It’s a tough call. As someone else said, it’d be nice to have a sort of utopian wishlist where the best tracks could host for free, and all fans would be able to attend races for a nominal fee, and TV coverage would be totally unrestricted, while at the same time giving a much wider level of access to the track and technical features. Yeah that’d be great, but it’s not in the slightest bit possible in a world where money exists.
In my opinion, the first, and most important thing, would be to considerably reduce the amount of money taken out of the sport by the CRH and his partners. Partners who do literally nothing in relation to the sport other than cream off the money. This would mean either more money for the teams, or reduced hosting fees for the circuits, allowing better investment into facilities and reducing ticket prices.
While I do like the idea of free to air coverage, I actually think that the model in the Uk isn’t a bad one. I’d take it a little further though, and say that in each country, one TV channel can have the rights to the FOM video feeds, which will include access to all the races and every session, plus all of the support races. This will be on a subscription channel (most likely, but not necessarily Sky. Eurosport, Speed TV, etc, may all be viable). I’d establish media areas around the circuit for a number of other broadcasters to put their own cameras up and broadcast their own feed from a number (not all) of races in the season, for a nominal fee. The more races they want to broadcast, the more they’d need to pay. A reduced rate would be offered to those just putting out highlights shows.
With a reduced level of involvement from the commercial partners of the CRH, this would free up the possibility of opening up other avenues of advertising revenue. FOM are well known for their harsh stance on non approved advertising around circuits, not to mention hospitality areas. I’d open it up so that the teams and the circuits would be responsible for organising plenty of hospitality and media areas around the track where they can advertise their products. Similar to ‘the village’ at Le Mans, where you have all sorts of stands showing off the various manufacturers and commercial partners. It means that there is more incentive for the sponsors of the teams, since they will get increased exposure, and it’ll give something extra for the fans to see and do over a race weekend. I’d then make sure that a certain percentage of the advertising space at the track (billboard, etc) is set aside for various commercial partners of the teams, rather than the main sponsor of the race. These spots would be sold at a very high price, but would offer the opportunity for significant commercial exposure.
The FOM feed would then be significantly expanded to include much more information and interactivity, such as live telemetry, continuous radio transmissions when watching in-car feeds, and so on. To give some extra value to those paying for the full service with the pay-per-view broadcasters.
There are many other changes I’d make, but the crux is to offer more value for those buying into the sports, to encourage greater investment, and give a sense of improved returns for that investment. The current business model for all of the money for the sport coming from hosting fees and broadcast rights, with a large chunk of the money siphoned off and never reinvested, is totally unsustainable.
