Formula Money - Driving Popularity

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With new engine rules in place for 2014, why not rebadge a Ferrari unit as a Chrysler? (Ferrari's parent company is Fiat; Chrysler, an American automaker, has an alliance with the company)
 
StockCarRacer
With new engine rules in place for 2014, why not rebadge a Ferrari unit as a Chrysler? (Ferrari's parent company is Fiat; Chrysler, an American automaker, has an alliance with the company)
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Please re-think that idea. If there's one way to get Formula 1 to have even less popularity in America I think that would be it.
 
StockCarRacer
With new engine rules in place for 2014, why not rebadge a Ferrari unit as a Chrysler? (Ferrari's parent company is Fiat; Chrysler, an American automaker, has an alliance with the company)
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1) Chrysler has more than an alliance with FIAT, they are owned by FIAT.

2) It wouldn't make much sense since Chrysler is already an established brand in Europe. The only reason Infiniti is on the Red Bull's is because they are trying to turn it into a global brand.
 
I'd say the last time Americans really showed good interest in the sport was in the 1960s/70s.

- Ford/Cosworth were powering a great number of cars with the DFV V8 engine
- Jim Clark (yes, I know he's Scottish) won at the Indy 500 with a mid-engined car, sparking a revolution in Indy Cars
- Dan Gurney won at Spa-Francorchamps in his own car
- Phil Hill was World Champion at Ferrari
- Mario Andretti competed in pretty much everything and did well in most categories, winning the F1 World Championship in 1978 (although he was born as Italian as they come)


That era should have been a foundation on which American interest could build upon. That was not to be, however.


After Watkins Glen was no longer used, F1 struggled to find a permanent home in the US, hopping from street circuit to street circuit (including the farcical Caesar's Palace parking lot), American drivers disappeared, and along with them went much of the interest.

So how are they going to get that interest back? Well, obviously, an American team and some American drivers would be a great start.
 
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StockCarRacer
With new engine rules in place for 2014, why not rebadge a Ferrari unit as a Chrysler? (Ferrari's parent company is Fiat; Chrysler, an American automaker, has an alliance with the company)
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Stop. Right. Here.

If you're going call yourself the "America's Greatest Formula One Fan", you really should learn about the history of the sport, not just waste time arguing points that make almost no sense. Go read about it, and don't just use Wikipedia (although its a good start).

Start here:

http://f1-grandprix.com/?page_id=222
http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/
http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/encyclopedia.html
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ar-brain-a-short-history-of-bernie-ecclestone
http://www.f1rejects.com/

And check out some books in your library...not everything is available on the Internet.
 
So, Ayrton Senna had a huge impact on F1 in Brazil. In his home nation, he was a national hero. But I have two questions:

  1. Why did 17.5 million Japanese people watch Senna?
  2. Did millions of American watch him?
 
Why do you keep bumping this thread? Every time it falls off the front page of the subforum, you come back in here and make a post that doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion. Everything that can be said on the subject has been said, and while you are technically doing more than simply posting "bump", you are not adding anything, and hence you are making a useless post.
 
prisonermonkeys
17.5 million might sound like an impressive number, but it's barely 1% of the Japanese population.
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Doesn't matter though, 17.5 million people is a lot of potential money for the sport. I doubt that even .5% of the Chinese population watches Formula 1, but we go there every year, because .5% of the Chinese population is still a lot of people and money.
 
Peter.
17.5 million people is a lot of potential money for the sport.
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Uh, how exactly? They don't pay anything to watch the sport. Suzuka cannot hold 17.5 million people alone, so the Japanese public were watching it on television, and the broadcaster would have been paying the same amount for the rights to coverage if 175 million, 17.5 million, or 1.75 million people were watching the races.

This is just StockCarRacer bumping his own thread because it fell off the first page of the subforum.
 
This is the third time you've done it, though - the conversation dies and starts to slide down the subforum, and then you come in making a post that is only vaguely related to the discussion in the first place. It's a bump.
 
What does a given driver's popularity in another country have anything to do with the United States' interest in the sport? As prisonermonkeys has said, you aren't adding anything to the conversation and you still haven't presented any ideas as to how exactly American interest in F1 would increase given all of the hurdles it still has to clear (and were already discussed here as well).
 
What I think could spark a BIT of interest would be to maybe do it on the same weekend as Grand-Am/Rolex, or ALMS. Get an audience who likes racing, but may not yet watch F1. Granted, there would be no time in the weekend to do such a thing... But like Long Beach? They mess with the roads, people would have to at least ask what an F1 car is... Same weekend as a NASCAR event, but at the Road-oval at Daytona? I know Indianapolis was a farce a little while back. But maybe...
 
Blitz24
What does a given driver's popularity in another country have anything to do with the United States' interest in the sport?
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Nothing. The only thing to create interest is to have a winning American driver in Formula 1.
 
Really?

Because I count five Americans on this page of the discussion who are interested in Formula 1 despite being no successful American driver in the sport.
 
Contrary to popular belief there are quite a lot of F1 fans in the states. It's just a small percentage in relation to the population. If I wear my Red Bull Racing shirt I'll get stopped quite often at the mall or wherever by other F1 fans. There's more of us than people assume. I know there is huge interest for the race in Austin next year, at least from what I've seen around town. Of course we are quite close to COTA (there about 2 hours if you drive briskly).
 
Imari
They don't? Why not?

I can see your average Joe mechanic in the team bemoaning the fact that they have to fly hither and yon every week, but the teams as a whole are presumably fairly aware that the foundation of the sport is a buttload of cash. I can't see them complaining about travelling to somewhere different if it'll make them money.
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Because the smaller teams operate on a fairly limited budget as is. It is EXPENSIVE to bring an entire F1 team and all their equipment to a race. This is why there has been talk of having the Canadian GP and the Jersey GP scheduled together, so the teams wouldn't have to fly all the way to the US more than once a season (unless CoA gets its race).
 
StockCarRacer
Nothing. The only thing to create interest is to have a winning American driver in Formula 1.
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BS. Not all Americans are ignorant to what goes on in the rest of the world. I'm American, but I've been watching F1 since I was 2 years old with my father. I've been to ~30 F1 races over the years (more than half of those outside of the US) and I know several other American people who are just as passionate about it as I am. Even when we did have a US GP and American drivers, I still wasn't a fan of them. I never liked Andretti, Speed, or Cheever (or any of the American F1 drivers before my time).

The popularity of NASCAR in America shows exactly why, as a country, we will never fully back Formula 1.......we aren't sophisticated enough as a whole. Yes, that is an attack on NASCAR and all that it represents. I'm a fan of almost all motorsports, but NASCAR (and all oval racing for that matter) needs to go the way of the dinosaur, but first we have to grow intellectually for that to happen.
 
superbike81
BS. Not all Americans are ignorant to what goes on in the rest of the world. I'm American, but I've been watching F1 since I was 2 years old with my father. I've been to ~30 F1 races over the years (more than half of those outside of the US) and I know several other American people who are just as passionate about it as I am. Even when we did have a US GP and American drivers, I still wasn't a fan of them. I never liked Andretti, Speed, or Cheever (or any of the American F1 drivers before my time).

The popularity of NASCAR in America shows exactly why, as a country, we will never fully back Formula 1.......we aren't sophisticated enough as a whole. Yes, that is an attack on NASCAR and all that it represents. I'm a fan of almost all motorsports, but NASCAR (and all oval racing for that matter) needs to go the way of the dinosaur, but first we have to grow intellectually for that to happen.
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The cultural cringe-o-meter is just off the scale, and the superiority-complexerator has smoke coming out of it...
 
peter_vod69
The cultural cringe-o-meter is just off the scale, and the superiority-complexerator has smoke coming out of it...
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Well, I'm an American (born and raised) who feels comfortable pointing out the things that I feel we do poorly. Americans like things simple (hence, oval racing) turn left, speed up, turn left, speed up, crash, slow down, avoid crash, speed up, turn left, repeat. For some reasons millions and millions of Americans like this crap, and a relatively miniscule percentage like Formula 1, SCCA racing, and grassroots/club motorsports.

I wouldn't say it's a superiority complex, just that I've opened my eyes to other forms of motorsport. I'm in the US military, I'm surrounded by people from the midwest and the south, where the bulk of NASCAR fans are from. We casually argue about this kind of stuff all the time, most NASCAR fans want absolutely nothing to do with anything but NASCAR.
 
superbike81
Because the smaller teams operate on a fairly limited budget as is. It is EXPENSIVE to bring an entire F1 team and all their equipment to a race. This is why there has been talk of having the Canadian GP and the Jersey GP scheduled together, so the teams wouldn't have to fly all the way to the US more than once a season (unless CoA gets its race).
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Yes, it is expensive. It's an expensive sport. The teams will do whatever they can to try and save money, including petitioning for altered scheduling that will reduce their travel costs.

However, they're not dumb enough to abandon going overseas COMPLETELY because it's expensive to travel. They know very well that a race in a large, fresh market like the US has the potential to bring gains far in excess of any costs they might incur. Yeah, they'll bitch and moan, because that's the way to creating pressure to alter the schedule. But don't make the mistake of thinking that means that they would rather not go. That's not the case at all.
 
Imari
Yes, it is expensive. It's an expensive sport. The teams will do whatever they can to try and save money, including petitioning for altered scheduling that will reduce their travel costs.

However, they're not dumb enough to abandon going overseas COMPLETELY because it's expensive to travel. They know very well that a race in a large, fresh market like the US has the potential to bring gains far in excess of any costs they might incur. Yeah, they'll bitch and moan, because that's the way to creating pressure to alter the schedule. But don't make the mistake of thinking that means that they would rather not go. That's not the case at all.
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But historically the US hasn't had much success in drawing European/Asian sized crowds to the races, even when we had American drivers. Think about Korea this year, if you watched the race, the stands were not full anywhere, not the stop/finish seats and not even the cheap seats. I was at the Japanese GP this year, and even Friday and Saturday people were swarming the place, and Sunday there were very few seats left open.

I went to see F1 in Detroit in 1987, I was 7 years old, but I still remember how shocked I was that there was hardly anyone there. Don't get me wrong, there was a crowd, but not even anywhere near what it was when my father and I went to the Italian GP for example. I went to Phoenix all three years we had the race there, again sparsely populated at best, especially 1991, it was ridiculous how few people were there, you would have thought it was a local SCCA championship or something. I went to Indy twice (neither my father or I ever have been a fan of that place) and it was a little better, but still you could tell that even of the people who went, I'd say less than half of them knew who the drivers were, knew the teams, the standings, or anything to show that they were fans.

I'm happy we are trying to get a USGP going again, regardless if it is in Austin or Jersey, I will go to the inaugural race, and I can only hope people will change and will be attracted to it. Just because we are American doesn't mean we MUST have an American driver to follow, but it seems many people are stuck on the "home team" thing in the US.



Example.....

314637_240281899354839_100001190916179_663554_1720085346_n.jpg


That's my wife and son and I (I'm the big white guy haha) at the Suzuka this year for the Japanese GP. These guys were just regular fans, "Ferrari Samurai", I *never* saw anything like this at any of the US GP's, yet this spirit is all over the world for F1. I saw similar things over and over again in Italy, Spain, Monaco, and Germany. Think of US NFL fans, this is how dedicated these guys are to F1. I hope we can see that in America, and I'll do my best to spread the attitude to others, but I just don't think it will catch on.
 
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I just get depressed when people come in with this negativist attitude. "F1 has never caught on in America in the past, why should it change now?" Real useful, that is.

There's good reasons for things like Korea, as you well know.
 
I'm happy we are trying to get a USGP going again, regardless if it is in Austin or Jersey, I will go to the inaugural race, and I can only hope people will change and will be attracted to it. Just because we are American doesn't mean we MUST have an American driver to follow, but it seems many people are stuck on the "home team" thing in the US.
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Americans enjoy good racing, that is why V8 Supercars is getting an increasing following here. The problem with the USGP has been that it's been on crappy tracks that don't make for good racing. Hopefully Austin and New Jersey can produce some good racing, if they do I can see F1 growing here the way soccer/football has.

Fans also have no problem latching onto people from other countries as long as they have some personality, JPM and Ambrose have both gained a rather large following in NASCAR, despite being from Colombia and down under.
 
There's a lot of reasons why F1 doesn't catch on in America, but interest has increased slightly over the past decade or so. Still, it's nowhere near NASCAR (which is actually declining in attendance and TV ratings in The States).

One very big reason is that there's no regular TV schedule for F1, although that really isn't anything a VCR nor a DVR can't handle. But many Americans aren't going to turn on their idiot boxes at 7:30am on a Sunday morning, let alone catch the live Asian events. Some are still sleeping, some are getting ready for church, and others just aren't really aware of what F1 really is.

I contest that NASCAR's proliferation in awareness has been good for other forms of Motorsport. However, that can only take you so far, in a nation that has four major sports leagues, plus NCAA teams, of which the average fan probably already has his or her favorites...eventually, your plate is full!

Motorsports generally appeal to someone who's into cars and/or things of a highly technical nature, and the complexity of F1 racing ratchets that up a notch. So its hard to break into a new sport, if its not ingrained in you in some way, or find a way to become interested...thats one way the Internet has helped make it popular, but there's still the matter of making people "believe" it's a sport to begin with.

As for the No American Driver Syndrome, well...Scott Speed, Michael Andretti, and Eddie Cheever didn't raise attendance levels nor spark much interest. Personally, I think the sporting media prefers a battle between two competitors, so if two (or more) nearly-equal American drivers were competing together, interest would probably rise. Although, having one very good one would create that "us versus the world" archetype the media loves for maximum fanfare and hype.

Still, look at The Netherlands: They've never had a single winning driver from their country, yet they still have F1 fans, despite no F1 races held there since 1985. (Although, I honestly have no idea about its total popularity there, I know there are fans.) Just an example...
 
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Pupik
There's a lot of reasons why F1 doesn't catch on in America, but interest has increased slightly over the past decade or so. Still, it's nowhere near NASCAR (which is actually declining in attendance and TV ratings in The States).
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Thank goodness.


Pupik
One very big reason is that there's no regular TV schedule for F1, although that really isn't anything a VCR nor a DVR can't handle. But many Americans aren't going to turn on their idiot boxes at 7:30am on a Sunday morning, let alone catch the live Asian events. Some are still sleeping, some are getting ready for church, and others just aren't really aware of what F1 really is.

I contest that NASCAR's proliferation in awareness has been good for other forms of Motorsport. However, that can only take you so far, in a nation that has four major sports leagues, plus NCAA teams, of which the average fan probably already has his or her favorites...eventually, your plate is full!

Motorsports generally appeal to someone who's into cars and/or things of a highly technical nature, and the complexity of F1 racing ratchets that up a notch. So its hard to break into a new sport, if its not ingrained in you in some way, or find a way to become interested...thats one way the Internet has helped make it popular, but there's still the matter of making people "believe" it's a sport to begin with.

As for the No American Driver Syndrome, well...Scott Speed, Michael Andretti, and Eddie Cheever didn't raise attendance levels nor spark much interest. Personally, I think the sporting media prefers a battle between two competitors, so if two (or more) nearly-equal American drivers were competing together, interest would probably rise. Although, having one very good one would create that "us versus the world" archetype the media loves for maximum fanfare and hype.
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Actually, if a popular NASCAR driver tried to make the switch to F1 and actually had some success in doing so (never happen :lol:), it could spark an interest in the sport.



Pupik
Still, look at The Netherlands: They've never had a single winning driver from their country, yet they still have F1 fans, despite no F1 races held there since 1985. (Although, I honestly have no idea about its total popularity there, I know there are fans.) Just an example...
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But like you said, they don't have NCAA and the lot. I happen to be interested in European football as well as racing, and this year I just couldn't keep up with everything. I haven't even attempted to watch the NFL this season. There are only so many hours in the weekend for college football, MLB, NFL, NBA, and everything else.
 

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