Formula 1 is riding a wave of appeal in the U.S., and its CEO is looking around its success with possible media partners for a more rewarding U.S. media offer.
The racing league’s existing handle ESPN ends at the end of2022 It was extended in 2019 to the tune of $5 million annually. Sports Business Journal reported the league, which is owned by Liberty Media, is looking for as much as $75 million a year for its next television rights offer.
Formula 1 Group CEO Stefano Domenicali decreased to define which possible partners the league is speaking with, or just how much the league is looking for, however he informed CNBC he sees “great opportunity” in the settlements and anticipates the next offer to “build on” the ESPN costs.
“We need to be respectful for the fact that ESPN did a great job for us to promote the business in that landscape,” he stated from the inaugural Miami GrandPrix “But the great opportunity we have is to make sure that the future offers we are discussing with the partners are well positioned in terms of content, in terms of opportunity for the fans to follow and of course in terms of fees. The future is very interesting for us.”
Formula 1 set a brand-new viewership record last season when it balanced 934,000 audiences per race on ESPN channels and the ABC network– up 54% compared to F1 ′ s 2020 races. F1 ′ s 2021 viewership consisted of a typical 1.2 million audiences for the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin.
The development reveals no indications of slowing. ESPN stated the season-opener Bahrain Grand Prix in March balanced 1.3 million audiences in the U.S. and peaked at 1.5 million audiences in the race’s last minutes.
The share rate of Formula 1’s primary tracking stock is up 34% over the previous year and has actually doubled because 2017.
The sport’s current rise in the U.S. remains in big part powered by the Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive.” Season 4 of the program, launched in March, attracted its biggest audience to date and burglarized the weekly Top 10 in 56 nations, according to Formula 1 andNetflix The celebrations revealed Thursday the series has actually been validated for a 5th and 6th season.
Some have actually hypothesized Netflix might look for to purchase the live F1 media rights, and mark its very first venture into live sports. Domenicali decreased to rule it out.
“Netflix has helped us a lot,” he stated. “They did an incredible job. We did an incredible job together, because that’s something that you cannot do alone. I think that together we may have also some other things that we can do together to improve our accessibility in the American market.”
In 2023, F1 will host 3 U.S. races, with the addition of a race in Las Vegas in November and the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin inOctober The very first Miami Grand Prix runs this weekend.
While the sport has actually long been popular overseas, with an international audience balancing more than 80 million per race, it has actually lagged far behind NASCAR in the U.S., which balanced simply under 3 million audiences per race in 2015.
“We are just at the beginning of this new journey,” Domenicali stated. “The popularity of our sport has grown tremendously. It requires a lot of attention, to be sure that our narratives hit the tastes of the American fans.”
