F1: How F1 finally won over America
Here is an excerpt from a David Hill article in the NY Post:
With more than 400 million viewers, Formula 1 is one of the most popular sports in the world. Yet for many years it was all but unknown in America.
But reality TV changed all that.
Since the Netflix series “Drive to Survive” — featuring behind-the-scenes footage of the usually-secretive racing teams and the sometimes contentious relationships between drivers and team executives — debuted in 2019, the American audience for Formula 1 has skyrocketed.
Netflix doesn’t publicize viewer data, but the audience for ESPN’s coverage of Formula 1 races has nearly doubled — up to 1.5 million views per race — since the show premiered.
According to a recent Nielsen study, Formula 1 is on track to top a billion worldwide fans this year, with 77 percent of those new fans under 35 years old.
“Without ‘Drive to Survive’ there would be no American F1 boom,” Kevin Clark, host of The Ringer’s F1 Show, told The Post. When his podcast started, the idea was to recap episodes of the binge-worthy show and preview each of the 22 races in the sport’s season. The success of the podcast caught him and the staff of The Ringer, a popular sports and pop culture site, by surprise, however.
“When we saw the numbers, we saw the reaction,” Clark said. “We knew this wasn’t going to be a part time thing. We tapped into something.” According to the podcast rankings at Chartable, The Ringer F1 Show is regularly among the top 50 sports podcasts in the United States.
“I started watching ‘Drive to Survive’ three months ago and I went from actively disliking motorsports to being obsessed with F1. I read about it every day, I’m on the Reddit every day, I text about it every day, I think about it every day,” television writer Travis Helwig, 34, told The Post. “Like most sports, the best part is the narrative, and Formula 1 lends itself to the drama and narrative well. There’s only 20 participants, so it’s easy to learn every participant’s story.” More at NY Post