New Formula One Chief Hopes to Grab Americans'Attention
For the past four decades, the leader of Formula One car racing, one of the biggest annual sporting series in the world, was Bernie Ecclestone, a former motorcycle parts dealer who built it into an international presence essentially on his own.
A skilled backroom operator who speaks without a filter, Ecclestone said often that in his opinion, the sport was at its best when he was allowed to act as "a dictator."
Yet now the dictator is gone. After an American company, Liberty Media, acquired the Formula One competition recently, Chase Carey—a former executive with Fox Broadcasting Company and DirecTV who by his own admission is not a fierce racing fan—was named to replace Ecclestone and to try to renovate the organization's management, reach and ambition.
Among the goals, Carey said in an interview on Tuesday, is one that just about every global sport seems interested in chasing: increasing interest in the United States. "People have said we're going to 'Americanize' it," Carey said. "And we're not going to do that totally. But realistically, there are some elements of Americanization that the sport could use."
While Formula One commands enormous audiences throughout much of the world, many American sports fans know it as that other motorsport, the one that is not Nascar(纳斯卡车赛). Formula One teams race far more technologically advanced vehicles around tracks all over the world—in magnificent events in places like Malaysia, Monaco, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, and on tradition-rich tracks like Silverstone in England and Monza in Italy too.
The series has an annual race in Austin, Texas. But within "a few years," Carey said, he plans to bring another to a destination American city, like New York, Los Angeles, Miami or Las Vegas. Carey's ambitious plan is two-fold: first, change the business model of Formula One, which he said was a "one-man show" under Ecclestone that had a largely narrow vision when it came to negotiating partnership deals; and second, alter the way fans experience the sport, both in person and remotely, so that connections between the audience and people within the series are easier to make.
Increased digital access for fans, a more behind-the-scenes experience for broadcast viewers and innovation in areas like virtual reality—what is it like to speed around a track inside a Ferrari?—are among the possibilities. "The sport has clearly been underserved," Carey said. "It doesn't do anything digitally. There's no marketing. It doesn't tell any stories. The goal in this is to make the fans connect to the live experience as much as possible, and the tools you have to do that, we're not using at all."
The larger question, though, is a familiar one: Is there room for Formula One in the ever-crowded sports landscape of the United States? Opinions vary, particularly because viewing habits among consumers continue to evolve. John Bloom, a professor at Shippensburg University who has studied American sports history, said the biggest challenge for any sport trying to increase its presence in the United States was framing itself in a way that had lasting appeal. "Sports generally become popular in some way because they establish a narrative," Bloom said. "When I think of motorsports in the U.S., what we all think of is Nascar, and the narrative of Nascar is sort of rural, white, working-class Americans, mostly in the South, connecting with the atmosphere of those races. That's the narrative. When I think of the narrative of Formula One, it's a very different kind of audience."
That difference, Carey said, is significant. While some might immediately link Formula One to Nascar in terms of American growth, Carey said Formula One's brand research had indicated there was very little crossover; rather, Formula One fans generally cite other so-called elite events, like Wimbledon or the Ryder Cup, as competitions they enjoy. "Other than they're both cars, the Nascar fan base is a very different fan base," Carey said. "It's a very regional fan base. Formula One is a global, famous brand of stars. These are machines that shock and awe you."
Carey's background is in deal making and innovation. At Fox Broadcasting Company, he was a top advisor for years, known for his skill in helping to lead the launch of the company into sports, as well as the start of Fox News Channel. After going to DirecTV, he positioned the satellite provider as a mainstream option in millions of households.
Now, after Liberty Media paid $4.4 billion to acquire Formula One, he is charged with making the investment pay off. "I think they can build Formula One in the U.S.," said Patrick Crakes, an executive at InVivo Media Group who spent 25 years at Fox Broadcasting Company before leaving in 2016 as a senior manager at Fox Sports. "People don't work on their cars anymore. They don't want that connection anymore. It's about technology and pushing the limits. It's about speed, danger and risk. And Formula One has that more than any other racing series."
That is what hooked Carey, and he said he thought his experience was not unusual. He recalled attending Formula One's Monaco race last year and being overwhelmed by the ceremony leading up to the event, the way the race charmed the city for days ahead of the start. In his mind, it felt like a Super Bowl(超级碗橄榄球赛).
Then, on race day, he watched as the cars rocketed out of a tunnel and went screaming toward a tight turn with the city's harbor and the Mediterranean Sea in the background framing the scene. He was fascinated. "You can't help but be awed," he said, "and I think that feeling can be translated to the viewer."
He added: "The broader sport is a little too inward-looking, and we need to be more open. In some ways, I'm glad to be coming from the outside. The guys who are in the sport forever are sitting there saying: 'We can't do that. We can't do that because it's never been done that way.'"