F1 should not put casual fans first.

[ChrisF1]

F1 should not put casual fans first.

Formula 1 is constantly reaching for a new audience, but it's not been found in the past decade as evidenced by the huge ticket prices and dropping viewer numbers.

What has caused this? For me, it isn't one driver dominating, but the way that the sport is constantly trying to chase new fans and dumb down the product.

Casual fans want to see more overtaking, but Formula 1 isn't just overtaking. It's Mansell hounding Senna around Monaco in 1992, it's Schumacher vs Alonso at San Marino, it's the thrill of a hard earned overtake finally happening after being set up over the course of 6 laps of harassment.

Things like DRS were introduced to encourage overtaking, but has actually made overtaking too easy on most tracks. Did anybody actually get a thrill from the overtake itself during the Austin GP? I wasn't finding the overtakes exciting in the most part because they were done before the braking zone even began.

Mooting ideas like ballast for cars that perform too highly are wrong, and is aimed purely at the average viewer who prefers the panel bashing of the BTCC. It just shouts "Let's penalise people for doing a good job" and isn't rewarding the best drivers and best cars. The same point exists for

Sprinklers and medals just made a mockery of what Formula 1 could be in the wrong hands. Double points was also a complete abomination purely to suit the fans - none of the teams really wanted it, and displeasure grew as the season went on, finally being dropped after the damage could have been done.

For me, Formula 1 should be a package that is between 60-40 in favour of the car, to 80-20 in favour of the car. The sport should ignore chasing the average casual viewer and instead create a product that isn't overly complex to understand, has cars that can follow each other and if a driver is good enough, harass the driver in front into a mistake or pull off an overtake themselves.

Open up the rule book in the right places, allow a decent bit of development and split prize money more evenly. Remove the Ferrari veto on rules as the competitors should have no place in setting the rules, they should merely be consultants whose opinion is respected.

There is no point chasing the casual fan, because how are they supposed to get into Formula 1 when they are told:

"A race is x laps, and you have to do it as quick as possible, but also need to use two different types of tyre, except when it's wet, and you get DRS if you're less than a second behind the car in front, but only out of this corner, and it's possible to cross the DRS line, overtake the car in front before the activation point and then use DRS to sprint away on the following straight.

"Oh, and if you do this type of penalty you'll get 5 seconds added to your finish time, so the positions on track are different to the positions that they'll finish in."

"Ps, under the virtual safety car you have to drive to X lap time, but if the guy in front decides to go 5 seconds slower you can't overtake him, but the car 6 seconds behind you can continue to drive to the delta and gain those 5 seconds, so the VSC that is supposed to keep gaps equal actually could cost you a load of time"


"F1 should be for the enthusiasts, and if the product is good enough, the fans will come."

Agree or disagree?

[OneAlex]

Formula 1 is constantly reaching for a new audience, but it's not been found in the past decade as evidenced by the huge ticket prices and dropping viewer numbers.

What has caused this?

Personally I would say the problem isn't with the racing at all. In fact I would argue the current business model is versed more towards serious fans anyway at the expense of casual fans.

Serious fans could argue the quality of racing has declined somewhat (I'm going to be controversial here and say I quite like DRS, yes a lot of overtakes look too easy but it makes it all the more strategic and shifting), but I reckon most casual fans wouldn't notice much difference. As for the idea that cars need to be louder and have more sparks coming off the bottom to appeal to a wider audience... I've always thought that was stupid; we're not 12 year old Americans.

I think if you look at viewing figures declining they correspond to the fact that F1 has increasingly made all countries pay to watch (if I remember rightly, there used to be an old agreement where races MUST be free to watch, which is why we now have highlights at 10:30pm at night which no casual viewer is going to watch), and has been chasing money and focusing on newer and bigger markets and rejecting the core European market.

Yes if F1 had snagged India for instance you would have had a potential extra one billion people watching, but people in India don't care about F1 and didn't come, and serious fans aside people in Europe don't want to pay an extra £150 a year to watch cars race around largely empty dull circuits with no history, particularly when 10 years ago those fans (say in France) could have watched the cars hurtling around a well-attended and atmospheric French circuit live on normal tv.

Ultimately it probably brings more money in to have Sky pay huge sums to broadcast it, even with the fewer viewing figures, and a sparsely attended new GP will still pay more and so make more money than a subsidised traditional European one (and if F1 does grow in China etc, a bigger casual fan base looms in the future) so I doubt it's something they worry too much about right now.

[Itchy_digits]

I'd love to agree but unfortunately I don't think it's viable. For F1 to bring in the big money it needs to push forward with technology then there simply aren't enough enthusiasts!

My grandad and my mum were and in the case of my mum still is a casual fan. She'll stick the TV on while doing things around the house and watch bits of a race. She'll very rarely watch a qually session and has no real interest in the technology or politics involved. I on the other hand watch each practise, qually and race session and take a big interest in everything that comes with F1. However I don't have the money to fork out for sky or to go and watch a race live, so in terms of our contribution, my casual fan of a mum does more for F1 than me!

Just because I'm an avid F1 fan doesn't mean I have the value of one casual watcher/fan, let alone make up for our lower numbers. Unfortunately we will always follow it regardless but if you key the sport and coverage to enthusiasts then the casual viewers (and money) will dissapear.

(The above thoughts are of course opinion)

[ChrisF1]

Opinions are good on this topic, love to hear what other people think on this one.

I just believe that chasing Generation Y (Is it the Millenials or something now?) could send F1 on more of a downward spiral and cause the enthusiasts to turn off.

Without the enthusiasts, the new audience that leans whichever way the wind is blowing are the sole audience, and what if the wind isn't blowing in F1's favour Everybody will have lost out...

We've all got a lot of solutions to Formula 1 on this forum, and they're all technology based - rules, manufacturing, aero, engine and so on. What the FIA seem to prefer is to go with gimmick ideas like "Let's get sparks back" - what has that added? Ok, it looks pretty neat on the night race, but what's style without substance?

[Phil]

Entertainment sells

People need to realize that motorsport in its purest form is inherently boring. Yes, I race, I track my car. And it's hard to get any people interested in joining a track day unless they either get the option to drive themselves or partake as a by-passenger. To watch from a distance, well... boring. If I weren't driving myself, you wouldn't see me joining track days.

Yes, I have also visited F1 events. 3, to be exact. They're boring too. You watch from a distance and what you see is essentially 20 cars driving in a circle. Depending on the circuit, you mostly only see 3% of the track anyway - a small segment. The odds that something of interest happens, like a crash, a battle for position, a collision - anything other than seeing a car pass within 2 seconds, in your field of vision - practically zero.

So why do people go to these expensive F1 races?

Well, in the older days, because the fascination with these noisy cars was huge and quite frankly a spectacle. Hearing a F1 car prior to 2014 was like witnessing a Concorde at take-off. Well not quite, but close. It's also great if you can soak up the entire atmosphere and usually an F1 event encompasses more than simply practice, qualifying and the race. You have other events, usually Porsche Cup or GP2, so you can usually enjoy a wide range of activities. And if it's a city event, you have lots of parties all around. So not all about motorsport then.

Which brings us to the question; If Motorsport in inherently boring live, why do any people bother with it? IMO - it has grown significantly on a global scale because of the variety in venues. The sport with its focus on entertainment has also made it more attractive for people who find motorsports rather dull. Maybe the artificial sensation has also caused to inflate the sport - making it seem more attractive than it in reality is. If we were to move back to what the hardcore motorsport fan wants - we'd pretty much say good bye to most casuals that finance the sport by viewership, money and support to the point we'd be back in the niche ages where they become local events, rather than global.

People want less artificial overtakes, more genuine racing, a stop to restrictive rules and faster cars? No problem, but then it will widen the gap between fast and slower cars and with that, the sensation dies off, because even before the race starts, we'd know who would be likely to win it. So genuine, non-artificial racing is at the opposite end to... sadly, what a WWE (World-Wrestling-E...) stands for.

And I'm in no way saying we need to make it even more artificial to reach even wider masses. I think the best balance is somewhere in the middle. To create spectacle means we need a grid that is closer together - more competitive. Drivers attract the masses and they can only do that if they become more relevant and they can fight for wins, podiums etc. We also need a balanced competition - one that allows most teams on the grid to be somewhat competitive through their own ability. Which is why the sport needs to be careful who it caters too - on one hand the fans it caters to, but also the competitors it caters to.

Different venues are important. It brings in lots of money and creates a spectacle on television. It also enables the sport to grow by reaching more masses in other countries. Does that come at the expense of the local fans that no longer can visit most races? Yes. But if we cater too much to those, the sport risks catering too much to the niche market it once was.

[Vettel Maggot]

I don't really see the point in catering for the 10-15% of fans like us that are hooked and will watch no matter what, some for the rest of our lives. You need to appeal to the casual fan and the 'bandwagoner' casual fan unfortunately. They are the people that will turn your trackside attendance from 50,000 to 80-120,000. People that just go to the big events that have some hype attached to them.

Look at the attendance figures for the US GP as an example, steadily declining since the first race. A lot of people would have gone just because there was an event on.

If you can attract these types of fans TV ratings go up, corporate dollars start rolling in and then the brand of F1 is a lot more valuable than it is right now. But you need an exciting product to draw these people in.

I really don't understand how people can be so dismissive of the noise element of F1. It is probably the most important part of the trackside show for a casual fan. They want an escape from reality and something unique for their dollar. They want to watch the best drivers in the world driving the fastest, noisiest and most outrageous cars in the world. Who on earth wants to watch a fuel saving 'green' formula that sound terrible (yes, I've heard them in person, shudder).

I recently attended a F1 festival in another state that had the mid 90s V12 Ferrari involved. You should have seen people rushing towards the fence when it came out, the same reaction as when a V10 Arrows came out. People were attracted by the noise, kids stared in wonder and older fellows like myself stood there shaking their heads and commenting how they have 'ruined' F1 with the new engines. You could hear the damn things from my hotel in the city centre! You KNEW and F1 car was out and about. This is such a lost marketing tool.

If you make F1 all about the rusted on fans it will be dead in 5 years. You need to keep fresh people coming through the turnstiles or turning the TV on and watching each race. At the moment you have an utter shambles, if it keeps going this way who knows, in 5 years time it might all be gone.

[wesley123]

There is no point chasing the casual fan, because how are they supposed to get into Formula 1 when they are told

There is no point in trying to appeal to the vast majority of people? Don't think I have ever read that before.

The point of everything ever is to appeal to as many people as possible. It simply isn't very good for revenue and appeal in general to just focus on a small group of people that too eventually will get bored and leave you with nothing whatsoever.

New tracks are willing to pay a ridiculous sum of monmey to host a race that can't possibly be turned into a profit. The fact that people are willing to pay that sum shows that F1 is very much successful in what it is trying to do.


Reality is, no one gives a --- about the fanbase, nor is there any value to. It's impossible to appeal to everyone and those people you are trying to appeal to know nothing about doing what you do(else they would have done it themselves), making any feedback they have valueless and pointless.

F1 has a product that appeals to people. The fact that millions of people watch it shows that the formula works. Why listen to people who don't know anything and will most likely just turn the channel whenever they feel like it?


In a profit making situation people should always put the casual people first as that is the vast majority of people.

[sgth0mas]

Ive said it a few times and i say it again...F1 is competing with all of the major sports in the world. If F1 isnt putting on a show comparable to football, basketball, soccer or hockey...then its going to fail. It comes down to value and thats it. With modern cars being as powerful and as fast as they are..you have to have something to make the races interesting. Watching a bunch of overpriced cars manage fuel and tires is less entertaining than dallas traffic during rush hour.

Im not even a casual fan and its become hard for me to keep watching this nonsense.

[CHT]

The state of F1 today is akin to a Michelin starred restaurant overstretching themselves to reach out to fast food consumer market and this has resulted in loyal customers getting pissed by the fast food quality fancy dishes the restaurant are trying to sell. And now the restaurant owners are trying to seek feedback from fast food consumer on how to run a Michelin starred restaurant.

Good luck F1, if I want fast food there are plenty of choices.

[dans79]

appeal to a wider audience... I've always thought that was stupid; we're not 12 year old Americans.

That's interesting, most of the people whining on this board, about F1 not being interesting enough are European.


The problem with the Audience, is that Bernie is trying to make it all things to all people, and history has shown that never works.

My opinion is that F1 should be geared more towards the people who go to races regularly, say at least one every other year. They are the people who are going to continue watching when the driver or team they like it, has a bad season. Usually they have some knowledge of the current state of the sport, and some historical knowledge as well.

Casual fans are just that casual, they are easily swayed to watch or not watch. Hence the reason I'll never understand all the negativity from Bernie. I mean Honestly, how can you keep telling people your product is crap, and then get annoyed when no one watches it, it's idiotic. The same goes for so many of the announcers/commentators, constantly turning it into a pity party.

The other issue is the coverage is still complete crap, I think you could seriously get better on-board shots with a go-pro suction cupped to the role hoop.

[J.A.W.]

Entertainment sells

People need to realize that motorsport in its purest form is inherently boring...

No way known.. just see Top Fuel Drag racing, & Reno Open Gold aero-racing..

& did you not see the Moto GP race at Philip Island a couple of weeks ago, either, then?

That was certainly not boring, even if won by the current Champ, & its a "purest form" - motorsport - by any measure..
Other Moto GP races have been processional ( boring) to be sure, so is it a sterile 'designer' circuit thing?

As for the shriekingly loud N/A F1 V10/V8 being missed, I worked in downtown Melbourne in that era,
& the "noise" was largely resented -as a needless & anomalously( normally illegal) noxious emission - by( non-fan) people..

[Just_a_fan]

Double points was also a complete abomination purely to suit the fans - none of the teams really wanted it, and displeasure grew as the season went on, finally being dropped after the damage could have been done.

Don't blame that on the fans. Double points was introduced to keep the end-of-season circuits happy. They had paid big money and expected to host the title decider or, at least, still have a title fight on their track. It was Bernie keeping his customers happy - his customers are the circuits, not the fans.

[ChrisF1]

There is no point chasing the casual fan, because how are they supposed to get into Formula 1 when they are told

There is no point in trying to appeal to the vast majority of people? Don't think I have ever read that before.

The point of everything ever is to appeal to as many people as possible. It simply isn't very good for revenue and appeal in general to just focus on a small group of people that too eventually will get bored and leave you with nothing whatsoever.

Actually you've taken an individual quote and spread it on a wider context. I'm talking about creating rules - hence my post talking about DRS, Tyres, VSC, penalties etc and then finished off with:

"F1 should be for the enthusiasts, and if the product is good enough, the fans will come."

F1 went global because the product was good, the drivers were characters, it was entertainment. If we had Bahrain 2014 or Canada 2011 on a regular basis, the product would be raved about and the casual fan would be attracted without creating gimmick rules like double points.

[Just_a_fan]

An example of where F1 has gone wrong:

"It's incredible. All these countries in a little bit of financial problems are getting the job done," said Ecclestone.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/34673408
Bernie is happy to take money from countries that should be spending it on their own people. Instead they spend it on vanity projects like a Formula 1 race. The only beneficiaries are Bernie and his rich mates.

As a fan of F1 it's great to think the sport will revisit historic race countries like Argentina. But the knowledge that the money would be better spent in a country with financial problems brings a sour taste.

[CHT]

An example of where F1 has gone wrong:

"It's incredible. All these countries in a little bit of financial problems are getting the job done," said Ecclestone.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/34673408
Bernie is happy to take money from countries that should be spending it on their own people. Instead they spend it on vanity projects like a Formula 1 race. The only beneficiaries are Bernie and his rich mates.

As a fan of F1 it's great to think the sport will revisit historic race countries like Argentina. But the knowledge that the money would be better spent in a country with financial problems brings a sour taste.

Bernie is not the sole beneficiary, the sponsors does benefits too, especially the investment banks and the big fortune 500 companies who uses F1 weekend to entertain their clients with VIP access and lounge etc.