A recent survey conducted by F1 and the Motorsport Network has shown the sport is rapidly growing in popularity in the United States of America.
The country, which traditionally shows its love of motorsport via NASCAR, ‘stands out for accelerating fan growth, especially among younger, digital-first audiences’ – the report states.
In fact, 70% of respondents based in the USA engaged with F1 content daily whilst 40% of Americans will follow drivers instead of teams and their progress accordingly, especially via social media platforms.
Furthermore, nearly three quarters of those who are actively following F1 drivers stated that they’re planning to attend a F1 race in the near future.
In a following statement, F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali stated: “This study shows that fans are increasingly following Formula 1 for the stories and the many opportunities to engage with the sport, and then they’re becoming hooked on the fantastic racing.
“The sport is embedded in culture now, via streaming, storytelling, and social media and that’s helping more people connect with the wonderful sport that is F1.”
The sport now boasts three races in the country in its calendar, with the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, now being joined by the Miami Grand Prix and the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The successes of both of those latter races since their inclusions in the past few years means more cities in the states are wanting to join the calendar. They’re wanting to have their opportunity to reap the increased revenues from the growing number of fans of the sport.
Furthermore, the sport has made a clear ploy to raise awareness of the sport in the country. Netflix’s Drive to Survive series has helped play a key part in that increase, whilst Brad Pitt recently starred in the official F1 The Movie – a Hollywood blockbuster that shows the fast-paced nature of the sport on the big screen.
As such, there are now believed to be 52 million F1 fans in America, which is a 10% increase on the previous year’s total. Of those fans, more are turning into ‘die-hard’ consumers by watching the races live on television.
In May this year, the world-famous Monaco Grand Prix drew in television viewers of 2.3 million on the ESPN broadcast of the race. That is the USA’s largest ever number for a race-only part of the broadcast.
The growth of the sport doesn’t end there as recently the director of commercial at Formula One is looking into new ways to develop the sport’s betting product.
Formula 1 betting in the UK and globally has long been left behind other sports when it comes to innovative in-play products, markets, promotions and more.
However, the sport’s director of commercial partnerships recently outlined how the sport is concentrating efforts to improve this and, if they get it right, they’ll be able to further attract more fans to the sport.
“We’re on a journey in the betting space at the moment,” Haworth said. “I think we make up just 0.4 per cent of the overall global betting handle, which is pretty crazy for a sport the size of Formula 1 and with a sport that has low latency data at a high volume which is what drives betting.
“When you put all those things together there’s something there and we’re working incredibly hard to figure out how we open up an engaging betting product that enables people not to just look at outcome betting, but enables people to use the data of the sport to be able to engage in various different in-play betting [options].”
Evidence of this is that the sport is now partnered with ALT Sports Data as the sports official betting data supplier.
Speaking at the time of that announcement, Emily Prazer, Chief Commercial Officer at Formula One, said: “Sports betting is an increasingly important part of the global fan experience, and Formula One is committed to delivering new and entertaining ways for our audiences to engage with the sport.
“We are delighted to partner with ALT Sports Data, whose expertise in bespoke sports betting markets and analytics makes them the perfect partner to help us drive forward in this exciting new chapter.”
This partnership, in essence, enables fans to bet on new markets in the knowledge that the data behind the betting system is accurate, consistent, and ratified.
With the sport making such huge gains off the track, more eyes than ever are on the action on the track. More betting opportunities and a growing USA presence in the sport means F1 is in great hands and fans from all over the world should be delighted about that.
