Image: Unique Events.
Formula 1 in the UK is entirely dependant on ratings in order to bring in the advertising money to supplement the expensive team sport. For at least the last 40 years, the sport has worked like this. We all know why the Sky deal has happened today and that’s because of money and the spurious nature of the license fee. No longer can the BBC justify the money it costs to buy the rights to the sport in times of austerity, which is all well and good, but when you look at the other sports that they continue to buy, it starts to become puzzling why they’d drop a popular sport like Formula 1 to only 9 or 10 races a season when they buy Open Golf rights for the next 6 years, or rights to the Rugby League Challenge cup. Indeed, the sports rights list that the BBC currently owns reads like an expensive Christmas list.
It’s not that I don’t think that these other sports that I mention are unworthy; I’m not naive enough to suggest that Rugby League for example doesn’t merit a big enough fanbase in order for their showpiece final to be shown, but in the grand scale of things, compared to Formula 1 which often gets 6-8 million viewers, other sports that cost just as much cannot be justified given today’s announcement. So why do I believe that Formula 1 on the BBC is worth protecting? It’s simple. When certain sports move to Sky Sports, the company treats them well and gives them professional coverage that’s in depth and informative, whilst being attractive and glossy without resorting to the American-style ESPN-ness that some have come to expect. Simply speaking, Sky Sports is fantastic because it does television sport coverage right.
There are two problems with this however, ratings and what the BBC already offers. The Formula 1 coverage on the BBC is already in depth and informative, it has a great young presenter in Jake Humphrey, fantastic commentary by former Formula 1 drivers Martin Brundle and David Coulthard, to the minute reporting from Lee McKenzie and Ted Kravitz as well as being given priority and stunning coverage in High Definition on the BBC One HD channel. The BBC already puts F1 at the forefront of its live sporting coverage and its delivery has been superb and on a whole different level to the previous rights-holders ITV whose coverage was lax and even interrupted live coverage to screen adverts, often at exciting points of a race.
With the above in mind, that draws me back to my original points; what on earth can Sky Sports offer viewers of F1 (who bear in mind, are used to free coverage of the sport) when they already have amazing coverage on the BBC? Sky Sports comes at a premium and given the scheduling of races at weekends, Sky may even relegate the coverage of qualifying on a Saturday to Sky Sports 2, ditto with the main race on a Sunday if it comes against a lunchtime or evening kick off of a football match, which arguably, Sky will argue would be more important. For this reason, Sky cannot offer the same level of coverage that the sport has been used to since its televised inception. There’s no doubt that Sky Sports will dedicate a great deal amount of money and time to Formula 1, but Bernie will have to get used to the fact that for the first time in the UK, half of the races will be shown on a channel that won’t give the sport priority. What does this mean for fans? Well apart from the fact that Sky may let Formula 1 become victim to haphazard scheduling, they really have little to no incentive for fans to invest a great deal of money into subscribing to watch the sport.
If the BBC are showing half of the races a season until 2018, then why would anyone in their right mind pay for Sky Sports to watch the rest? It just doesn’t make sense, it’s pricing the loyal fans out of an already expensive sport. The magic will be lost forever if this happens to continue. If Bernie wanted Formula 1 to become a premium sport like football has become in this country – whereby you have to pay in order to watch the most high-profile matches – then he’s about 25 years late off the mark. Formula 1 already has a fanbase and fantastic coverage elsewhere, and I’m not naive enough to assume that it couldn’t be a little bit better, but moving most races to a pay TV operator just will not work and I predict that this will be detrimental to the sport in this country. At the end of the day, Formula 1 doesn’t need Sky Sports, and in a way, Sky Sports doesn’t need Formula 1. It’s not like darts or speedway, two sports in particular that have become reliant on the coverage and money that Sky Sports brings in to keep the sport going professionally.
Formula 1 is already a sport driven by money, but it has an affinity with its fans that is unlike any other sport. Football seems to have lost its way with massive transfers and the whole endeavour becoming somewhat of a soap opera year-round, but Formula 1 is about passion, skill and strategy. Unfortunately, I can’t see this deal panning out too well and it would be wise of Bernie to keep his mouth firmly shut at this moment in time, because financially, he’s let the sport go to owners who aren’t necessarily going to make it any better than what it already is. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that F1′s audience will grow with Sky as Bernie seems to be saying. If any race on Sky Sports reached the lofty heights of 8 million viewers as seen with Jenson’s amazing win in Canada, then that would make it the most popular sporting event Sky have ever shown on their premium sports channels. Therefore it’s insane to say that this deal was brought in for fans, because it clearly wasn’t. It’s yet another move brought in by Bernie that’s garnered by greed. It’s sorry to see it go, because the BBC’s coverage has even won a BAFTA in the past.
But never mind, we can always watch Open Golf, or the Commonwealth Games, the Grand National or the Rugby League Challenge Cup. Oh remind me, where are all their BAFTA’s?
