TV News: ESPN wants to renew USA F1 deal
Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal reports that ESPN wants to renew its rights deal with the F1 and believes it’s still getting a good ROI. In the ROI computation, ESPN considers things like the cool factor around the series, according to Tim Bunnell, senior vice president of programming.
The Disney-owned network is in the second year of a three-year renewal with F1 after originally linking up with the property in 2018. ESPN now pays F1 between $75-90M a year after originally taking the deal for free in 2018 and upping the fee to $5M a year from 2020 through 2022.
Heading into the Las Vegas GP, ESPN was averaging 1.12 million viewers a race across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, roughly flat with last year’s 1.1 million full-season average.
Nonetheless, Bunnell was on site at Vegas alongside John Suchenski, ESPN’s senior director of programming and acquisitions, and he confirmed that ESPN is interested in a renewal for 2026 and beyond, and that talks have started.
Bunnell told SBJ that the way F1 is now more popular with youth, women and ethnic minorities “ticks all those boxes” that ESPN has on its audience-expansion checklist.
Bunnell said ESPN is not disappointed that viewership has not picked up more significantly and thinks there is room to grow. He also said ESPN is fine with deferring to F1 on starting the Vegas race at 1:00am ET, an almost unprecedented time to begin a sports event in America.
Bunnell: “This is a long-term play for us, and the ratings are one thing, but you look at the client-entertainment possibilities, the marketing opportunities, just the cache of being associated with Formula 1, it pays us back in droves. We’ve been thrilled with the entire relationship with F1 from the get-go. They’re terrific to work with and we benefit in so many ways. I mean, F1 has just become cool. And a big emphasis for us, for ESPN, is audience expansion.”
As for the godawful 1:00am Las Vegas GP start time, Bunnell said ESPN isn’t going to complain, though he did concede it would be better for the network if the start time was earlier. He said, “We’ll go along with what F1 wants there. It’s a trade-off. Would it be better if it were 10:00? Yeah, but part of the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas is the Strip at night and the bright lights. We have a busy schedule all the time — there’s always competing events, so if there’s a race at 1:00am, you may not get the casual F1 fan on that one, but we have so many other opportunities to get them and this one has a special place on the calendar. It’s still young and as it becomes more embedded in F1 culture, I don’t think the 1:00am Eastern start will make much of a difference.”