- Before we get into it,
this is episode 200 of Wheelhouse.
- [Children] Yay! - Thank you very much
for watching.
This is an insane privilege,
and I've no one to thank but you guys,
and of course, Joe and Eddie and everyone else at Donut
who lets me do this.
It's just a privilege. And thanks a lot.
Now, before I start showing any emotion, let's get into it.
(insistent drum music)
- What do Formula One and the Kardashian family
have in common?
Reality television brought their names
into the collective American consciousness
and made unlikely pop culture stars of their subject.
Weird as it sounds,
Formula One's Netflix docu-series "Drive to Survive"
takes all the trappings of a reality TV show,
like compelling but scripted storylines,
fleshed-out personalities,
an episode-per-storyline format,
and a younger, more female audience
to transform a stuffy sport
into the kind of show people obsess over.
And that's actually the biggest thing
saving F1 from obscurity right now.
How did F1 go from a sport
that banned social media in its paddock
to the series that gives Netflix crews
unfettered access to the garages?
What makes "Drive to Survive" so damn popular
with younger viewers, Americans, and women?
And why the hell didn't F1 think of this sooner?
(bouncy music)
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Oh my God, this fall is taking forever.
Why did I buy such a big bird silo?
(Jerry lands with a loud thud)
(Bird caws)
(seeds shift)
(electronic chiming music)
- Formula One's longtime relationship with television
has been pretty complex,
but the Netflix deal
hasn't been the first big transformation
the series has seen regarding TV.
In fact, the ability for fans at home
to actually watch races
is a big reason why F1 has become
an untouchable Goliath of international motor sport.
(bass music)
From F1's first race in 1950 until 1980,
fans could never guarantee
they'd actually get to watch a race on TV.
If they got anything,
it was usually a highlight reel.
Think "Wide World of Sports" on ABC.
It wasn't until the BBC over in England
nabbed the exclusive rights to broadcast full F1 races
that F1 management suddenly realized
how important that whole TV concept is.
After that point, Bernie Ecclestone,
who was in charge of F1 promotions at the time,
started cutting a ton of
massive multi-million dollar (cash register dings)
TV deals around the world. (cash register dings)
He kept most of the money for those deals,
but F1, its teams, and the FIA, F1's managing body,
also got a cut.
That encouraged bigger sponsorship deals for teams,
since brands would be getting international airtime
multiple weekends a year.
Money made more money,
and soon F1 had transformed
from a popular but kinda DIY open-wheel series
into the astoundingly profitable and dominant business
it's become today. (crowd cheering)
TV coverage also brought other changes to F1,
usually involving safety.
At the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix,
F1 forced the race to go ahead
in the middle of a dangerous deluge,
because otherwise it would leave its profitable TV window.
(crash sound)
And when Ayrton Senna died in 1994,
his millions of fans demanded safety changes
that would prevent another driver's death airing live on TV.
Because TV deals were F1's big moneymaker, though,
Ecclestone and Co. were extremely protective
of any and all F1 content
that was being distributed literally anywhere.
Those big money TV deals were all well and good
until the social media age hit,
and fans who wanted to share their love of F1 with others
started getting punished
for even thinking about the phrase "Formula One."
Use a clip from a race in a YouTube video,
or share a GIF on social media,
and you'd be facing
a copyright claim that (shrill alarm chimes)
got your video taken down. (blue bolts zap)
Fans were even getting cease and desists
for having "F1" in their Twitter handle.
(blue bolt zaps)
It wasn't good.
But luckily a change was in the winds,
and that change was designed for the social media era.
Enter Liberty Media,
the weird American-based media conglomerate
that owns everything from the Atlanta Braves to SiriusXM.
The company's owner, John Malone, had been buying up
everything from businesses to real estate since the 1960s,
and a lot of his international acquisitions,
companies like Virgin Media or ITV,
have had ties with F1 at some point or another.
It was never really clear why Liberty would want F1,
other than for the fact
that it looked like it could make a lot of money.
Even though Chase Carey, who was appointed F1's chairman,
claimed Liberty bought F1
in a noble effort to save F1 from itself.
So Liberty sealed the deal in 2016
for a massive 4.6 billion (cash register dings)
and took full control of F1 in January of 2017.
And Liberty set to work immediately revamping F1's image.
Just before Liberty arrived on the scene,
F1 had gone full technophobe.
It had a Twitter account, but used it very sparingly,
and only for straight-up reporting of facts.
Ecclestone punished drivers like Lewis Hamilton
for filming Snapchats in the paddock,
going so far as to ban
all unauthorized distribution of media
taken in the paddock behind the scenes.
Seriously, think about that for a second.
Even the drivers couldn't film
social media video on their phones
without getting in trouble.
And that's coming from Ecclestone,
the guy who thought modern drivers were too boring.
Then again, he also thought young fans were irrelevant.
So we can probably assume
he didn't know what he was talking about.
Liberty Media set to work changing all that.
The F1 Twitter account became lively
and actually interesting.
Fans weren't hunted down with the exclusive purpose
of shutting down their YouTube page
for the mere mention of F1.
And for the first time in ages,
it felt like the series
was actually kind of trying to appeal to literally anyone
who didn't grow up watching F1 in the 1970s and '80s.
But even though F1 might've gotten some new fans
by relaxing its social media presence,
it would be Liberty's next move
that would send them into the mainstream.
(upbeat music)
It would've made sense for F1
to introduce a reality-style TV show
at any point of its history,
but the popularity of Netflix mini-series
gave the series a perfect way
to rethink its marketing strategy.
So Liberty Media and Netflix
teamed up to create "Drive to Survive" back in 2018.
The whole goal was to send crews out
to certain race weekends
and capture behind-the-scenes footage of drivers.
Once the year was ended, editors would take that footage
and sum up an entire season in just 10 episodes.
Now, hardcore fans will say
that producers took some creative liberties
with things like timelines or quotes
used during specific events.
But most viewers probably aren't gonna care.
I mean, does it matter if the series
adds its own crash sound effects,
(mild crash sound effect resounds)
or if it put a radio message
from Lando Norris at the Austrian Grand Prix
over some testing footage?
Not really, not if the rest of the story is compelling.
That doesn't mean the series is perfect
right from the start though.
Big-name teams like Mercedes and Ferrari
declined to participate, (wrong-answer buzzer noise)
which left a gaping hole to fill
since the producers couldn't string together narratives
about who would win the drivers' championship,
which is normally the first story people want to tell.
It forced the producers to get creative.
Instead of hearing about Lewis Hamilton
hunting yet another title,
it focuses on the little guys
who are fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat
in a sport that demands more than they can spend.
Like Daniel Ricciardo leaving Red Bull
because the team tended to favor his younger teammate,
Max Verstappen.
And at the end of the day,
aren't those more interesting stories anyway?
Eddie's nodding.
It's those personal stories that are so key
to "Drive to Survive's" success.
What takes it from a stodgy factual documentary
and turns it into a piece of art.
- [Crew Member] Are you okay, Nico?
- Holy (beep). I'm hanging here like a cow.
In that moment, I thought like, (beep),
you know, that's it, I'm out.
- When it first debuted,
hardcore F1 fans were pretty lukewarm on DTS.
One motor sport journalist claimed
the series didn't know what it wanted to be,
while another argued that DTS turned away longtime fans,
because it wasn't true to the nature of the series.
It piped in artificial sounds and fake commentators.
It forced narratives and rivalries that didn't really exist.
It didn't even make linear sense.
(imitates a critic) Give me a break!
But for the people who don't normally spend their Sundays
watching fast cars drive in circles,
DTS exploded.
Chris Sacca,
an American tech investor with 1.6 million followers
tweeted that "The F1 thing is sneaky.
I previously had no (beep) to give.
Then that Netflix series happens
and now I have multiple fantasy teams
and set my alarm to watch it all live with the kids."
Sacca isn't the only one.
Publications like The Atlantic, Vox,
The Wall Street Journal and Forbes
all started publishing think pieces,
about how "Drive to Survive" hooked their writers.
One of those writers, Paul Tassi,
claimed that he was "painfully uninterested in F1"
until DTS.
So the fact that there's an influx of fans
in all these new places
means F1 is probably doing something right
with "Drive to Survive."
It's not hyperbole to say that "Drive to Survive"
managed to save F1 from itself.
The series was dead-set on driving away potential fans
by cutting off just about every single way to engage with F1
outside of watching it live on TV.
But who wants to bother tuning into a sport
on Sunday morning when you could be sleeping in?
Am I right?
All you Europeans that are like,
(imitates European fan) oh my, I have to wait until 8:00 pm
to watch the US Grand Prix.
It's like, that's, I wish every race was like that.
Quit complaining.
We have to wake up at literally like,
I've woken up at 3:30 to watch a race.
And then I went back to bed, cause it was kinda boring.
But like, you have it so easy.
Putting the show on Netflix was honestly a genius move.
People could literally
stumble across DTS on their front page
and put zero effort
into consuming a season's worth of storylines
in one sitting.
They didn't have to pay anything
beyond their Netflix subscription costs.
And they didn't have to know anything about F1 going in.
Compare that with traditional racing publications
that require you to already know what's going on,
or even the F1 broadcasts
that assume you're tuning in
because you're already a fan,
and you can see why DTS thrived.
It takes all those barriers and throws them away,
giving you a primer
that pares the series down to its basics.
At the end of the day,
it's bringing in a whole new host of fans,
which is something that those so-called "true fans"
should care about more
than whether or not the series is totally accurate.
The US Grand Prix weekend had 400,000 people in attendance.
I think DTS deserves a lot of credit for that insane number.
- Did you spend all weekend
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- Thank you very much for watching.
This is episode 200 of Wheelhouse.
If this is your first episode,
hopefully you'll be here for 200 more,
if we can think of that many.
I didn't think that we'd be able
to come up with 200 episodes.
I thought after like five, that we were done.
I want to thank everyone
who's been involved with this show,
which is a lot of people.
We got Joe, that helped get the show back on its feet,
Zach Redpath, Alex Rodriguez,
Phil, Felipe, for making a ton of thumbnails
in those early days.
Making him stay late on a Friday to make thumbnails.
Sorry, buddy.
Eddie, of course,
for being there with me at Donut since I first started.
James for all of his mentorship and just help.
Jesse and Matt, of course,
for letting us keep making this show.
Bart, for all your mentorship as well.
And our current team, Graham and S.R.
You guys put in so much work,
and the show's just really taken off.
So thank you very much.
Thank you Malcolm as well.
Thanks for watching. Be kind, see you next time.
Remember to like, comment, subscribe and share.
Hope you guys liked the show.
We're gonna be doing it every week.
This show answers the questions you never thought to ask.
Whatever happened to Pontiac?
Where'd racing stripes come from?
What are some questions I can't even think of?
What makes you go, "Hmm, yeah that's kinda weird."
We'll figure it out together.