Apple wants to screen real F1 races after its film's success
Apple TV+ is reportedly looking to expand its sports coverage with a bid for the rights to F1 motor racing, specifically following the success of its Brad Pitt movie.
Brad Pitt in "F1"
If you thought Apple's constant promotion of F1 would end after the film leaves theaters and starts streaming, you might be wrong. According to the Financial Times, Apple is in talks to acquire the US rights to screen F1, once the organizers' current broadcast contract ends in 2026.
Apple tends to try buying worldwide rights to programming, but that doesn't appear to be possible this time. At present, Disney-owned EPSN has the US rights, and it's that contract which is due to expire.
Reportedly, ESPN did have an exclusive option to negotiate continuing the present contract, but that ended in 2024 without a deal. Consequently, ESPN can now face competition from Apple and, according to two unnamed sources, potentially other bidders.
F1 rights have been owned by Liberty Media since 2017. In that time, audiences on ESPN doubled to around 1.1 million by 2024. Consequently, it's claimed that the next US rights deal had been estimated to be worth $121 million.
However, that valuation was before both Apple's "F1" movie becoming a hit, and Netflix's award-winning "Drive to Survive" documentary about the sport.
Apple has not commented on the report, and nor have either Liberty Media or representatives of the F1's regulatory body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile.
Separately, the success of "F1: The Movie" has reported prompted Apple to consider taking complete control over global distribution of its films. Up to now, the company has partnered with existing distributors to get its films into theaters, for instance with "F1" being distributed by Warner Bros.
Read on AppleInsider
Brad Pitt in "F1"
If you thought Apple's constant promotion of F1 would end after the film leaves theaters and starts streaming, you might be wrong. According to the Financial Times, Apple is in talks to acquire the US rights to screen F1, once the organizers' current broadcast contract ends in 2026.
Apple tends to try buying worldwide rights to programming, but that doesn't appear to be possible this time. At present, Disney-owned EPSN has the US rights, and it's that contract which is due to expire.
Reportedly, ESPN did have an exclusive option to negotiate continuing the present contract, but that ended in 2024 without a deal. Consequently, ESPN can now face competition from Apple and, according to two unnamed sources, potentially other bidders.
F1 rights have been owned by Liberty Media since 2017. In that time, audiences on ESPN doubled to around 1.1 million by 2024. Consequently, it's claimed that the next US rights deal had been estimated to be worth $121 million.
However, that valuation was before both Apple's "F1" movie becoming a hit, and Netflix's award-winning "Drive to Survive" documentary about the sport.
Apple has not commented on the report, and nor have either Liberty Media or representatives of the F1's regulatory body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile.
Separately, the success of "F1: The Movie" has reported prompted Apple to consider taking complete control over global distribution of its films. Up to now, the company has partnered with existing distributors to get its films into theaters, for instance with "F1" being distributed by Warner Bros.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I used to watch F1 and even go to the odd race but then it went behind a paywall and going costs an arm and a leg and then some.
F1 today is all about how much money can be fleeced from the fans and now much advertising can be eyeballed by viewers and not the racing.
I hope Apple does not pay good money for the F1 rights. There are better and more exciting sports to broadcast. Tiddlywinks perhaps?
i also feel the reference to F1 being for adults is a bit unpleasant.
And yes, here in the USA, it's easy to catch the FIFA Club World Cup, it streams for free on DAZN. The regular World Cup competition has quite a few matches broadcast OTA ("rabbit ear antennae"). Having to pay to watch a sport does not make it "for adults" [sic].
As for Formula 1, it was a far more interesting sport in the Seventies. Today's cars are stretch limousines in comparison and make passing very, very difficult. It's really just a computer model competition today, whoever has the most powerful computers and skilled programmers running the best CFD simulations basically wins. 98% of the competition happens before the car is even assembled which is why mid-season improvements are extremely modest. That's one of the reasons why Verstappen is thinking about bolting from Red Bull.
Worse, today's F1 doesn't offer good race visuals. The drivers are doing A LOT of interaction with the car's various systems and almost none of these actions translate into something appealingly watchable on television. The drivers are some of the most skilled motorsports competitors on the planet but it's not translating into an entertaining television product. If you watch 2-3 F1 races, it's easy to see 6-8 major issues that hinders this sport in 2025.
With the individual races becoming so boring it's no surprise that the attention drifts to the off-track activities which have veered toward high-end lifestyle marketing, much like America's Cup yacht racing (also the domain of supercomputers and high-end CFD model simulations).
There's no way that Apple could afford to become the exclusive streaming rightsholder for Formula 1. And with the way today's competition is being held I don't think it would be worth it anyhow as it has become so untelegenic.
Oh, and by the way, Corn Hole is becoming something, and I'm told that there are athletic scholarships becoming available in some of the Midwest schools that are in competition.