Has Bernie not learnt anything?

[tommy2k8]

The two big motorsports in the US are IndyCar and NASCAR.

Last year (I read): F1 US GP and the NASCAR finale were both on the same day - NASCAR got a lot more people attending.

F1 US GP and the NASCAR finale on the same day again this year!!!

It is all over Google again that F1 won't stand a chance against NASCAR this year, so Bernie - Listen and pay attention!

[zako85]

USA has a very busy sports scene. Besides NASCAR, F1 has to compete against basketball, pro and college football, and baseball. I doubt clashing with NASCAR will make a huge difference. The most important consideration when organizing a GP is to make sure that there are not too many local sports events for a reasonably good level of attendance. Granted, I heard originally that F1 was also clashing with UT football. I don't know if that has changed. I don't track that, and never attended any football games, even when I was in college.

I do kind of suspect that the attendance will go down this year. Last year the season was crazy, and the title fight was alive to the last race. This year, we can expect Vettel to win the race, just like the previous 7.

[steveaki13]

I don't know much about NASCAR and its fans, but surely comparing F1's fight against Football and Basketball in the US is different from comparing it to NASCAR. Surely fans of American Motorsports are more likely to watch F1, than an American Football fan.

So why clash with NASCAR or INDY Car when that is you're biggest group of fans to try and entice along.

[anfield5]

I don't think the average NAStyCAR watcher is too interested in F1, the fact that the cars can turn in two directions just gets confusing for them. So I don't think the fact that the two events being at the same time will have a monumental effect on F1. If people are going to go they will go, if not, then that would be par for the course for F1 in the U.S anyway

[555-04Q2]

I don't think Bernie really cares. He knows the US is a major market for F1 and the manufacturers competing in F1, but I really don't think he gives a toss what elese runs on the same weekend or whether or not there is a US GP at all!

[Mia 01]

Leave bernie alone, he knows what he is doing!!

[tommy2k8]

Does he? What about the decision to award Sky rights as the senior partner, which the BBC still maintain benefits the viewer?!

[555-04Q2]

Leave bernie alone, he knows what he is doing!!

That my dear is a very debatable statement! :D

[Zico]

I think Bernie once knew what he was doing but watching his high court entrance U-turn and battle with the revolving door does raise a few questions..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy1UPrYyO8s


:D

[philipbain]

Does he? What about the decision to award Sky rights as the senior partner, which the BBC still maintain benefits the viewer?!

Reading between the lines you could say that the Sky / BBC deal benefits the BBC! The BBC desperately wanted to keep F1 but couldn't afford it so rather than letting their contract expire and a open tender being offered they came to an arrangement with Sky to give themselves 10 live races a season with Sky carrying the lot with the Beeb paying less than half of what they previously did!

Oddly, despite viewers being deprived of half of the races being free to air, I actually agree with the BBC on this one! If F1 went to Channel 4 (which was mentioned as a possibility at the time) it would have meant a return to races interrupted by advert breaks (some sources saying as many breaks as the ITV coverage had), which was the one thing about ITV's otherwise great coverage that really ground my gears as F1 interrupted by ads simply doesn't work. With the Sky coverage there are no ad breaks during the race, so in terms of the viewer experience I would say it has benefited the viewer... those with access to the frankly excellent Sky Sports coverage anyway!

[henners88]

Those of us left with just the BBC coverage find it harder to accept though Philip. It might seem good that the BBC at least kept half the races but for 85% of the F1 viewing audience in the UK, it's very watered down. You have to be very lucky to get the sky coverage here due to its extortionate monthly cost and as good as it is, not enough people are sitting down to watch it.

F1 has chosen to freeze out 4.5 million viewers in favour of a bit more money to give a product to a 600k select few. The fact it is quite a well presented product is largely lost because most f1 fans haven't a clue what is on offer. It seems like a lost market to me. To add to that, f1 has accumulatively lost 3 million viewers since this deal started. That doesn't strike me as very promising for its long term popularity.

If you've got Sky though, you don't need to care about that.

[Tazio]

The two big motorsports in the US are IndyCar and NASCAR.

Last year (I read): F1 US GP and the NASCAR finale were both on the same day - NASCAR got a lot more people attending.


Dude you are seriously tripping, and I humbly suggest you don’t know WTF you are talking about:

A capacity crowd of 117,429 watched a wild and suspenseful battle between the remaining contenders for the drivers’ title, Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, on a track and at a site that delivered all of its promise and more. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/sport ... .html?_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/sports/autoracing/grand-prix-successful-in-return-to-united-states.html?_r=0)

You do realize that capacity means that they sold every ticket for the freakin' race.
BTW the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup finale you speak of was at the Homestead Raceway in Miami Fla. which has a seating capacity of just fewer than 80,000 :rolleyes:
BTW I attended all three days at CotA last year and the place was packed.

Incidentally I was speaking to a group of Mexicans, which the race drew quite a few of at my hotel in San Marcos Texas 20 miles south of CotA, and about 30 south of Austin the day after the race, and asked them what the thought of it. They informed me that they had only stopped there for one night, as they were returning all the way to Monterey Mexico after attending The Dallas Cowboys NFL game.
You really do not have a clue about the sports scene in the US...bro.

[jens]

Leave bernie alone, he knows what he is doing!!

I think on the whole Bernie has known very well, what he has been doing, building F1 into a famous world-wide brand with lots of media coverage. But we can nitpick on small details that could be done better, since nobody is perfect and they all make mistakes, even if these are small ones.:)

[henners88]

Leave bernie alone, he knows what he is doing!!

I think on the whole Bernie has known very well, what he has been doing, building F1 into a famous world-wide brand with lots of media coverage. But we can nitpick on small details that could be done better, since nobody is perfect and they all make mistakes, even if these are small ones.:)
Bernie has helped build F1 into a global brand and of course he knows what he's doing. However, he's got greedy and sold it all off with no foresight into how this will help the future of the sport. It's earning money now, but popularity is dropping year on year and nobody seems bothered. Hopefully Bernie won't be in this position much longer and someone younger with a fresh outlook will come along and put quality before quick cash. I won't hold my breath.

[Mia 01]

I agree that someone else, younger and with fresh ideas, perhaps would be better than Bernie. That someone could be Christian Horner according rumours.

[call_me_andrew]

You must not have been paying attention since 1996. F1 is more popular than IndyCar in the U.S. now.

[tommy2k8]

I do not see how! What about NASCAR?

[Tazio]

It is all over Google again that F1 won't stand a chance against NASCAR this year


Circuit of the Americas has, for the second year running, produced a three-day weekend crowd of north of 250,000 spectators for the United States Grand Prix.

Official attendance numbers from the track were released today, with a mark of 113,162 fans in attendance on Sunday to bring the weekend total to 250,324.

http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... 2-at-cota/ (http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com/2013/11/17/more-than-113000-sunday-250000-for-weekend-in-year-2-at-cota/)

Not a bad size crowd considering both championships had been decided for a while, (which was the deciding factor for me not attending this year) and like last season will probably put us at #2 in attendance again this season, although that is just speculation on my part since I have not done any research into the matter.
As for NASCAR it is the most popular form of motor racing in this country, but why can't you accept the fact that we are a very diverse group of people as a whole? I never paid much attention to NASCAR until Montoya joined the field, and will probably watch next to none now that he is leaving, and I wasn't watching that much in the first place, it just really isn't my cup of meat. I am glad that Jimmie Johnson won the championship however as he grew up less than 6 miles from where I currently reside. Personally I prefer F1, Moto GP, Sports Car Racing, Drag Racing, and Motocross by leaps and bounds over NASCAR, but you have to realize that like many other Americans my Sundays also include NFL NBA Tennis, and MLB to just name a few.
Americans have vastly different tastes when it comes to entertainment and there are a lot of us. It is an exercise in futility to try to state what our preferences are as a whole. Different regions tend to have their own inclinations.

[tommy2k8]

Sorry if I upset anybody

[Tazio]

You certainly didn't upset me. I make it a point not to make comments about the specific preferences of Brits or any other country that I have not spent much time in, unless of course I am joking. I realize that this is predominantly a UK site, and members of your tribe like to speculate about life in the US, and to be honest almost all of it is true to a degree, or in a specific instance for some Americans. But life-styles, beliefs, and persuasions in this country are an extremely varied demographic, and it is a waste of time, and it is meaningless to say:
"Americans are........"
Because if you look closely enough you will find nearly as many aren’t as are! :crazy:

[steveaki13]

You certainly didn't upset me. I make it a point not to make comments about the specific preferences of Brits or any other country that I have not spent much time in, unless of course I am joking. I realize that this is predominantly a UK site, and members of your tribe like to speculate about life in the US, and to be honest almost all of it is true to a degree, or in a specific instance for some Americans. But life-styles, beliefs, and persuasions in this country are an extremely varied demographic, and it is a waste of time, and it is meaningless to say:
"Americans are........"
Because if you look closely enough you will find nearly as many aren’t as are! :crazy:

A fine point If I may say so. :)

[jarrambide]

You certainly didn't upset me. I make it a point not to make comments about the specific preferences of Brits or any other country that I have not spent much time in, unless of course I am joking. I realize that this is predominantly a UK site, and members of your tribe like to speculate about life in the US, and to be honest almost all of it is true to a degree, or in a specific instance for some Americans. But life-styles, beliefs, and persuasions in this country are an extremely varied demographic, and it is a waste of time, and it is meaningless to say:
"Americans are........"
Because if you look closely enough you will find nearly as many aren’t as are! :crazy:
The way I see it, this is only one country on paper, in reality, you have many different countries inside this vast area, with very different beliefs, ideals, and points of view.

I know most think this is true of their country, and to an extent, it is true, every country, even the small ones, are not one homogenous mass of people, there are regional differences.

What I have experienced living in different countries, is that regardless of the regional differences, most of the citizens of a country share most political, economical, and social ideas, most of the people that deviate from the norm, deviate only slightly.

In the US, that is not true, so many people, so many regions, people have very different ideas, which is why it is so difficult to change so many things, almost impossible to reach a consensus.

Our Sports universe is the same, yes, big chunks of the population follow the MLB, NBA, NFL, and NASCAR, but percentage wise, is not an overwhelming majority, is just that with more than 300 million inhabitants, 50% of the populations is a huge piece of the pie.

Take football (soccer in here) for example, many people think Americans don't like or follow football, that is just not true, they don't like their local league (MLS) that much, but they love football.

I don't have the most expensive cable package, and yet, I have access to most Premier League games (U Verse uses the alternative channels to show them live), half of La Liga (Spain), and Serie A(Italy) games, many Ligue 1 (France) and Bundesliga (Germany) games, and every single Liga MX (Mexico) game. There are many, but many, football fans, it is just that we have so many options.

The NHL has a number of fans that many football leagues in Europe would kill to have, it is just that the numbers are dwarfed by the NFL, NBA, MLB, numbers, but they have a lot of fans.

Look at American Football, lots of fans, but not everyone is an NFL fans, there are millions of college football fans that don't follow the NFL and vice versa, there are millions that follow both.

This is a huge and diverse country, with very different pockets of fans, I love F1, couldn't care less about NASCAR, used to be a huge IndyCar fan, not very interested in IC anymore.

[Tazio]

Formula One viewership is exploding in the US

American viewership jumps from 1.7 million to 11.4 million

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/2014020 ... z2sbQQayke (http://www.autoweek.com/article/20140206/f1/140209895#ixzz2sbQQayke)
Follow us: @AutoweekUSA on Twitter | AutoweekUSA on Facebook

This is not a big deal to me, because I honestly don't care what my countrymen watch on TV, and I happen to feel that some of the stuff that is extremely popular in this country is not my idea of "entertainment". Be that as it may, as bad as the broadcasts were on NBCSN, they seem to have attracted a much larger audience. :alien:

[Mia 01]

Bernie is a selfish little dwarf, but I like him!

[airshifter]

Formula One viewership is exploding in the US

American viewership jumps from 1.7 million to 11.4 million

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/2014020 ... z2sbQQayke (http://www.autoweek.com/article/20140206/f1/140209895#ixzz2sbQQayke)
Follow us: @AutoweekUSA on Twitter | AutoweekUSA on Facebook

This is not a big deal to me, because I honestly don't care what my countrymen watch on TV, and I happen to feel that some of the stuff that is extremely popular in this country is not my idea of "entertainment". Be that as it may, as bad as the broadcasts were on NBCSN, they seem to have attracted a much larger audience. :alien:

That is rather interesting. I think with so many channels over here people get lost in finding and watching any new sports. And as much as I hate it, having a delay to watch the races at a time when people are awake and watching TV more probably helps some too.

For the viewing audience to increase almost tenfold is a big jump, and obviously somebody did something right to make that happen.

[Jag_Warrior]

If the USGP and some Indy Car race were on TV at the same time, NBC would likely put the F1 race on the main NBC network channel and relegate the IRL race to NBCSports. The IRL, LLC Indy Car Series now competes with the Camping World Truck Series and Grand Am/IMSA for ratings. They don't even rate with the Nationwide Series, much less Sprint Cup.

Yeah, NASCAR trounces F1 in the ratings here. But NASCAR (Sprint Cup) trounces every sport in the Nielsens, except for NFL football.

IMO, the best thing for Bernie (and the USGP) to do is avoid head-to-head conflicts with NASCAR Sprint Cup when possible. But if it's not possible, the show still must go on. NASCAR has a much broader, more diverse fanbase than it used to. So it's not correct to judge NASCAR by old stereotypes. IMO, it would be nice to give the more "cultured" NASCAR fans a chance to watch the F1 race live. Additionally, a LOT of the NASCAR drivers are big F1 fans - so don't be a hata, yo. :D

[nigelred5]

Regardless of who legally owns the commercial rights to F1, Bernie is is still in charge of how and where you see it.
Remember though that the FIA controls what F1 IS, not Bernie. Bernie doesn't set the regulations, test the equipment or police the on track product. Bernie has a number, for everything. That much should be perfectly clear to anyone that has ever followed F1. How much of that number goes to BE and how much goes to CVC is another matter, but guaranteed, Bernie will see his number or F1 will move on.

[Tazio]

Some people seem very angry:


Texas Motor Speedway will host NASCAR's Texas 500 on Nov. 2, the same day F1 will hold its only race in the U.S. this year. Fort Worth is about a 3-hour drive from Austin.

While Gossage thought a stronger stance by the management at Circuit of the Americas would have prevented the scheduling issue, Ecclestone believed it was a non-issue.
http://www.tsn.ca/auto_racing/formula_o ... ?id=444703 (http://www.tsn.ca/auto_racing/formula_one/story/?id=444703)
I have, and will fly 1200 miles to Austin for the USGP, but wouldn't drive 100 to the nearest NASCAR race in Fontana Ca. :dork:
I understand why them ol’ boys in Dallas-Fort Worth are pissed off, but both races will make plenty-o-money! :dozey:

[Tazio]

:dork:

[steveaki13]

Great News everyone. :bounce:

F1 is off to the motorsport hotbed...............................


Azerbaijan for 2015. Should be a classic venue and F1 country I am sure. Cant wait. :laugh: :crazy: :arrowed: :rolleyes: :dozey: :erm: :snore: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/26461423

[Tazio]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgOuoA229PI
Edit "dawg"!!!!!!