US F1 television rights?

[baclightning]

What is the situation with Formula One TV coverage in the US for 2005?

grandprix.com is reporting that four GP will be shown on CBS next year (San Marino, Spain, Europe, and Canada), and that the US F1 rights have been bought by a company called DEC Entertainment.

I had thought that SpeedChannel had one more year on their deal, but apparently I was wrong. What is going to happen with the other races? Who will be the announcers? Will the races be on SpeedChannel, Fox, ESPN, or what? We all know (at least in the US) how lame the Spike coverage of Champ Car was...

[GP Racer]

I was as shocked as you to hear that Speed Channel had lost some races. They do a great job, every race live, including qualifying. I got the information below, from the Speed forum, and it comes right from a Speed producer, so its legit. The only thing we don't know, is if CBS will air the races live like Speed...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guys- Listed below are our F1 preliminary, unofficial plans for next year. In other words, there may be some slight change. F1 has opted to put four races on CBS. Current plans are to continue F1 decade and to replay the races including CBS. We will handle the weekend coverage as we have in the past.

FYI


Sat, Mar 5 Australia
Sat, Mar 19 Malaysia
Sun, Apr 3 Bahrain
Sun, May 22 Monaco
Sun, Jun 19 United States
Sun, Jul 3 France
Sun, Jul 10 Britain
Sun, Jul 24 Germany
Sun, Jul 31 Hungary
Sun, Aug 21 Turkey
Sun, Sep 4 Italy
Sun, Sep 11 Belgium
Sun, Sep 25 Brazil
Sat, Oct 8 Japan
Sat, Oct 15 China

CBS races
Sun, Apr 24 San Marino
Sun, May 8 Spain
Sun, May 29 Europe (at Nurburg, Germany)
Sun, Jun 12 Canada

[Fish_Flake]

Strange selection...I would have thought that CBS would pick up the Indianapolis race.

[BobHWS]

How come F1 is not listed at all on the Speed TV site in the programs area?

http://www.speedtv.com/programs/

It looks to me that the rights for the other races are still under negotiation. It reminds me of a couple years ago when the US TV rights were in doubt right up until days before the first race.

I also think that F1 is severely misguided in thinking that F1 will magically increase in popularity by putting a few races on CBS. We already have two open wheel race series that the vast majority of Americans don't seem to care about (except for one day in May and even then the interest is much less than the old days). Switching a few races to a national broadcast on a major network will just emphasize how small the audience for F1 is America. I guarantee that the ratings will be embarassingly small.

If the other races show up on either Speed TV or maybe ESPN, then I guess that's OK, but F1 risks alienating the small but dedicated audience that it has had the last several years on Speed. I'm not at all optimistic about this development.

[GP Racer]

Along with F1 not being in the program area, they have moved Dave DeSpains, Windtunnel talk show to 9PM-11PM on Sunday nights, the same time that they always showed the race replay. Not a good sign.

Bob, your right when you say that Speed had built a small but dedicated audience, and going to CBS will only jeapordise that. It takes consistent scheduling, and familiar voices to build an audience, and Speed accomplished that. North American F1 fans knew just when and where to tune into the race. Going to CBS seems to be a step backward to the old days of Wide World Of Sports, when all you got were snippets of certain races on tape delay.

Fish, the reason CBS will not be doing the USGP is because Speed Channel will be doing the international feed...

[Rich R]

i wouldn't say spain, imola and nurburgring are the most exiting of tracks to showcase f1 to an american audience,(unless the weather turns bad at the nurburgring).

[perfectly_frank]

It seems we F1 fans in the U.S. have more questions than answers at the moment. I'm of mixed opinion. On one hand, the Speed TV coverage is very thorough and knowledgeable. I think that Machett, Hobbs, Varsha and Windsor have cultivated a relationship with the fans: they know their business and they spread the excitement when something is happening. Alternately, we have seen the pitiful ABC coverage in 2002 for a handful of key races (Monaco, Monza, Montreal, Indy). This is the standard misunderstanding of a big sporting event and it's presentation here, just like baseball playoffs and championships. You get 1-time commentators whose unfamiliarity with the rules, strategy and personalities can't please the hard-core, nor can they excite or engage the newbie.

However, something big needs to happen to broaden the audience/market here. I want F1 to flourish here too or we may lose live coverage altoghether.

[shiny side up!]

This disturbs me greatly. I was looking forward to another season of Speed coverage. And to hear that the familiar 9-11.30pm Sunday replay timeslot is being given to Windtunnel has me on the verge of tears...

[Snrub]

Is it possible that Machett, Hobbs, Varsha and Windsor will be the commentators for the CBS races? Keep in mind that Tommy Kendal, Derek Daily, etc. have been the commentators for Champ Car on several different networks.

[TedN]

More details on SPEED coverage

Additional info on CBS

Ted

[BobHWS]

Ted, thanks for pointing out that article from the Speed web site. I overlooked it when I made my previous post. This news is reassuring. I guess we should all applaud that F1 will appear live on network TV 4 times but like I said before, the ratings might prove to be embarassing.

I suspect that DIC has purchased the air time on CBS along with the rights from Speed and they will try to sell the commercials and hope to make a small profit. Good luck to them. It's a tough sell, but I'll be watching no matter what network it's on (except for Montreal where I'll be in attendance again).

BobHWS

Bob's F1 babes and more

[GP Racer]

Wohhhh! Nice site you have their Bob! You have quite an eye for the ladies.

Ok, ok, back on topic...

Now that I've had some time to digest these changes, it may not be so bad. It may help draw in some new fans, and more importantly, bring back some old ones who havn't seen an F1 race in years. It sounds like CBS will be playing these races on tape delay, but that will put them on in prime time sports coverage time. Far more people are channel surfing at those times than at 7AM or 1AM, the times that Speed shows them live. So lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that CBS does a competant job on this.

Hmmm, now if we could only get an American driver in F1...

[Flaming_Wuzzle]

Imola, Barcelona, Nurburgring and Montreal?

Jeez, what boring choices. I liked the Monaco, Montreal, Monza, Indy combo ABC did a few years back. Let's just hope CBS does a competent job with this.

[BobHWS]

Here's an article (below) from the April 2004 issue of Sports Illustrated about Casey Wasserman, who is one of the two individuals behind the move of putting 4 F1 races on CBS. Wasserman is the grandson of movie mogul Lew Wasserman, so he has a show business background. His company is mainly involved in "extreme sports" or "fringe sports."

Well I guess F1 could be considered to be both "extreme" and "fringe," at least here in the US. But this background and the talk of producing F1 "lifestyle" segments makes me cringe a little bit. Are they going to treat the sport and its traditions with proper respect or are they going to try to sell it to the MTV crowd by using music video production values, rap music, etc. to jazz up the broadcasts? I'm not opposed to jazzing the production up a bit but they shouldn't risk losing the core audience of F1 fans who don't need or want lots of extra sizzle. F1 is already plenty "extreme" as it is. Anyway, it should be an interesting F1 TV season in the US.

Bob H.
Winston-Salem, NC

Bob's F1 Babes and More


Sports Illustrated

April 5, 2004
Extreme Dream; Casey Wasserman, grandson of a legendary movie mogul, has become a force in action sports


Until his death two years ago at 89, Lew Wasserman breakfasted
with his only grandchild, Casey, every weekend at Nate 'n' Al's,
the fabled Beverly Hills deli. Over pumpernickel bagels and
bacon, the Hollywood agent turned Hollywood mogul would impart
90210 wisdom to the lad. As ruthless as he was revolutionary,
Grandpa Lew freed the stars of the 1940s from the servitude of
studio contracts and, as the head of Universal Studios, came up
with innovative packaging concepts and deal structures that
evaporate net profits--standard Hollywood procedure now.

At the precocious age of 29, Casey is out to become the Lew
Wasserman of fringe sports. In 1998 he plunked down $5 million
for Arena Football's L.A. Avengers. Since then he has brokered
the AFL's national TV contract with NBC and a groundbreaking
collective-bargaining agreement, running through 2010, that's
credited with preserving the league's viability.

For Grandpa Lew, talent was a commodity. He'd create a sellers'
market, control commodity supply, then take his 10% off the top.
Mindful of that approach, Casey has lately tried to Wassermanize
the unruly and unprofitable world of extreme sports, hatching a
plan that entailed representing athletes, controlling media and
forming sanctioning bodies in three disciplines to run his own
closed tour. "The current economic system is not sustainable," he
said one recent Saturday morning over cottage cheese and bacon at
Nate 'n' Al's. "Almost every event in action sports loses money,
and most are for sale." The lone cash cow, he points out, is the
X Games, which ESPN owns outright, meaning there are no competing
bids or rights fees.

In his first step toward extreme-sport domination, Wasserman
Media Group last year gobbled up The Familie, the biggest athlete
management agency in extreme sport, and in February, WMG bought
video company 411 Productions to help promote its roster of
extremists. But Wasserman's boldest move was his attempt to sign
up enough athletes in BMX, skateboarding and freestyle motocross
to form PGA-like sanctioning bodies in those sports. Under a
three-year contract offered to riders, these bodies would govern
circuits whose prime financial backer would be Wasserman. In
return for bigger purses, he'd get media rights, which he could
sell to broadcasters, DVD makers and websites.

At the moment the value of TV rights is practically nil. "Action
sports have done nothing to prove they're worthy of rights fees,"
says Wasserman. "The ratings are just not there." So why
negotiate for them? "It's a long-term investment," he says.
"That's one of the benefits of being young."

Lew Wasserman built his entertainment empire by bundling clients
into packages his agency put together for his studio--a seeming
conflict of interest that prompted antitrust regulators to
investigate. To Casey's critics the idea of an extreme-sports
agent forming an extreme-sports sanctioning body while investing
in an extreme-sports competition series seems similarly
conflicted. Many riders feared Wasserman's clients would get
preferential treatment. "You just know they would be plugged 10
times harder than the rest of us," says top-ranked motocross
rider Brian Deegan. "That might have been O.K., but [ Wasserman ]
refuses to share the pie. Bigger prize money doesn't make up for
cutting us out of potential sponsorship and merchandising money."
Riders also bristled at WMG's demands for limited fields, fewer
events and prohibitions against performing at unsanctioned
exhibitions. "We're way too free-spirited and antiorganization
for that," Deegan says. " Wasserman's tour just didn't cut it."

Ultimately Wasserman's power play failed not for lack of his
Grandpa's chutzpah but for lack of his powers of persuasion. The
series was effectively euthanized last week when NBC Sports
announced plans for the Action Sports Tour, which will pay out
$2.5 million next year, with a $1 million bonus pool. "That's at
least 20 percent less than what we had offered," Wasserman says
icily. Then, sounding like a gracious also-ran at the Oscars, he
purrs, "NBC's tour is exactly what I was talking about--and
exactly what the industry needs."

BOX STORY:

All in the Familie
These are among the more than three dozen extreme sports stars
managed by Casey Wasserman's The Familie group.

Dave Mirra, BMX 2002 U.S. and Van's Triple Crown vert champion

Ryan Nyquist, BMX Seven X Games medals in dirt and street

Travis Pastrana, Three straight X Games freestyle golds
Motocross

Tara Dakides, Crossover star's crash made splash on Letterman
Snowboarding

J.J. Thomas, 2002 Olympic halfpipe bronze medalist
Snowboarding

[GP Racer]

Bob, I'm not one for "lifestyle" shows either, especially MTV style productions. I'm in the wrong "demographic" I think!

That said though, F1 is in serious need of exposure here in the States. I mean unless your on the internet, or you subscribe to the very expensive F1 magazine, you won't hear anything at all about F1, ever! So in this case, these lifestyle shows should help get new fans, or old ones, reacclimated to the players of the sport, the rules, the cars, and teams, and the whole circus that F1 is.

It's funny, I can watch European soccer, rugby, and cricket all day long, but never hear a peep about F1, the most watched sport in the world!

[dcp2685]

Ok this is something was just thinking and i'm not quite sure what to think. They're televising 3 of the 4 on CBS from European countries. If these are going to be televisied live, what kind of of audience beyond the fanatics does Bernie expect to get when the races are going to be on at 8:00am on a Sunday? Wouldn't a better bet be, Canada, US, Brazil and Austalia (given it'll be on on Saturday night) since they'd be on during the early /mid afternoon? Who's going to wake up before 8:00 to catch the race? Who's going to watch a replay of an event held earlier in the day?

Just a couple things i thought of.

[Flaming_Wuzzle]

dcp, I'm guessing CBS will air the three European races on tape delay, probably airing at 2 or 3PM EST. The Canada race will either be live or tape delay to match the air times of the other three GPs.