F1 Fanatic

Most F1 Fanatic’s have complaints about how the way F1 is ran, what races are on the calendar, pay television services taking over from free coverage, how F1 video is “locked down” etc. I was thinking about this, and what I would do if I was in Bernie Ecclestone’s shoes.

1) Remove some of the less popular tracks (Valenica, Abu Dhabi) from the race calendar
2) Bring back some of the older, classic tracks like Imola, and provide funding to improve the tracks facilities and overall track safety
3) Lower races fees for classic, “heritage” tracks such as Spa to secure their place in F1
4) Create and official F1 YouTube account with more video content than the current F1 site
5) By lowering race fees, tickets for races will become cheaper
6) Coverage in each country must have one free to air broadcaster of F1, showing full races live where possible. Pay TV services may compete with free to air broadcasters, but they do not have exclusive rights to some/all races live.
7) Coverage rights for free to air broadcasters will be reduced, so they can afford to broadcast it
8) Create an official F1 fan group where fans can vote on various aspects of the sport, the results taken into account into decisions about the sport
9) And finally @keithcollantine will run the official F1 website, with F1 Fanatic replacing the current one!

They are just some idea of my own, off the top of my head – what about you?

Note: I am talking about Formula One Management here, not the FIA, I am not talking about what rules of the sport you would change.

OK, I see the problems now @prisoner-monkeys with that idea. I was just thinking about the polls F1 Racing magazine runs, where they ask fans for feedback. I still think that fans views should be listened to, but not perhaps taken as much into account as I previously suggested. I have been a member here for quite a while, but I have never really posted on the forums before. This is my first time posting a thread on the forums properly.

1. I would stop blocking videos, because I would respect videomakers and the videos would promote Formula 1.

The video-makers don’t deserve respect. They’re violating copyrighted material.

2. I would make a Youtube channel, and have rare footage and team radios.

This is a smarter option. Make a YouTube channel, and run everyhing through it.

It’s unfortunate that while the teams and the FIA are trying to reduce costs, FOM are increasing costs for the venues and ultimately the fans. I think it’s once again the old case of the rich not knowing when enough is enough, it’s certainly not what I would do but that’s just my opinion.

Would the selling of multiple licenses to TV stations work here? Not in a bidding war state, but at fixed prices for each station. If the BBC, ITV and Sky all want F1 covereage, then sell them all it but as a basic cover, such as all 20 races & Qualy. Then sell other bits seperatly such as Practices, Re-playing the full/highlighted race later and the support forumla races. This should give options to the audience who can watch the basic stuff on Free-TV or pay for that little bit extra on Sky. It should also encourage stations to provide the best possible coverage to the viewer (to boost ratings) and be better for the sport all together. F1 isnt Football and doesnt command the same audience figures, and a bidding process is not in the interest of the viewer and certainly not in the current economical climate to many of the TV stations.

If F1 wants a cost cutting process for the way the teams are run, then it stands to reason that it needs to be universal across the sport from the Teams, The Venues, the ticket prices and the TV audiences et al.

First off…

The video-makers don’t deserve respect. They’re violating copyrighted material.

… uuuuuh, the EVIL of violating copyrights.

Things I’d do as FOM:
* Put up a large poster at the HQ, reminding everyone working there to never listen to fans. They are ungrateful, don’t know what they want and therefore should never be taken into consideration expect for how to squeeze money out of them.
* That leads to the second point: F1.tv – have all races in our archives accessible on a website for a bloody expensive reasonable fee.
* Try to keep tracks capable of hosting available on short notice to react to short-term changes in F1 popularity, i.e. a country without a race suddenly gets a race winner (see Venezuela or Mexico (yeah, yeah, I know Perez technically didn’t win anything yet), maybe supporting tracks in those regions with small injections of money.
* More teams: it would be a necessity to see 14 or even 15 teams in F1, since new teams open up new markets by themselves or by the drivers they hire. Competitiveness is secondary which wouldn’t make it too expensive to support them.
* TV deals: generally, I’d go for the German solution – one Pay TV channel which has everything and one or two free channels who have major parts of the weekend. Should that prove impossible – as it seems to be the case in the UK if I understood it correctly – obviously the party paying more cash will get the license.
* Scout the minor series for interesting characters and see whether it is possible to help them to a cockpit. Interesting characters are what could help F1 significantly. And no, Kimi Räikkönen doesn’t count: an utter lack of any character is not a character.

That should be it, at least I can’t think of anything else.

1) I would create a F1 official Youtube, Facebook, Twitter (and others) account;
2) I would run a competition for the best amateur season review, which would be shown in the FIA Gala after the official one. And give a prize to the author;
3) I would bring back some older, classic venues and take away those Tilkedromes which nobody likes;
4) I would gradually reduce race fees so that ticket prices could be lower and the attendance to the Grand Prixs higher;
5) I would reduce fees for free-to-air broadcasters;
6) I would support free-to-air broadcasters who wanted to cover the GPs from the circuit, live at the scene;
7) I would oblige every country with F1 live coverage to have it on free-to-air TV (at least the race, podium and drivers’ press conference and/or tge qualifying).

I agree with F1 having an official youtube account and not blocking fans personal videos. The idea that they can copyright that is ridiculous.