The Passion of F1
By Greg Kahn
Emerging Tech Exchange
Founder & CEO
Published on May 2, 2023
“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games,” said Ernest Hemingway.
Formula 1 has proven itself to be the center of tech, sports, and entertainment with intense, massive fandom as its foundation.
I’m heading down to Miami later today to take it all in. Whether you’re a long-time fan of the global motocross racing event, a newcomer, or if you think F1 is some kind of protein shake, there are many reasons to be fascinated by the growth of the brand.
It took the sport more than 70 years to catch on in the US, but F1 has more than made up for lost time. Roughly a third of F1’s 500 million fans are new within the last four years.
The building of today’s Formula 1 American fan base wasn’t sudden and it wasn’t unplanned. It all began a decade ago, when it held a race in Austin, Texas and captured the city’s digital trendsetters.
Five years later, media giant Liberty Media acquired it. But the big breakthrough came four years ago when Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive turned the open-wheel racing action into something binge-worthy. F1 has been selling out its grand prixs from Las Vegas to Dubai to the Netherlands to Miami and around the world ever since.
Investors, media/technology and marketing execs...Why should you care about F1?
The company’s success with young, affluent, digital-centric fans provides a blueprint on how media properties and brands can combine consumers’ passion areas with technology.
Greg Kahn
Emerging Tech Exchange
Founder & CEO
