How Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ transformed Formula 1
Formula 1 is in a much better place than it was five years ago. F1’s 2021 opening race broke viewership records in the UK where the race audience, watching Sky Sports, peaked at 2.23 million viewers with an average viewership of 1.98 million across the race. In the US too, the season opener garnered an average audience of 879,000 on ESPN2, which was larger than all the races in the 2020 season. Where Formula 1 has made significant gains is in social media. In 2020, followers across the major platforms were up by 36% to 35 million. F1 also registered the maximum growth in social media engagements which were up by 99% to 801 million. This was the greatest increase in engagements in 2020 as compared to any other major sports league. This exceptional growth in social media engagements has also gone hand in hand with the growing popularity of F1 in the 16 to 35 age bracket which, according to Nielsen (a firm that measures media audiences), was responsible for 77% of F1’s audience growth in 2020.
However, F1 was not always a favorite of young fans. In fact, until very recently, it seemed to younger fans that Formula 1 had lost its connect with them. So how did F1 change from being an old-fashioned, analog sport to being widely followed by the hard-to-attract, digital-loving young fans?
Outdated Leadership
Until 2017, Formula 1 was headed by Bernie Ecclestone for almost 40 years. During his time as CEO, he was successful in transforming F1 from a sport only a handful of rich enthusiasts were interested into a global brand with millions of fans all around the world. He played a big part in ensuring F1’s operations were profitable through effective management of broadcasting rights. One would think that after knowing how to leverage TV to broaden the fan base, Bernie would understand how important social media would be in expanding F1’s reach. However, towards the end of his time at F1, his leadership was seen to be increasingly out of touch with the young fan base and technological developments surrounding digital media. For example, female supermodels (called grid girls) holding umbrellas and other promotional stuff for each driver just before the commencement of a race was still a thing as late as the 2017 Formula 1 season! According to Bernie, the main target group of F1 should be older rich guys as they are the ones who are most likely the consumers of some of F1’s high-end sponsors like Rolex. He said once in an interview, “I’m not interested in tweeting, Facebook and whatever this nonsense is, I don’t know why people want to get to the so-called ‘young generation’. Most of these kids haven’t got any money. I’d rather get to the 70-year-old guy who’s got plenty of cash. So, there’s no point trying to reach these kids because they won’t buy any of the products here and if marketers are aiming at this audience, then maybe they should advertise with Disney.” His aversion to social media was also evident from the then F1 policy of discouraging F1 drivers to have their own official social media accounts.
Well, statistically the 70-year-old-rich guys also tend to die quicker than the 25-year-old-not-so-rich guys or girls and this is why, perhaps, the number of people watching F1 had been declining quickly. Global viewing figures had declined more than 30% from 2008 to 2017. It was evident that in today’s world with decreasing attention spans, it was becoming more and more difficult to watch 20 cars going around circles 60 times for 2 hours straight.
The new ‘Liberty Media’ era
Liberty Media (also the owner of the Major League Baseball team Atlanta Braves) took over the operations of Formula 1 in 2017. A central part of its corporate strategy was to develop a new approach to engage with fans on and off the track. The focus was on making F1 the ‘greatest racing spectacle on the planet’ and making Formula 1 a platform for racing entertainment.
Liberty Media placed its bets heavily on the internet and digital media and put heavy emphasis on creating multiple interaction points for fans to engage with. Before 2017, under Bernie’s rule, Formula 1 had some presence on digital platforms, but the content on it was very formal and one-directional. Liberty Media revamped Formula 1’s major accounts on digital platforms — YouTube, Twitter, Instagram — to create content that is more in sync with how young fans usually engage digitally. Formula 1’s YouTube account, particularly started posting well-made and short highlights of Qualifying and Racing sessions which attracted many users. Bernie era restrictions on drivers having social media accounts were also lifted and moreover, the drivers were encouraged to bring their personalities to social media and interact with fans directly. This allowed previously unthinkable ways of engaging with the fans where young drivers like Lando Norris regularly live stream them playing video games. Lando Norris’s channel alone has around 875,000 subscribers on Twitch!
Liberty Media also launched its ‘F1 TV’ streaming service where fans can live-stream races. The streaming service is great for hard-core fans as they have the ability to control the F1 broadcast by accessing any of the driver’s cockpit cameras and radio channels. Fans also have access to in-depth data dashboards having metrics like lap times, time gaps between drivers, tire life span, etc. Although F1 TV is not in the most ideal state right now, with frequent glitches and lags, in the long run, it stands to provide the most enriching experience for F1’s most dedicated fans.
However, Liberty Media’s partnership with Netflix in producing the TV series ‘Drive to Survive’ has paid the most dividends. It has succeeded in bringing new fans to the show as well as making the existing, casual fans be a lot more engaged with the sport.
Drive to Survive
‘Drive to Survive’ series on Netflix is a documentary-style show which follows Formula One drivers and teams over an F1 season. It’s not a pure documentary that only serves to recap a season, but it’s a show with healthy doses of drama and narrative added to make it more entertaining. It provides glimpses of the inner workings of Formula 1, friendships and rivalries between the drivers, and competition amongst the teams, all woven by a compelling narrative. The series is visually stunning and can be picked up by people who are not even remotely interested in any sport let alone Formula 1.
Season 1 of Drive to Survive was released in March 2019. Mercedes and Ferrari, the two top teams of 2018, had decided to not feature in it as they were unsure of the benefit it would bring to their teams. They believed having a film crew interviewing the drivers and team members would be a distraction from focussing on winning the championship. It was a blessing in disguise for Formula 1, as season 1 focussed heavily on the struggles of drivers and teams not contending for the championship. It allowed drivers and characters other than the superstars of the sport — Hamilton and Vettel — to shine and show their character. Rivalries and the dynamics between team bosses of even the lower-ranked teams were interesting and fun to watch. Even the most ardent of F1 fans before Drive to Survive would have struggled to name the bosses of teams like Haas and Renault, but now these fans were making memes out of some of their most memorable quotes in the series!
Mercedes and Ferrari, realizing how beneficial season 1 was for the other teams, chose to be included in from season 2 onwards. The impact of Drive to Survive on making people more interested in Formula 1 can be understood by assessing the number of searches on Google related to the topic. After the release of every season, there has been an enormous spike in the number of searches related to Formula One. An assessment by Nielsen Sports directly credited Drive to Survive for the surging popularity of Formula 1 among the young age bracket.
However, the influence of Netflix’s Drive to Survive on Formula 1 cannot be understood by solely looking at quantitative facts. It has made the experience of watching and following Formula 1 much richer for fans. Take, for example, the driver Pierre Gasly’s journey so far at F1. In 2019, Pierre Gasly was promoted to Red Bull, the team that along with Mercedes is the strongest contender to win the championship this year. Throughout his time at Red Bull, Gasly struggled to get acquainted with the car and was outperformed by his teammate, Max Verstappen, by a huge margin. He was demoted from Red Bull to the junior team Toro Rosso mid-season. The dynamics of his exit were extensively covered in one of the episodes of Season 2 and fans could easily empathize with Gasly. Thus, it was all the more rewarding for fans to see Gasly win the 2020 Italian Grand Prix in a car that was vastly inferior to Mercedes or Red Bull. While we all love a good underdog story, the context and the background provided by Drive to Survive, made the experience of watching Gasly win the race much richer for fans. Another case of how Drive to Survive has influenced the way fans watch F1 would be Romain Grosjean’s accident at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix. Grosjean suffered a serious crash where his Haas car hit a barrier, split in half, and then soon erupted into a fireball. Grosjean, his team at Haas, and the team boss Guenther Steiner were covered quite comprehensively in the earlier seasons of Drive to Survive. Grosjean was not just a driver of the least competitive car in F1, but one of the drivers with whom fans emotionally connected after watching him on Drive to Survive. It was nerve-racking for fans to see his car split in half and they were relieved when he was able to walk out of the fire and escape.
Although Drive to Survive does get some flak from purists for overly dramatizing incidents and having too much creative liberty (like team radio messages taken out of context), it’s impossible to deny that Netflix has been instrumental in introducing new fans to the sport, like my wife for example, and in making existing fans, like myself, more engaged with F1. It was unimaginable that my wife would have been interested in Formula 1 before as she has never been a fan of watching and closely following any sport. However, she is a binge-watching expert, and Drive to Survive provided her the same viewing pleasure as some of the other well-made TV series on Netflix. For me, the context provided by Drive to Survive has made my interactions with Formula 1 ecosystem — watching a race, participating in discussion forums, watching Lando stream (lol!) — much more rewarding. What Formula One has achieved is a virtuous cycle with its ecosystem where exciting F1 races make for dramatic Drive to Survive episodes which in turn make the experience of watching F1 races and engaging with the ecosystem (YouTube channel, Reddit Discussion Forums, virtual Grand Prix) much more enriching.
Way forward for Formula 1
F1 is on the right track and it should continue opening itself up to the digital audience. It should strive to be an entertainment platform centered on racing and continue to exploit the synergies from the virtuous cycle of its ecosystem as mentioned above. However, F1 should be cognizant of the fact that deepening its focus on digital media is not without its challenges. Fans increasingly are aware and care about drivers’ actions both on and off the field. As evidenced by the backlash received on an inappropriate video that Haas driver Nikita Mazepin had shared on Instagram, fans are very vocal about behavior and values that they consider improper. Another challenge Formula 1 faces is to capitalize and monetize the increase in interactions with younger fans. Formula 1 still generates a bulk of its revenues from broadcasting fees, sponsorships, and fees from circuit owners to host races. While this is not expected to change significantly, Formula 1 has the opportunity to monetize its digital interactions with fans. Here, Liberty Media needs to take a page out of Fortnite’s book. Although Fortnite is a video game that is free to play, it still generated $5.1 billion in gross revenue in 2020. Players, on Fortnite, spend money on unique and sometimes limited edition ‘costumes’ and ‘skins’. Formula 1 also can create unique digital assets and merchandise that it can then offer to younger fans.
Netflix’s Drive to Survive has significantly changed the positioning of Formula 1. The motorsports brand now has an excellent opportunity to capitalize on it.
