I recently have been having a big discussion in my office about how big F1 racing is around the world and that my coworkers do not believe it is as big a sport as I make it out to be.
Main discussion was this (you will laugh)
Of course I am surrounded by Yankee fans… They say Derek Jeter is a more famous, popular, etc than Ayton Senna once was or still is.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t it true that F1 racing is more popular than Baseball. Is there any statistics to prove this?
I already know about Brazil taking 3 days off to morn the loss of Ayton Senna. I know when racing in Brazil after losing 7 straight times, he had the hole race track chanting his name louder than all the cars firing up the engines, inwhich you couldnt even hear them running. Then winning the race and not even being passed one time from the very start (he had pole position)
Problem here is that we live in the US which is home to what… only 1 F1 race track? It is something like soccer/football. We dont realize how big it is in the world because here in the states, its not as big as other sports are.
Please supply me with some evidence to either shut them up, or even myself.
We currently do not have a GP in the US. Next year we ‘should’ have a race at the new Austin TX track being built but that will be the first since they ran the oval/infield at Indy.
The US quickly forgets, but we had GPs in parking lots in Vegas, on the streets of Long Beach, on an island near Detriot, and at what is probably still one of the worlds top ten most memorable circuits; Watkins Glen
The fact that people in Western NY don’t know what Watkins Glen is, yet you can ask any random European and they will know, is proof enough of F1s popularity.
Formula one’s global television audience grew in 2008, a report by the sport’s commercial authority has revealed.
The figures for last season jumped to 600m per race, which is 3 million more than in 2007, F1’s official Global Broadcast Report said.
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Italy, with nearly 38 million viewers in 2008, remains the leading television market in Europe, but the British market jumped 7 per cent to over 29 million viewers per race as Lewis Hamilton drove to the title.
However, Germany’s audience continues to slip in the wake of the retirement of Michael Schumacher, despite there still being five race drivers on the grid.
With 29.6 million viewers on average per race, the country slipped behind France to now be Europe’s third best television audience.
Outside of Europe, China for the first time eclipsed Brazil as the leading TV audience abroad, with 119 million viewers compared with Brazil’s 110m.
Moreover, the five final races of the season saw average live audience figures grow by an impressive 25 per cent.
2008 was the fourth consecutive annual increase for F1’s TV audience, moving chief executive Bernie Ecclestone to remark that the figures paint “an overall picture of the rude health” of the sport.
Formula One had a total global television audience of 527 million people during the course of the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship
To put this into perspective, the most watched super bowl was watched by 53.6 million Americans (2010; Saints vs Colts).
I don’t think you can compete or compare numbers when one sport is Global (Think Chinese GP, Indian team and drivers, future Russian GP) and the other is very simply “American”
NOT EVEN CLOSE. F1 Race attendance has been on the decline for years. Partly due to sending races to nations where the majority of their population is in poverty. Just look at the empty stands in Budapest and Shanghai. Perfect examples. India will have crowds for the first two years and then drop off as well. Bahrain? Yeah, main grandstands are the only ones full. TV viewership is up, some of this has to do with the global economy, but some of it also has to due with a completely unsustainable business plan for the long term of F1. Which is also why the teams are talking about buying out a majority share of FOM from CVC. I could go on for a few more paragraphs… but I think it’d be lost in the “OMG I HATE THE YANKEES” posts. But yes, comparing F1 to baseball is a hysterical comparison. Outside of Japan, Cuba, PR, DR, and the USA, no one cares about baseball.
The Austin F1 race… in South Texas… in July… on a Tilke track that’s a complete ripoff of Suzuka/Hockenhiem/Bahrain… two of which are tracks Tilke murdered… and you think it’s going to be GOOD? I’ll stick with Montreal thanks.
haha, Tilke sucks. He designed the “circuit of the Americas” (dumbass name) Literally without stepping in the country. He probably sketched it up on a napkin or something and faxed it.
Oddly enough, that’s almost the exact conversation I had a few years back when a few limeys came to our old Orchard Park branch for some IT updates. We went out for a few beers, they asked what Ralph Wilson Stadium was for, and away we went. I think it was MU vs. the Yankees in world popularity, and definitive stats on that are hard to come by, if not unattainable.
Also odd was the fact that we were pro-MU and they thought the Yanks were more popular, lol.
