F1 must be really good at marketing. Every time I look at Google news there is invariably a story about F1 something, also British royalty. This is one of those times.
The F1 under Bernie Eccleston was criticized a lot by becoming "boring"; not only because a particular pilot's or their team's dominance, but the broadcast itself. When NASCAR had already live pilot tracking widgets and speed estimations on screen, F1 fans still looked at an outdated, pixelated racing car tyre animation, and basically zero "insights" beyond speed trap measurements.
Around 10 years ago, Liberty Media took over and now broadcasting and event marketing is "modernized". It became fun to watch races even when you are not cheering for the top pilots, simply because live data is available and better communicated, making the race more interesting to follow.
F1 is massively gaining in popularity around the world in recent years thanks mostly to the Netflix series "Drive to Survive". If you haven't seen it, it's really good.
Netflix are going to use the same template to make shows about other forms of sport.
F1 is a sport for billionaires, and even the racers are all incredibly wealthy/fortunate nepo babies. Imagine if every kid in the US had the privilege/fortune to race carts/cars since they were little kids. Imagine the US football equivalent, where hundreds of thousands of kids are gradually filtered out all the way up to college and then the NFL, ensuring the absolute best of the best are ultimately selected.
F1 is by comparison the least accessible sporting path in the world. The drivers who make it are great but they represent a rounding error equivalent of a potential candidate pool.
> The split is approximately: $2m on karting, $500,000 per season in F4, another $1m on F3 and $3m plus on F2 – without contingencies. Not all of that may come from parents’ pockets, but seven million bucks is still a massive pile, particularly given there are no guarantees of an F1 seat at the end of it.
