F1 CEO and President Stefano Domenicali believes the new broadcast partnership with Apple will help the sport become part of American culture.
Apple will take over ESPN as US broadcaster in 2026begins a five-year deal that will see sports switch from traditional cable broadcast platforms to streaming services. Apple has also promised further reach and content opportunities through a number of other products, and Domenicali said the sport wasn’t just looking at the numbers, but was looking for partnerships to further increase its profile in the United States.
“To be relevant in the United States, you have to start becoming part of that culture,” Domenicali said. “At home in America, we wake up in the morning and talk about sports and what’s happening, and that’s the real goal we want to achieve by working with Apple.
“Apple is more than just a platform. With their technology and vision, they are a social movement that has identified something unique, and we are really relying on that to convey the message of F1. For the next five years, they will be our voice and a key partner in the market where we believe we can grow dimensionally and positively in a very important way.”
“We believe that when we talk about Apple, we’re not just talking about technology, we’re not just talking about connectivity, we’re talking about social relevance. So we have to think that without a socially relevant platform, we can’t grow in the dimensions that we want to grow in a country like the United States.”
“So it’s a perfect match to have social relevance in a way that everyone wakes up and thinks about F1 first, preferably as soon as possible. You probably think I’m crazy when I think about the NFL or the NBA or MLS, but that should really be our goal.”
“People think of our sport as more than just a sport, and that’s what we really want to do with our friends at Apple.”
Eddie Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, says there’s a good chance F1 will gain an even bigger following in the US, based on the success of its most popular sport.
“When you look at this, I think it goes from a very small number to a very large number,” Cue said. “But when you compare it to other sports in the United States, it’s definitely the biggest sport, and I think F1 is and should be American.”The opportunity for growth is huge.
“It’s exponentially huge. It’s not about adding a few things. We can grow this sport exponentially. So I think this opportunity is really great. What some people sometimes look at as a negative – time zones and all that stuff – I look at it as a positive, because in many cases you can’t compete with other sports in the United States from that standpoint.”
“So we’re going to be smarter about how we channel one thing into another and into different parts. But we think it’s going to grow significantly. Motorsports in general is growing in the United States, but F1 in particular is the best in the world.”
“We have a lot of great ideas and plans. As you know, for the movie we brought some new technology to F1. And as we look out over the next five years, it’s going to be very exciting to innovate and come up with new things. And we can try things. It’s very easy if you control every aspect. That’s what we’ve brought together in this partnership.”
Both F1 and Apple say they are confident the move will not have a negative impact on viewership, thanks in part to the added value of Apple’s technology.
“When we talked about Apple’s various services and what this deal could look like or evolve into, it wasn’t just in terms of the context of those different services,” said Ian Holmes, F1’s chief media rights and broadcast officer.
“We already spend time looking at new camera technologies while shooting a movie, which ultimately helps us make a better product. Obviously, there are definitely opportunities in AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) that we can explore. So as much as the content, the relationship between the technologies is also very important.”
