Problem with Modern F1

[Jericoke]

This story came up on my feed.  It's about possible racism involved in doling out F1 event passes to 'social media influencers'

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/whats-hot/who-s-to-blame-for-the-tarte-f1-miami-fiasco-it-isn-t-black-influencers/ar-AA1aXyi1?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=691899d700b14fb7be9a2a661b65d72e&ei=14

I don't know anything about the story, the people or brands involved.  It does bother me that this is a story at all, that 'influencers' are taking up space in F1 that should be going to fans.  Sure, F1 invites in famous people, but for the most part, those famous people, it is their job to 'be seen'.  Brad Pitt may be a movie star, but his 'job' is traveling around meeting people to get them interested in his movies.  If F1 wants Stars AND Influencers on site, where's the room for fans?  What exactly are you raising attention for if there's nothing to actually purchase?

Anyway, what really got me with this article was the following passage:

According to Kelly, all “arrivals and departures were staggered” and each influencer was to have one day at the racetrack, one dinner, and one night at the club, however, when she then learned that the Sunday race was “really important,” the Tarte team got more tickets.

They were paying hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to send someone to the Miami Grand Prix without understanding that the most important part was... the Miami Grand Prix?

If your house of cards is built on people with this level of ignorance, it's going to collapse FAST at the first hint of controversy (how hard is Liberty keeping Nelson Piquet under wraps?), or the next shiny event comes along.

[Alianora La Canta]

Ah, but you have to remember that an influencer's job is to influence. Being out-competed by the main event is not necessarily the way to build influence (though sometimes it can be). Thus, an influencer is generally guided by what people who know about marketing people's needs say, rather than people who know about sports fans' needs. Thus, if the marketing people indicated that all three days were equally important for marketers, then influencers are going to trust that this is true for the marketers (regardless of whether that's true for anyone else in attendance). Indeed, it might have been better for the organisers and Liberty to rebalance the marketing events to make Friday more important for their needs, and then make Saturday and Sunday less so in order to have more seats available for people attending for more conventional reasons (such as, you know, the racing). Also, it wasn't exactly an either/or proposition - there were plenty of people disguised as empty seats at Miami.

The problem for this particular fiasco is that the promise was wrong and more important marketing events were held on Sunday, along with the issue that people were not told at the beginning what they were going to get (turning the marketing tickets into a sort of loot box, which by the way is illegal in many countries because it encourages gambling without having the usual protections put in place by conventionally-regulated gambling). It meant that both obvious and subtle bad experiences were inevitable. (Loot boxes are designed to generate some of this on purpose to make the wins stand out; I suspect this was not the intended feeling the Miami marketers hoped to generate).

All this is especially true when an increasing number of F1 fans flat-out don't want to watch a race, let alone attend one. F1 had its chance with them, was initially winning them over, but appears to have largely blown it over the course of the last 18-24 months. A lot of those fans are holding on because they realised why DTS attracted them to F1 - because it made the drivers relatable, talented, athletic human beings. So they keep following the drivers' social media presences, and treat these influencers that go to the races a bit like some people treat journalists who write about walking long trails, playing genres of computer games that sound more exciting to listen to/watch than actually play or working in political hot zones/wars - insights into parts of their experience they'd never want to actually live.

[lkjohnson1950]

Remember, it's all about sponsorship. Liberty doesn't care about ticket sales, they care about eyes watching on TV. Petronas doesn't care about the 1.5M or so people who attend races, they care about the hundreds of millions who watch it on TV. Liberty earns nothing from ticket sales, they make money from DHL, Pirelli, and other people paying for advertising. They need all the eyes they can get and that means all the people who follow influencers, want to see celebs, and are more interested in the party than the race.That'a why Miami and Vegas are perfecr for Liberty, they are party towns. The people like us don't matter much because there aren't enough of us to drive the ratings. If/when the numbers drop Liberty will sell, the manufacturers will leave, and F1 will be a minor sport again. Probably won't happen though, too much money driving it now. They will just keep ramping up the spectacle and marginalising the actual race. The need for eyes on the box also explains the need to ramp up the action on Friday and Saturday. It's all about the Benjamins.

[cosworth151]

NASCAR went down this road and is now on the other side. They used to have some of the most avid fans in all sport.  Now most of the stands are more than half empty. Many stands have been covered up with adverts.

I'm afraid that Liberty is typical of what's called "vulture capitalism." Buy a thriving business, run it into the ground while draining every last cent out of it and then dump it.

[Alianora La Canta]

Remember, it's all about sponsorship. Liberty doesn't care about ticket sales, they care about eyes watching on TV.

Liberty earns money from Las Vegas tickets, as well as a cut from Miami. Although yes, the sponsors are more important.