Fan's on the Edge

[Giblet]

Interestingly, in 2017 this actually improves the coverage we have in Canada. TSN is paying whatever the fee to Sky is. We didn't have pre or post race before, now we will.

So if more networks take this route then their viewership has room to improve because it certainly will here with improved coverage.

[wesley123]

I'm not sure I agree with you on this point, I'm not talking about a few post, you would need 100s if not 1000's of fans to flood their facebook and twitter pages with comments of displeasure with their involvement in F1, or just non related posts or even mentioning the companies competitors in the comments, an example of this would be showing photos or talking about Monster energy drinks on the red bull twitter page. I'm pretty sure that this would get notice.

They know that only 4-5% of dissatisfied costumers ever say anything, that means, for everyone 1 complaint they get there's 25 more people that agree but haven't bothered to say anything.

No one cares in the slightest if you do such a thing. Want to know why? Because your interaction will extend their reach, which is the whole point of having those social media accounts; to reach people.

Also, even if they care enough about it, they'll simply use the available tools to automatically hide such posts, which is like 2 minutes of work.

[bdr529]

I'm not sure I agree with you on this point, I'm not talking about a few post, you would need 100s if not 1000's of fans to flood their facebook and twitter pages with comments of displeasure with their involvement in F1, or just non related posts or even mentioning the companies competitors in the comments, an example of this would be showing photos or talking about Monster energy drinks on the red bull twitter page. I'm pretty sure that this would get notice.

They know that only 4-5% of dissatisfied costumers ever say anything, that means, for everyone 1 complaint they get there's 25 more people that agree but haven't bothered to say anything.

No one cares in the slightest if you do such a thing. Want to know why? Because your interaction will extend their reach, which is the whole point of having those social media accounts; to reach people.

Also, even if they care enough about it, they'll simply use the available tools to automatically hide such posts, which is like 2 minutes of work.

Like I said, it was just an idea, I didn't say it was the only solution or even the best course of action to take,
so I'm not really going to spend anytime trying to defend it or prop it up in anyway, because the first point
I made explains way I don't think that the fans can do much if anything at all when it comes to
making changes in the sport in the first place.

[notsofast]

I'm wondering if all of this isn't just a consequence of the natural evolution of the sport. F1 cars are cornering as fast as they can; any faster would introduce safety issues. To slow the cars down, all you can do is introduce gimmicks, which turns off the die-hard fans. To overcome the gimmicks, you need to spend money. The sport is now too expensive. To control costs, all you can do is introduce more gimmicks, which turns off even more die-hard fans. On top of that, mainstream fans want to see close battles up front, which can only be achieved by introducing yet more gimmicks to prevent any one constructor from becoming dominant. Maybe it's time for the technology fans to seek out a different racing series. I'm not saying that's what I want to see, but I'm not seeing any other obvious answers.

[rich1701]

Fans passionate about the sport should make their voices heard at the circuits themselves and start protesting.

[Hail22]

Fans passionate about the sport should make their voices heard at the circuits themselves and start protesting.

At which time the FoM / circuit organisers will have you ejected and subsequently banned from future events relating to Formula 1. Trust me it happened to several people I've come across after the 2014 Australian Grand Prix and 2014 Italian GP. The FoM is ruthless and unkind to the general public / fans when it comes to public criticism of their business, think of it like paid trolls like you see on Russia Today (RT) comments section...a whole lot of censorship and talking down.

In saying that, if you're willing to risk being banned from future events in order to be heard...make sure you have a huge protest group that can do it in a peaceful / mature manner.

[Shakeman]

Advertising is the life blood of F1 and FoM's move towards PPV or Subscription TV platforms just shows how much contempt the vulture capitalists have for the sport and the fanbase.

What you are seeing being played out is modern investment practices, there is no such thing as a long term economic plan despite how many times Gideon says there is, money is put up by investors and they want their ROI as fast as possible. The long term health of the sport means absolutely nothing to vulture capitalists as long as they hit their ROI targets and at the end of the process F1 will be a dried up husk with nothing left to give.

Limited boycotts will achieve nothing because F1 is quite happy to go to countries who have no interest in F1 and race to empty grandstands anyway so you won't be missed and it won't phase those in control. Only when people start turning off F1 in their droves and advertisers start walking will there be change.

[Andres125sx]

Only when people start turning off F1 in their droves and advertisers start walking will there be change.

That started happening some seasons ago, audiences are decreasing for many season yet, sponsors are moving out of F1... and I see no change at the respect.

Here in Spain we have no free broadcasting this season as it went PPV (MovistarTV), so audience will decrease dramatically. I know none willing to pay to watch F1. Not even myself. The public channel will broadcast Spanish GP live and there are summaries for the rest of GPs. I´d prefer missing the race live and watching a sumary wich probably will save me from many boring races, than paying to watch it live and complete. No way I´m paying to watch what in most cases are boring races

In England it will be the same in 2019 I think


If you can see some change, please let me know, because I can´t

[nevill3]

Those that can afford to pay to view the races are the main targets for the luxury goods manufacturers that often sponsor the teams. Poor folk do not buy many expensive watches, chandon etc. so F1 can offset the loss in viewers with the enormous fees they have probably collected for the exclusive rights to broadcast PPV.

[Sawtooth-spike]

So Promoter, who want our money to come to there track and the FIA who want the money from the promoter have decided we should not go back to the 2015 system. But have proposed a new and even more idiotic solution to improve the entertainment.

Please remember that they are reading "the social media" and clearly know that what us fans want is something more complicated and harder to understand than "go fastest" and you get pole.

So what can us fans do? I don't know what social media they are looking at, maybe MySpace. Do we stop watching, do we stop turning up to there event. I was hoping that during the 2 minutes at the end of all the qualifying session all the fans should of booed.

While I am frustrated by qualifying I think the main point of anger is the process used to govern this sport we love is so radically broken it just keeps spitting out more and more idiotic proposals to "improve the show".

Until this year, I didn't trust or agree with anything Christian horner said, now he seems to be one of the only people with a brain out there. This leads me to question other people I didn't like in the world of f1 management.

Maybe max was not so bad!

[Sawtooth-spike]

By the way, my new qualifying proposal... Battle royal!... With tigers.

[outer_bongolia]

I was at the Long Beach Formula-E race. It was everything that this modern F1 wasn't.
[*] Interactions with the drivers: check
[*] Tight, unforgiving corners: check.
[*] Reasonable amount of wheel-to-wheel action: check
[*] A very decent online presence: check
[*] People of all ages actually having fun without breaking the bank: check

As someone who has been following F1 for 30 years, I had a major culture shock; my mind was blown.

Given the fact that one cannot directly compare a very young race series to F1 (even though half the field is ex-F1 drivers), these must be taken with a grain of salt. But pretty soon the fans will say they don't have much more money to spend and arrogant decision makers will run out of dictatorships that will pay for a race. At that point, without a strong younger generation of fans, F1 will have dug a big hole to climb out of.