GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Andy B on October 03, 2018, 02:28:08 AM
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Hi
Its poll time and I suppose a bit of fun with a serious agenda although are Liberty looking at GP Wizard? I hope they do they may learn something such as F1 is not an American sport so stop trying to make it American. Just my opinion!
Vote away I given everyone two votes as you may change your mind as the discussion continues.
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Andy I voted for too many unjustified changes, but I'm puzzled by the choice of offering fans a referendum. :confused:
No multi $million $Billion business responsible to shareholders is ever going to make major decisions based on a referendum of the public, lets be honest that's what your suggesting, fans are not necessarily even customers.
Liberty assure us they are seeking fans opinions & validation through the F1 voice site, really it's just one form of their market research.
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No multi $million $Billion business responsible to shareholders is ever going to make major decisions based on a referendum of the public, lets be honest that's what your suggesting, fans are not necessarily even customers.
I don't see why not. The UK trusted the public to decide if we should be in the EU or not - and that result is costing everyone in the UK Billions!
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The fans aren't the customers in modern F1 (or any other top level racing series). The fans are the commodity. The big money doesn't come from selling tickets to fans, it comes from selling viewers to advertisers. With that in mind, it's in Liberty's best interest to keep the fans happy & tuning in.
As for what they've done so far - I still wonder if any of their top brass have ever even seen a race.
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I'll say the Jury's out. I'm 100% sure that Bernie sold them the proverbial bill of goods. Much of the value of FOM was created by him, and rested on him. FOM(Bernie) could do far more than FOM(Liberty) simply because Bernie had earned that right/knew who to push around.
Liberty continues to change things because they don't understand, yet it's things that NO ONE understands, but Bernie. There's going to be a process that involves mistakes, any business is going to do that. We're just close to it, and it's easy for us to see the mistakes.
Liberty doesn't get where they are by having the mistakes outstrip the successes. In time FOM will be humming along and we'll wonder why we missed Bernie.
I'm still convinced that Liberty thought they were getting F1, whereas the commercial rights give them very little power over the product itself. The FIA was often in Bernie's pocket, so it's natural to assume FOM had control, and I'm sure Bernie did nothing to dissuade them from that idea. (Why else sideline him?)
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Honestly, even though I've been following F1 for over 30 years, I never understood the F1 business model or politics. Or maybe I was just never bothered to try to understand it. Specifically, I never understood how one person could be in control of the whole of F1. It's like one guy owning the Champions League in football. How did it ever come to that?
I understand the FIA and FOM are different things, but not why FOM yields so much power, apparently for ever and ever. Aren't these contracts negotiated on a few yearly basis (think Sky with the Premier League in the UK)?
As to the question, it's not clear to me what Liberty have actually changed, so far. They've made a few proposals, but nothing has materialised as far as I am aware. I think their aims are OK - to make it more approachable to the more casual fans. I get the impression that Indy racing or NASCAR do this better. Being European, I follow neither, except when Mansell went over there back in the mid-90s. What I thought then was the racing seemed more exciting (but perhaps not of the same quality).
And that is one point to note about overtaking. Whilst at the moment it is too difficult and on some circuits quite impossible, it should not be too easy either. An overtake should be difficult and should mean something. It's what I thought about Indy racing, almost too many overtakes...
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Liberty has made some good changes and some bad changes. Some of the biggest of both haven't fully shaken out their consequences yet. It took 15 years for some of Bernie's biggest blunders to become apparent, and perhaps longer for the brilliance of his best idea (making a full-time position for Sid Watkins) to become completely apparent...
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As far as I can tell, Liberty and certainly not Bernie has addressed one of the sports biggest problems: the inability of the venues to make a profit or even break even hosting a GP. Frankly Bernie was way off base here. He wanted governments to foot the bill for a GP bringing "prestige" to their country. That's great for Bahrain or Abu Dhabi, but he's lost India, Turkey, Korea, Malaysia etc. Eventually you run out of
suckers prospects. Recent flops in Miami and elsewhere show we are approaching that point. Plus, F1 needs some tradition to anchor it, yet they don't seem particularly interested in helping Spa, Monza or Silverstone with their problems. Maybe they've found a solution to the German GP, but it's not locked in yet. Nobody even seems to be thinking about this issue at Liberty.
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Andy I voted for too many unjustified changes, but I'm puzzled by the choice of offering fans a referendum. :confused:
No multi $million $Billion business responsible to shareholders is ever going to make major decisions based on a referendum of the public, lets be honest that's what your suggesting, fans are not necessarily even customers.
Liberty assure us they are seeking fans opinions & validation through the F1 voice site, really it's just one form of their market research.
Are the fans not customers John?
Take the fans away and the advertisers have nobody to attract to their wares and we do pay or a large proportion pay be it for race tickets, TV coverage or web site access but in one way or another we do pay.
So if you are to have success you need to listen to your customers hence the vote or referendum call it what you will.
The other way to vote is with your feet and that, I'm sure, they are trying to avoid.
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Andy I voted for too many unjustified changes, but I'm puzzled by the choice of offering fans a referendum. :confused:
No multi $million $Billion business responsible to shareholders is ever going to make major decisions based on a referendum of the public, lets be honest that's what your suggesting, fans are not necessarily even customers.
Liberty assure us they are seeking fans opinions & validation through the F1 voice site, really it's just one form of their market research.
Are the fans not customers John?
From Liberty's position, only indirectly (for the most part - anyone buying a "F1" hat, for example, would be a direct customer, but that's a tiny portion of the income). The main part of the fans' contribution is funnelled via TV companies, tracks and various company shareholders, meaning those categories are considered the customers (except for very specific merchandising situations). Those entities might need fans to keep them afloat, but that's traditionally been their concern, not the promoter's.
The lack of interest in solving the track problem indicates that there are bigger priorities in the minds of Liberty's money-makers, even if they decide to approach things logically.
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One comment about Liberty trying to run F1 "the American way" as apposed to Bernie's one man rule - One man rule is the American motorsports model. Bill France at NASCAR, Wally Parks at the NHRA, Don Panoz at the ALMS, Tony Hulman (and later Tony George) in Indy racing.
That model actually works better for motorsports. Racing is all about passion. The drivers, the builders, the crews, the marshals, the fans, we are all passionate about it. Big corporations are cold, bloodless, unemotional things that can't even begin to understand what racing is all about.
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One comment about Liberty trying to run F1 "the American way" as apposed to Bernie's one man rule - One man rule is the American motorsports model. Bill France at NASCAR, Wally Parks at the NHRA, Don Panoz at the ALMS, Tony Hulman (and later Tony George) in Indy racing.
That model actually works better for motorsports. Racing is all about passion. The drivers, the builders, the crews, the marshals, the fans, we are all passionate about it. Big corporations are cold, bloodless, unemotional things that can't even begin to understand what racing is all about.
I would think by 'American Way' they'll looking to the NFL, which is based on baseball, where one strong figure represents a partnership of the owners.
I think the achilles heel of most racing series is that they are run by a single person, which works great, until it doesn't. I think Liberty needs to approach it committee like, and hopefully one person emerges as that strong figure.
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I opted for too many changes without justification in the end. They don't seem overly open about explaining why they have made certain changes and the whole 'show' is becoming more like a computer game than a sporting event.
The intro music, the graphics, the irritating noises, and even the logo are all straight out of computer game software. In fact, watching most of the races is also like watching a computer game because the quality of the racing is so poor, but that's another story.
Liberty Media is spending far too much time messing around with presentation and far too little time focusing on substance. If I had just bought such a product from Ecclestone, I'd be learning so hard on the FIA to sort out the car design and circuit run off to improve the racing before even thinking about how it is being presented. Formula 1 does not put on exciting races and the cars are too easy to drive. This is what Liberty Media should be looking to change, not the graphics and the format of the qualifying session.
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Since the switch I've noticed the same exciting races we had under
Bernie and the same fair penalties dealt out. Just like the weather...you
can talk about it but you can't change it