US F1 drivers ranked: Logan Sargeant 18th and Phil Hill beaten to No.1 spot<\/a><\/p>\nBut what caused that disconnect? Why were American audiences so hard to engage?<\/p>\n
In an appearance on the\u00a0How Leaders Lead with David Novak podcast, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown pinpointed \u201cthree primary reasons\u201d behind the sport\u2019s chronic lack of popularity in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne, we never really found a permanent location, dating back to the \u201970s,\u201d Brown explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were Long Beach, then you were Watkins Glen, then you were Dallas, then you were a parking lot in Vegas for two years, then you were Phoenix.\u201d<\/p>\n
The repeated venue changes made it difficult for F1 to find a true foothold in the United States, thereby preventing fans from making major connections to the sport.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s only one issue. Brown pinpointed another: A complete lack of F1 racing in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you took five, six, seven, eight years off,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was no Formula 1 in North America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we came back to Indianapolis. Then we had this \u2018tiregate,\u2019 as we called it, so we didn\u2019t put on a good show. Then we disappeared again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to have any sport be popular in North America if you\u2019r not there or you have no date or location equity.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lack of a consistent venue and long periods away from America were major logistical challenges, but Brown also identified a more fundamental concern in F1: Its elitism.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also were a sport that was very exclusive, or perceived to be very exclusive and not very inclusive,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where, when Liberty came in and acquired the sport, they went, \u2018Wow, the sport\u2019s huge, but it doesn\u2019t really engage with its fan base like the NBA\u2019s, the NFL\u2019s, the MLBs, even the Premier Leagues.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was fine for a long time, but now we\u2019re in an era of engagement, not awareness. We weren\u2019t engaging with our fans. We weren\u2019t letting them inside. We were \u2018look, don\u2019t touch.’\u201d<\/p>\n
That mindset was characterized by a lack of social media usage, which often put ample distance between the drivers and fans. In the US in particular, those behind-the-scenes moments are critical in establishing a dedicated fanbase, and limitations placed on drivers using social media prevented many fans from establishing a connection to the sport.<\/p>\n
Brown continued,\u00a0\u201cWhen Liberty bought it and you had Netflix come in, we started kind of letting people see behind the curtains, people went, \u2018Wow, this sport\u2019s awesome. I\u2019ve never seen that before. I\u2019ve never been close to it before.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThen over time, we got three races, starting with Austin, which is one of the best grands prix on our calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you went from being not here and exclusive to being here, inclusive, and very focused on engagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what Formula 1 has learned, and is continuing to learn, is that sport is entertainment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll hear sometimes in Formula 1 where we go, \u2018No, we\u2019re not entertainment.\u2019 It\u2019s like, well, as far as I\u2019m concerned, if you buy a ticket to sit in a seat to watch a movie, a motor race, a baseball game, a rock concert, a fireworks show, you\u2019re going to be entertained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the sport has now embraced that there\u2019s an entertainment aspect to what we do, and the fans are responding accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read next:\u00a0The foolproof Canadian GP formula that new US F1 venues should copy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 has had an on-and-off presence in the United States since its inaugural season in 1950, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,348,1469,50,101,56,54,55,36665],"class_list":["post-74554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-mclaren","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-zak-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}