Please, Mister, Can We Have Our Ball Back?
Sidepodcast are running a F1 Fantasy League at the moment and, in a recent post, they published some statistics on the countries of origin of the entrants. From the very pretty graph supplied, one glaring fact springs immediately to the eye: the USA has the most participants by a considerable margin.
Alright, one can quibble about some entrants giving their nationality as English or Scottish rather than UK but, even if all their numbers are added together, the States are only three people behind. If we then add the Canadians, who are third in the list, it is quite clear that North America has a crushing majority over the European heartland of F1. According to Bernie Ecclestone, who has said that the sport does not need the USA, that should not be possible.
In order to shake Bernie from his misconceptions, it is necessary to delve deeper into the anomaly of the Sidepodcast figures. There is no doubt that the Stateside F1 fans are in a minority amongst their countrymen, so why should so many of them be moved to take part in a fantasy league based on the sport? The answer lies in the very fact of their minority status.
In previous discussions on this blog, it has become clear that US F1 fans are forced to be more dedicated to the sport than the millions of European supporters. Surrounded by a sea of NASCAR fans and followers of such American sports as football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey, F1 fans have developed a siege mentality to defend their special interest. Those who have survived the temptations of other sports and the occasionally farcical displays put on at their home GP have proved their devotion and defended it by acquiring extensive knowledge of the sport. It is safe to say, therefore, that the vast majority of US F1 supporters are enthusiasts rather than casual fans.
Suddenly the Sidepodcast stats make sense. I would be prepared to bet that the US entrants represent a much higher percentage of the country's fanbase than do the figures for the UK. Fantasy leagues attract the real fans, those who cannot get enough of their chosen sport and need more outlets for their passion. In the UK, the entrants come from the enthusiast section of the fanbase and the casual fans (who probably number more than the dedicated fans) do not bother with a fantasy league. In the US, almost all the fans are enthusiasts and so are more likely to enter such a competition.
This does not mean that there are more enthusiasts in the States than in the UK. British fans are supplied with a wealth of routes to fantasy leagues, through newspapers, magazines and websites; Sidepodcast will have swept in only a proportion of them. In America, however, access to F1-related matters is much more limited; the enthusiast has to venture abroad to feed his habit. And that means the internet - Sidepodcast, being one of the leading F1 sites, will attract a higher percentage of US devotees purely because Statesiders have fewer options than their European counterparts.
So is Bernie right to despise the American fanbase? In the short term, maybe, and the F1 media supremo seems interested only in the shortest way to a quick buck these days. He will always go for those countries that can pay the most and promise to increase the number of casual fans watching the TV broadcasts. When criticizing the American GP, Bernie is really saying that it does not make enough money for him to bother with. And it is more difficult to build a casual fanbase in the States than in any other country - they are already over-supplied with a myriad other sports on their televisions.
And yet this is incredibly short-sighted. Sooner or later, F1 is going to run out of countries that will pay obscene amounts of money for the right to stage a GP and, when that happens, the potential for adding casual viewers will be severely restricted. The sport will have to fall back on its dedicated followers, therefore, and it may find that it has alienated them forever in the meantime. That is no skin off Bernie's nose - he will have retired long before that happens. But it should matter to those of us who really care about the future of F1.
The Sidepodcast stats show that F1 has already succeeded in building a core of dedicated F1 followers in the States. They may be a tiny percentage of the population but still represent a sizable following in comparison to the fanbase in European countries. Bernie must know how difficult it is to build viewership in the States but he should be forced to see that the hardest work has already been done - there is a following in the the US and it is already large enough to justify at least one USGP. He has given Spain two this year and yet the American fanbase must be many times larger than the Spanish, especially when the Canadians are taken into account.
If Bernie retains even a drop of love for the sport, he should be sitting down with Tony George (who has remained keen on a USGP at Indy, incredibly enough) and working towards the return of F1 to the States next year. That will demonstrate much more foresight and wisdom than talking to some Russian gangsters about a mythical GP in St Petersburg.