Wealthy old men and a broke teenagers have one thing in common?
They're both essential for business.
But this wealthy old guy didn't give a damn about teenagers, and his mentality was slowly killing Formula 1.
So, how did sport go from a teenage-hating wealthy boomer to the success that it's today?
You asked for it, and we delivered. This is Company Forensics F1.
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I'm not a huge racing fan, but I loved Drive to Survive,
and I'm not the only one. Tons of people now follow F1, and, it's not by chance.
But, if you watched F1 in the early 2010s,
things weren't like this back then. In fact, they were boring.
Sure, it was the fastest sport on Earth, and it was heaven for nerds and racing fans alike.
But, it was dull. It had no passion, and it's all thanks to Bernie Ecclestone.
Ecclestone became a one-man empire that controlled anything and everything related to F1.
He viewed F1 as a sport of numbers, and there's no denying his impact in the sport.
Under his control, F1 became a global sport, with races worldwide and millions of fans.
He created the icons that we know today
And, people respected Bernie.
Ecclestone failed as a racing pilot but was good at making money in real estate and selling bikes.
With a passion for racing but no talent, he chose to manage teams.
Then, he bought his own team, won many races,
and hired some of the biggest names in F1 during the 70s and 80s.
His first team was so successful that he sold it for $5 million when he had
purchased it for $120,000. That's how good he was as a businessman.
He'd take that knowledge and move up the ranks in F1.
In 1978, Ecclestone, along with Max Mosley, negotiated rights with the FIA,
which by the way, hated him. But they couldn't keep him contained.
Eventually, he’d be a part of the FIA and once inside,
he took the reins of F1 and wouldn't let go of it for years.
Among the things he controlled were the commercial and distribution rights. He
knew there was massive potential there to make money and keep the teams happy.
Ecclestone leveraged TV rights that benefitted both
F1 as a sport and the racing teams. Of course, he also got a massive cut from the deals.
That's how he turned a small, niche sport into the global phenomenon of the 90s and 2000s.
But, Ecclestone wasn't perfect.
Ecclestone stirs the pot every now and then. He's
not only shared laughs with controversial figures, but he can't keep his mouth shut.
And, he was very emphatic on one thing.
This is this old-school guy. He's 91 at the filming of this video.
But, his recipe had worked for decades, and he's a billionaire. So,
it's not like he cares about new and cool things.
Unfortunately, it showed.
Ecclestone was a tyrant. He liked controlling communications,
so it wasn't unusual for him to ask teams to delete this or change that.
But, that's not all. The main man
also insisted that drivers refrain from being too vocal on social media.
Ecclestone hated social media.
Plus, his audience was somewhere else.
Well, he wasn't wrong. Back then, seventy-year-olds with
a lot of money watched a lot of F1. At one point, only 14% percent of F1
audiences were below 25 years old. Plus, Ecclestone swore by TV and nothing else.
But this had a major problem
and to better told the story who else that YouTube’s Tommo
From 2008 to 2016, F1 had lost 33% of its viewers.
Plus, old millionaires tend to die quickly. But, F1 had a lot of promise. And, one company knew it.
Change is inevitable, even if it meant replacing Ecclestone.
The purists loved what he had done and, after all, he had been there for 40 years.
But, he couldn’t beat time. In 2017, the ownership of Formula 1 Group finally exchanged hands.
The new owner was Liberty Media, a giant you've never heard of, but I bet you know
Sirius XM and the Atlanta Braves. Well, Liberty owns them, and now they own F1.
The price: $4.5 billion.
That’s a lot of money. But, then again, there’s a lot of promise.
The changing of the guard couldn't be more evident and quick. After forty years,
Ecclestone was no longer in F1, and Liberty gave him a role he didn't even understand.
But don't feel bad for him.
That wasn't the only immediate change.
Liberty Media made it clear that things would be different now.
Even if fans weren't expecting much.
To much debate, they revamped the logo, created a new theme for the sport,
and made it clear. F1 would no longer be a sport. It was entertainment.
Now, let’s give Ecclestone credit. He was right in one thing: old fans were true fans. But,
there was nothing between them and those who didn't care about F1.
There were no casual fans.
And casual fans are worth big bucks, even if they're broke teenagers.
These fans watch short videos,
clips, and other bits and pieces. But they won't watch an entire race.
So, Liberty Media understood the assignment,
and it was what Ecclestone had done wrong all these years: social media.
Understanding Social Media.
And this of course what Liberty Media did and has been doing. But it wasn’t a guessing game. They
analyzed months of data and concluded that a short bit of content goes a long way.
Much more than a two hour brakes
And that means this.
With more content every day, fans could now interact more. Liberty Media also
educated the casual fan through data, history, and personalities.
So, more and more, fans went from casual to much more than that.
Then, there's YouTube. The F1 Youtube channel is one of the best out there.
It's the perfect example of Liberty Media's technological revolution.
Every race has more than 90 cameras, 140 microphones, and an endless data stream.
So, it’s as close as you can get. But then, there was the big elephant in the room.
Title: Social Media Frenzy
Liberty Media tackled the one topic that Ecclestone hated.
And it makes perfect sense.
How are you not going to exploit profiles such as Lewis Hamilton? And, it's not only about the big
names. Social media allowed fans to feel closer to the other characters that didn't make the podium.
So, instead of barring personal social media, Liberty went crazy with it.
And, the question can come up. Who's behind this master plan? Well, there's this guy: Chase Carey.
Epic mustache aside, Carey is a media genius with experience in giants like DirecTV. Liberty
Media appointed him CEO, and it was his vision in part the one that revolutionized the sport.
Then, there's Sean Braches. Like Ecclestone, Braches was all things commercial. But,
he took a step further made enormous efforts to overhaul sponsors. Now,
these include crypto companies and even Google.
There were other changes. F1 had a new website packed with data and an app for
die-hard fans to pay and get more info and behind-the-scenes content.
And, for all those who dreamt of being an F1 pilot but never had the chance,
there's e-racing. F1 has partnered with several companies to expand
the F1 Esports Series, even hiring big names in the gaming industry.
In 2021, this digital league saw record viewership with 23 million views, growing 103% from 2020.
Then, there's this.
In the Ecclestone era, Drive to Survive would've been impossible. But, Liberty Media went there.
The docuseries reveal the drama engulfing F1. From near-death experiences to friendships
and rivalries, this is unlike anything we've seen in racing. And people love it.
And introduce the whole bunch of new people to the sport.
This series wasn't only about going fast. It showed us a human side that people loved. So,
the casual fan now had a reason to watch the race on Sundays.
Drive to Survive was also vital in reaching the one market that has eluded F1 for years:
the US. The land dominated by Nascar and baseball refused to embrace this
seemingly elitist sport. But the documentary has begun to change that.
Since Drive to survive premiered, viewership increased in the US, and more fans enrolled
in the F1 app. In addition, viewership increased 56% more in 2021 than in 2020.
To help this, Liberty Media has used its experience to
draw in big names and turn them into fans.
Liberty Media has been clear that they want to make every race an event as big as the Super Bowl.
And, it's well on the way to accomplishing it.
This leads to a question: is it the right path? The answer lies in this chart.
Sure, F1 has grown to overcome the senile attitude of the early 2010s,
but its recipe has made it more successful than others.
These are all the major sports you can think of.
There it is, in the first place, F1.
So, yeah, those broke teenagers were a gold mine.
Of course, some purists, those old men that Bernie loved so much,
might not be the biggest fans of where F1's heading.
It might be too bold and, well, too young. And, that's perfect for the future.