinced that this would work for a number of reasons: 1) How many millions of letters would the sponsors need to receive before they reacted? 2) Do we have to write to all the sponsors? There are a lot of them! Lastly, and I think most importantly, is the relationship between the sponsors and the teams. Companies do not really sponsor F1 teams because of the global exposure and for advertising purposes despite what they tell their shareholders. The reason companies sponsor F1 is because someone in the company is an F1 fan and wants to show off to their friends. Look at Vodafone. I know for a fact that their former CEO Sir Christopher Gent is an F1 fan. He loved the fact that through his companies sponsorship he could go to whichever GP's he fancied and take important clients, customers, or friends with him. He liked the fact that they were all treated as VIPs when they attended. He didn't really give a damn about whether the sponsorship helped to increase revenues for Vodafone - he had other people to worry about that stuff. He has now been replaced at Vodafone by Arun Sarin who is not an F1 fan. Arun obviously looked at the numbers and decided they weren't getting a good enough return on their investment in F1. He also wasn't lured by the idea of paddock club access in Monaco etc. He made a business decision and pulled the sponsorship. Would Sir Christopher have put pressure on Bernie to allow more public access and to decrease the cost of tickets if he had received letters from F1 fans threatening to not use Vodafone? I doubt it. The exclusive access and high ticket prices are what attracted him in the first place! Want to know what happened to Sir Chris after he was ousted as Vodafone CEO? Well he's now Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline plc and he also has other interests:
Anthony--I think you covered this one perfectly with both posts. It's like my buddy who works for Oracle. He's had the opportunity to work directly with Larry Elison directly on a couple occasions and has "jokingly" mentioned that he should get into auto racing. But Larry's a sailing guy, even though he could easily afford to do that AND buy an F1 team.
Not that I totally disagree with you Anthony_Ferrari, as I know many people that sponsor racing because they love it - even if it is just an expense in the end... I just have to think that they are by far the minority of the sponsor group in a huge money sport like F1. F1 is the largest grossing sport on the planet. It's bigger than football (regardless of which sport you call football.) Unfortunately, it's not as popular here in the US as everywhere else in the world. And it generates more revenue than any other sport at a global level. I find it hard to believe that companies advertise and sponsor in that space simply because they are race fans, seemingly without regard to leveraging this apparently huge marketing tool. I also know many companies that know or care nothing about F1 as a sport and yet put tons of money into it because it generates sales. They see it purely as a marketing vehicle. If a company is wise, when they witness a marked slump in sales and can qualitatively link it to a source, they will do what they can to correct the source in their favor. That's just business and it has little to noting to do with racing. My guess is Sir Gent's ego trip was just as potent around telling his guests for a race "look around at all the Vodafone signs - they are everywhere!" as was the "I can take you to the greatest sport there is!" trip. Just a guess though. On the flip-side, and what I think is the most potent part of your point - how many letters will it take to get their attention and are the customers prepared to do the letter-writing? In today's fast-paced "throw-away" society, the law of averages would likely be against such an endeavor. It would have to be somewhat of a coordinated effort, no doubt. Grass-roots efforts are great and can effect change over time but lack in potential compared to an organized initiative. Making this whole postulative somewhat rhetorical in nature, and yet I think possible. Oh! To answer your 2nd question: I'd think the top 8-10 sponsors would be enough to put the heat on just about anyone in F1's org. Some votes you count, some you weigh. This type of effort would be looking to throw weight around. Cheers! C
