GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: rmassart on October 19, 2010, 09:45:40 AM
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For those who are interested, there's an interesting interview with Bernie over on the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/oct/19/bernie-ecclestone-interview (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/oct/19/bernie-ecclestone-interview)
I particularly like the last paragraph:
Fleetingly, Ecclestone looks old and lonely. It does not seem as if his life is ever lifted by the occasional surge of elation. "No, it's not. I don't get any individual pleasure because we don't win races or titles in this job. I'm like most business people. You look back at the end of the year and you see what you've achieved by working out how much money the company has made. That's it."
At least he's honest...
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Good article rmassart, although Bernie seems to be banging the same drum as always - never mind the racing - it's all about the money.
I can't help thinking though, that for someone who claims yesterday is gone and holds no interest, Bernie spends an extraordinary amount of time mouthing off about past discredited regimes and leaders. It's almost like he wishes us to put him up for comparison with despots in history. Sorry Bernie you may totally influence the world of F1, but the rest of us know how light your footprint on the world in general really is.
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What a sad, pathetic little Scrooge. It's too bad that such a fine sport can't find a Tony Hulman or Wally Parks to run it. It deserves better.
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Good God Cos, you nailed it! About the only good thing that article offered was the appearance of Pit-Babe #233 when I clicked on the the thread link! :good:
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This is the part that sticks out for me:
Yet the shambles exposes Ecclestone's mercenary ambition. He has always believed he has the right to reshape Formula One by moving into countries with no previous tradition of racing – as long as they pay him enough money. Next year an Indian grand prix will be added to the F1 circus. A new race in Texas has been confirmed for 2012 and, last week, Ecclestone announced that Russia will join the roster in 2014. This year's championship is likely to be settled in the very last race in Abu Dhabi and so, superficially, it appears as if F1 has become a much more universal sport which reaches millions of new fans rather than just the European elite who flock to Monaco and Monza.
"We're a world championship and so, by definition, we need to be in different parts of the world. In the end common sense has prevailed and we've expanded. It's just having the courage to do it."
At the end of the day, it's not Bernie's job to be popular, just to leave F1 bigger than when he took over.
In any sport it is an incredibly difficult balance to gain new fans while retaining old ones. In Canada we have front row seats to two disastrous attempts to grow our home based sports: The Canadian Football League created an American division in the 1990s. It almost killed the CFL to have a half dozen teams in the USA where no one cares about Canadian football. (The NFL benefited though... they got to see exactly which non-NFL cities really wanted football... hence the Baltimore Ravens).
Also the National Hockey League has aggressively expanded into the US Sunbelt. California has three NHL teams, Florida has two, and yet all of Canada has 6 (and we can FINALLY count Toronto as an NHL team again!). Obviously Canadians hate that there are more teams in cities that never get snow, and yet the NHL is making more money now than it ever did.
At the end of the day, major sports are a business. The business is getting money from fans. You need to get people who don't normally spend money on the sport to do so.
I might not like the way Bernie does business, but it would be tough to argue that F1 could be any bigger without Bernie at the helm.
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What a sad, pathetic little Scrooge. It's too bad that such a fine sport can't find a Tony Hulman or Wally Parks to run it. It deserves better.
Don't know who those two guys are, but it sounds like your spot on there Cos. :good: :good:
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I don't understand how you can say that, Jeri. Bernie has made it his mandate to take away as much as he can from F1, not help it grow. What other sport has allowed anyone involved in the commercial side to go from being a self-made millionaire to a multi-billionaire, and then sell the entire F1 commercial rights to a faceless investment company with no interest other than maximum profit at the sport's expense? Getting money from the fans is important, but that's not even Bernie's goal. He couldn't care a less about the fans - they don't have enough money - he wants it from the sponsors, promoters and governments. And in traditional sports, most of the money is redistributed within the sport, not removed completely from it.
F1 could be so much more if someone was in charge who could grasp the power of the internet for one. And someone who understood that the teams, promoters and track owners need to make a living (i.e. profit) as well as himself and the FOM. Someone who could imagine multiple formulae with an actual tree leading up to the big time (F1) instead of just letting the lower series come and go as the little sponsorship left was grabbed by him. Someone who could figure out a way to provide me (the fan) with more ways to see more of F1 - extra shows with in depth interviews, F1 news specials, televised testing sessions, 4 day weekends - not 2, massive internet content (subscription - I'd pay if it the quality and quantity was there), easier and cheaper ways to get merchandise (volume, volume, volume - not $50 for a hat, thank-you-very-much!).
Sorry, I'm with Cos - Scrooge was an angel compared to Bernie.
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I don't understand how you can say that, Jeri. Bernie has made it his mandate to take away as much as he can from F1, not help it grow. What other sport has allowed anyone involved in the commercial side to go from being a self-made millionaire to a multi-billionaire
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Sorry, I'm with Cos - Scrooge was an angel compared to Bernie.
I'm not saying I like it. But you say yourself he went from millionaire to billionaire on the back of the sport alone. That's some serious growth. He did it for the love the business, not the sport, or the fans. If someone was obsessed with the fans, rather than the business, you can see the struggles of CART and IRL, both believing that winning the fans would be enough.
(Is there anyone who has the same amount of (financial) success in sports as Bernie Eccelstone? George Steinbrenner comes to mind, and he had a reputation for being mean spirited... but did love baseball.)
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and yet all of Canada has 6
When I first started watching the NHL, there were 2 Canadian teams, the Leafs and the Canadiens. ;)
Bernie is running the sport into the ground for more personal profit, when he already has more money than he could ever spend.
Is there anyone who has the same amount of (financial) success in sports as Bernie Eccelstone?
Tony Hulman
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Can't say I think Bernie's been good for the sport, The potential for growth was always there and it could have been grown with more care for the sport itself. Tony Hulman took an Indy Speedway that was in ruins and built the 500 into one of the 2 biggest races in the world. Bill France Sr built the Daytona Speedway and Nascar into a major force in American sports. Others have brought both down some with questionable decisions, but both those men truly loved the racing. Bernie needs to do all the stuff Scott said and realize that history and tradition are a big part of what F1 is. Trading Spa for any Tilkedrome is a bad move, but Bernie seems to be perfectly willing to do that if there is more money for him. >:D A pox on him.
Lonny