Liberty Media Purchase 18.7 percent of Formula One

Vaoh · Sep 9, 2016

Alex72 said:
F1 goin' WWF wrestling! Drivers shouting and banging chairs over eachothers heads.

Lulz.

You know, I wonder if that would improve ratings. Instead of getting a barrage of post race news articles about how Verstappen pissed off some driver they just deal with their problems in the pit lane in front of the cameras. Good old fashion fisticuffs. But I kid, I see it more like the driver spats we see today, Ferrari's drivers vs. Verstappen, Lewis vs. Nico. Just between more teams and drivers.

Chris Stacey said:
I hope to god they don't Americanize it. Don't get me wrong, America is definitely a market that needs to be tapped into, but the sport should not be shaped or defined around it.

Being an American, I'm not 100% sure what people mean by "Americanize". Do you mean adding a playoff type mechanic at the end of the season like we see with The Chase in NASCAR? Or do you mean the 5 minutes of racing with a sudden cut to 5 minutes worth of commercials? If you mean commercializing it in general then yeah, that's gonna happen on a bigger scale now because that's how Liberty Media knows how to make money. Otherwise the only other way I've seen people use the "Americanize" is when something is simplified. That one won't happen because the idea of F1 is already easy enough for people to grasp.

Chris · Sep 9, 2016

Vaoh said:
Being an American, I'm not 100% sure what people mean by "Americanize". Do you mean adding a playoff type mechanic at the end of the season like we see with The Chase in NASCAR? Or do you mean the 5 minutes of racing with a sudden cut to 5 minutes worth of commercials? If you mean commercializing it in general then yeah, that's gonna happen on a bigger scale now because that's how Liberty Media knows how to make money. Otherwise the only other way I've seen people use the "Americanize" is when something is simplified. That one won't happen because the idea of F1 is already easy enough for people to grasp.

When I say "Americanize it" I mean that I don't want to see the sport change it's race times or schedules to suit American audiences more. The current format and schedule they have now is perfectly fine. If they change it then it'll be another case of fixing something that isn't broken. If 8am or whatever is considered too early in the morning to watch a race, then you're likely not going to watch F1 at all anyway.

As for commercials, well yeah that goes without saying tbh. I hate commercial breaks lol, so if they were to implement new rules to allow for greater sponsor coverage via commercial breaks then I'll stop watching F1 entirely.

Do I think Liberty Media will do this? No.
When they talk about commercialising the sport, it will be more to do with greater levels of promotion and more attractive opportunities for organisations to place their logo's on cars. Not necessarily through commercial breaks during the races.

Vaoh · Sep 9, 2016

Chris Stacey said:
When I say "Americanize it" I mean that I don't want to see the sport change it's race times or schedules to suit American audiences more. The current format and schedule they have now is perfectly fine. If they change it then it'll be another case of fixing something that isn't broken. If 8am or whatever is considered too early in the morning to watch a race, then you're likely not going to watch F1 at all anyway.

As for commercials, well yeah that goes without saying tbh. I hate commercial breaks lol, so if they were to implement new rules to allow for greater sponsor coverage via commercial breaks then I'll stop watching F1 entirely.

Do I think Liberty Media will do this? No.
When they talk about commercialising the sport, it will be more to do with greater levels of promotion and more attractive opportunities for organisations to place their logo's on cars. Not necessarily through commercial breaks during the races.

Yeah, they won't change times to suit the Americas. That would make little sense for the series in general. They might change the start times going forwards or backwards an hour or two to reach a more broad audience. Global series like F1 and WEC tend to struggle when it comes to pleasing the masses with their race times. We might see a little shuffling in the time slots here and there, but it'd be for the benefit of the global audience. Maybe instead of starting the British GP at 13:00 GMT they might move it back an hour or two. Things like that I can see happening.

ronniej · Sep 9, 2016

I'm of the same opinion as Niki Lauda when it comes to the state of F1 at the moment....It's all fluff and no danger anymore. 17 year old kids as drivers, and is anyone really driving anymore? Heck, you might as well have robots driving them.

hxxps://www.thestar.com/autos/2015/02/20/f1-cars-too-easy-to-drive-niki-lauda-says.html

Deleted member 6919 · Sep 9, 2016

Is liberty media anything to do with liberty global who purchased Virgin Media?

fortyfivekev · Sep 9, 2016

Gopher04 said:
Is liberty media anything to do with liberty global who purchased Virgin Media?

Same guys.

P*Funk · Sep 9, 2016

Lots of blind and irrational anti-American sentiment in here. Europeans can be just as silly as Americans when it comes to broad generalizations and talking out of one's behind.

Are you guys actually reading what you're typing?

TomcatMF · Sep 9, 2016

I live on the west coast of the U.S, so the races start at 5AM for me, and since I don't want to get up that early, I just record it with my DVR and watch it after I get up at a more reasonable time. So changing the start time of the race won't make much difference to me.
We already have a ton of commercial breaks during the race coverage here, and it's annoying how often they break away, and many times it's during a really good battle for position.
I hope they offer some type of paid streaming service that would let me watch the the Qualifying sessions and Races flag to flag without commercial interruption. I would totally pay for that.
I think it would be pretty cool if they ran the Monaco GP at night though.

P*Funk · Sep 9, 2016

TomcatMF said:
I live on the west coast of the U.S, so the races start at 5AM for me, and since I don't want to get up that early, I just record it with my DVR and watch it after I get up at a more reasonable time. So changing the start time of the race won't make much difference to me.

That's part of understanding why having a media company buying F1 won't be the end of the world. The whole point is that F1 is run by old men who haven't gotten with the times. You wanna sell something to Americans you can't just change the time slot. Indy isn't popular enough as it is and they do all their races in sync with American times.

Most other racing admin have figured this out. I watch all my IMSA races streamed or catch them on youtube without any commercials, green to checkered. Its the future as TV becomes deprecated.

Rodent · Sep 9, 2016

I dunno Will, IndyCar is in a pretty

P*Funk said:
That's part of understanding why having a media company buying F1 won't be the end of the world. The whole point is that F1 is run by old men who haven't gotten with the times. You wanna sell something to Americans you can't just change the time slot. Indy isn't popular enough as it is and they do all their races in sync with American times.

Most other racing admin have figured this out. I watch all my IMSA races streamed or catch them on youtube without any commercials, green to checkered. Its the future as TV becomes deprecated.

So very true, I got into Blancpain and a few other series because of how easy and enjoyable they make it to be a fan as well.

Edit: Heck, take the Goodwood Revival being streamed here and on their own website atm as another example. It's odd that a retro event is more on the ball then the technological apex of racing...

LacSlyer · Sep 9, 2016

Rodent said:
I dunno Will, IndyCar is in a pretty

So very true, I got into Blancpain and a few other series because of how easy and enjoyable they make it to be a fan as well.

Edit: Heck, take the Goodwood Revival being streamed here and on their own website atm as another example. It's odd that a retro event is more on the ball then the technological apex of racing...

Doing something similar to Blancpain or going further to what MotoGP does would be a huge step in the right direction (they provide all 3 levels of the sport online and even in archives to watch later on their website). I'm certain I'm not the only American viewer willing to pay $40-50 a year to watch all the sessions online whenever I want. My only thinking as to why this may be difficult to implement is the TV contracts they have.

Alex72 · Sep 9, 2016

ronniej said:
I'm of the same opinion as Niki Lauda when it comes to the state of F1 at the moment....It's all fluff and no danger anymore. 17 year old kids as drivers, and is anyone really driving anymore? Heck, you might as well have robots driving them.

hxxps://www.thestar.com/autos/2015/02/20/f1-cars-too-easy-to-drive-niki-lauda-says.html

Its nice with safety for those actually driving and their families and friends, but yeah compared to the glory days of big ballz skillz era its very very different.

stadlereric · Sep 9, 2016

The last thing F1 needs is to be Americanized. Good god no. I'm from Michigan. Which is the home of many things American. I can't stand NASCAR or Indy car. Formula one may not be as exciting as it used to, but I'd rather watch Mercedes win every week than watch NASCAR or Indy car.

The only thing good that could come off this is marketing, the US is great at that. Just don't over do it like everything else.

EpilepticToast · Sep 9, 2016

not many things wrong with indycar right now to be honest, a bit cheesy yeah but the quality of competition out on track is top class and frankly unmatched by any major open wheel series at the moment.

Rob · Sep 9, 2016

Chris Stacey said:
However I am concerned about their affiliation with Fox and Rupert Murdoch, which can only be a bad thing for tv coverage of the sport.

Hey now! As a preview of what's coming to F1, take a look at what FOX did to my beloved ice hockey back in the day:

stbreaker · Sep 10, 2016

As an American whose favorite sport is F1 and watches "soccer" pretty regularly, it's funny to read what people think about American media and sports. Honestly, this looks like a sidestep to me. Bernie knows that he's old and wanted to get some more cash down for the family inheritance. He just got $750 million and is still in control. Sounds like a win for him.

As far as Bernie himself goes, I blame fan complaints as much if not more than him for our current state. All of the changes we've seen have been to make things more competitive/lower cost (and therefore theoretically make things more competitive). Unfortunately what they didn't realize was that by punishing unreliability, they are preventing teams from pushing the envelope to get the win. Remember how often Kimi's McLarens used to break down? These days he would be starting from the garage every race because of all the grid penalties.