The new owner of Formula One, Liberty Media, is planning an extreme overhaul of the sport which could see each of its Grand Prix become “the equivalent of the Super Bowl.”
The Financial Times received word from a senior executive involved in F1 that the company wants each Grand Prix to be transformed into a week-long festival aimed at engaging spectators and attracting sponsors.
Additionally, Liberty Media has ambitious plans to dramatically expand the sport’s presence in the United States and is considering staging races in Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It is hoped that these measures could increase television ratings and commercial revenues for the sport.
As part of this push, they eager to build up a marketing department aimed at better promoting the rivalries between teams and drivers. “There’s no marketing, no research, no data, no digital platforms”, the aforementioned F1 executive commented. “This sport has unique global content and hasn’t done enough to take advantage of that. We need to build the rivalries and enable people to understand the technology that goes into the sport.”
All of these plans for Formula One come after the series has lost viewership in recent years and encountered issues with sponsorship revenue.
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