Quote:
Originally Posted by Graz
You could not be more wrong and are missing the point. Clearly all fans don't drive Mercs. BUT the fans give the platform for them to advertise to those who do. So you guys are saying that if F1 existed like a clubbie series, Mercedes would still be involved and paying billions to show their tech prowess? To whom and why? Professional sport only exists if there is a means to finance it and make money from it. This is driven by audience (fans). This gives them the financial means to bother. Why does it cost 100m a year or whatever to host a race? Because fans at the race and watching on TV will pay. A large cut of this goes to the teams who can then pay their drivers 50m a year.
Film success is judged by box office attendance. Whether the movie is any good or not is secondary. The success is driven by fans paying for it. Tom Hanks would be paid nothing, like any amateur actor if nobody paid to watch. Fans pay.
If a sport has a low fan base, it has no money in it. If everyone stopped paying for sky subscriptions, the PL would collapse for example. Because fans no longer fund it. Sky couldn't pay 5bn for the rights and the teams couldn't pay the players who would go elsewhere to where the money is - like Serie A in the late 80s and early 90s.
If attendance and audience in F1 dropped to zero, Merc et al would be gone like a shot. TV companies won't pay for nothing. ESPN have paid 400m for the 2018 World Cup assuming the US will be there. They won't and ESPN are worried now because there will be a much reduced audience of fans making it look likely this 400 plus profit will not be recouped. There is no way ESPN would pay that if they knew in advance the US would be there.
It's all dependent on those who ultimately funds it - the fans through attendance, subscriptions, merchandising, following on social media so sucking in advertisers who now have a market for these millions of followers who are now a conduit for generating more money. I'm taking my son to a GP next year, tickets alone will cost about 600 quid. A local clubbie event costs me a tenner. Why does it cost 600? Because the circuit needs to recoup their enormous outlay - from the fans. The fee the circuit has paid goes to Liberty and the Teams (incl. drivers). If fans don't go, the circuits can't pay and the money for Liberty and the teams and drivers is not there. Ignoring merchandising, TV subscriptions and social media advertising.
If nobody was interested i.e. a fan, there would be no money. It's beyond obvious.
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Absolutely. If anyone needs reminding how important the fan base is, just look at what happened to IndyCar over the last 20 years. Even post unification, the series was practically on its knees; poor track attendance, sponsors coming and going, TV coverage reduced to cable and teams folding. However, it has survived, the 500 hundred has obviously played a major roll but one race doesn't make a series. IndyCar is still not out of the woods, though it's in much better shape than it was because IndyCar had to reconnect with the fans.
A major issue with fans has been the car, but the initial response to the 2018 car being very favourable, plus the series is returning to venues that were traditionally at the heart of AOWR. TV coverage is better than it was, attracting viewers, as well as advertisers and sponsors, though there is still a lot of room for improvement. IndyCar is slowly beginning to resemble what it used to be like in the early '90s, before the CART/IRL split but this wouldn't be happening without the fans.