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2000s โ F1 had 60 mil viewers ๐
2023 โ It has 6 million viewers ๐
Hereโs why F1 lost the game in India โฌ๏ธ
Quick history pages ๐
In 2011 the first F1 race was championed by a German driver on the roads of the Buddh International circuit in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Unfortunately, that was one of the first & last F1 races held in India.
Fast forward 12 years โ๏ธ
Even after millions of people watching Netflixโs critically acclaimed โDrive To Surviveโ, the F1 viewership in growth has only gone down. Some extremely wrong comparison, IPL has 10X the viewership than F1 in India.
So whatโs behind F1โs failure in India? ๐ฎ๐ณ
1/ The whole tax tussle ๐ต
F1 wanted to not pay entertainment tax on its races as it considered itself as โsportsโ - this battle between the Indian government and F1 made any large championship races come to India.
2/ Fragile distribution ๐บ
You need live races, you need stadium sales and you need broadcasters. F1 failed on all three fronts. Which brings us to ticket prices.
3/ Extremely high ticket prices ๐
The range of โน1,500 to โน21,000 was just wrong. Compare this to the most awaited sports tournament in the country โ IPL which has tickets starting at โน500. This was a huge miss.
4/ Broadcasters werenโt convinced ๐ฅบ
F1โs official broadcaster through ages has chosen to not renew their rights for India. F1 had to launch its own live-stream service F1 TV, in India. I have no words to explain this.
5/ Missing Indian car drivers ๐๐ผโโ๏ธ
F1 viewership peaked during Narain Karthikeyan, an Indian driver & when Force India (Indian F1 team) was on the grid. Once that went away - local news/ social had no incentive to cover races.
6/ The European timings โฑ
Europe is the oldest and biggest market for F1. Exactly why qualifying events & races are adjusted for EU time. But this translates to odd timings on Sat & Sun for the India timezone - you lose the massy fan base.
7/ Category education missing ๐ฉ๐ปโ๐ซ
You canโt experience F1 (except Xbox & GoKarting) without the races. Unlike Cricket & Football, itโs expensive to pay โน500/1000 for a 10 min Go Karting session. Car racing as a category hasnโt been nourished, yet.
So, whatโs next for F1 in India? โก๏ธ
The live F1 streaming service launched does not feel like any major change. If F1 can find a broadcaster, get better local talent & really learn some pages from the IPL playbook. Plus, might be a good shot to scale F2/F3 first - a more localized approach before pulling the plug off on the 5th largest economy.
Thatโs all of F1 India for today ๐ฏ
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From the archives this week ๐
How men's grooming touched โน16,000 Cr? ๐ง๐ป
Why Formula 1 failed in India? ๐
This was informative. Thanks for sharing. Can you pls cover GTM strategy for Threads? How did that manage to achieve 100 mn users in just 5 days?