Parth Sherla
So, it’s your usual Sunday afternoon. You are too hungover from your party last night and just want to lie in your bed and Netflix the entire (or shall we say the remaining part of your) day. You’re surfing and surfing and BAM! Your eyes fall on something interesting. It’s the new Netflix Original Drive To Survive, an exciting and thrilling new series into the world of Formula 1 and all of its crazy events. And the next thing you know, YOU ARE HOOKED! Not just to the series anymore. You are a fan of the sport now. You are a fellow F1 aficionado! But, what if there was no Drive To Survive? Would you still be here? Let’s try and find out, shall we?
Now, the parent company of Formula 1, which is Liberty Media in case you didn’t know, uses Netflix’s Drive To Survive to attract a younger audience to the sport. The Millennials and the Gen Z, to be precise. So far, the strategy is working. In 2020 alone, 77% of F1’s audience growth was due to this hit show. In the same year, the sport was able to achieve a 99% increase in social media engagements. The highest growth by any professional sporting entity! The sporting event that stands second in these rankings is UFC at 48%. That is a huge gap, much like the largest winning margin of 2 laps in F1 history. Also, we cannot ignore the fact that some of the companies holding a stake in Formula 1 are listed companies, for example, Liberty Media is a publicly listed company on NASDAQ, so, consistent performance on the financial end is crucial.
But, what if Drive To Survive stops shooting after their latest season? Will F1 be able to attract a newer audience? Will their stakeholder’s stock plummet as their audience decline? Will their audience decline? It can so be that some percentage of the new viewers gained due to the show, were viewing the sport just for the sake of the show. Because every new season of Drive To Survive gave them a rush of adrenaline. For such a type of audience, the show is more important than what it represents, i.e. FORMULA 1.
First and foremost, let’s address the burning question, why would Formula 1 end Drive To Survive? To elaborate on this, we might have to take multiple scenarios into account here.
Firstly, to attract a mass audience to their sporting events, multiple sporting entities have various social media-based or OTT platform-based strategies put into action. You have your shows based on football (European football, not the American kind, although that exists too), tennis, cricket, and the list goes on. So, it is quite evident that in the long run, F1 will face some challenges bringing in a newer audience (cause one can only follow so much), on the off-set, they might struggle to retain the current traffic. Why is it that you ask? You might not get enough content or ‘action’ to fill into the 1-hour long, 10 episodes series. And to be honest, after a while it gets a bit bland. Unless there’s an alien spaceship landing on the track and creating a commotion, everything else is going to remain pretty much the same. Your occasional crashes, qualifying dilemma, race drama, etc. Not much of an innovation in that area. Secondly, finances have given significant importance to Drive To Survive as their sole strategy to bring in new fans. From a business standpoint, that’s an extremely risky move. Lastly, how long will the hype of the series last? It is a universal truth that every sitcom, series, or show whatever it is, becomes a bit too mainstream to spark any new enthusiasm. It’s better to end it on its zenith than to shut it down at nadir. And hearing from the F1 community after the release of the Drive To Survive Season 3, it seems that the show might well have started its downward journey from its peak.
Imagining the show stops, in the wake of its end, it has already created a huge fan base for the sport consisting largely of a younger and loyal audience. These rookie fans will likely spread the word around, as social media engagements of the sport have increased as well. It is a fairly decent chance that the ramifications in the aftermath of the show’s end will be controlled. Although the engagement rate will be slower, it will be there nonetheless. Considering, the competition between different sporting entities, Formula 1 might have to come up with something new if Drive To Survive does stop.
One thing is for sure, it is crucial for F1’s long-term future to appeal to the younger audience in some way or the other. It is the key to its survival.
