15/04/2015
FEATURE BY MAX NOBLE
Apparently we had a full F1 GP weekend in China ending in another display of Mercedes formation flying on Sunday afternoon.
After the joy, hoopla, and general merry making in Australia around "our boy" Daniel over the Melbourne weekend you'd be forgiven if you live in Australian free-to-air TV land for thinking it was the only race so far this year. Why? Because to give the ending away... Our one-hour highlight show, approximately fifty minutes of action allowing for adverts, that has been our late evening delayed free-to-air coverage is a shocking way to showcase our global sport.
Clearly people qualified, since they lined-up on the grid in an order they all knew. As it is tradition one assumes they spoke after the race. Again in free-to-air land you'd never know.
And no doubt post-race Christian Horner is sulking about something, Renault is playing the "share the blame" card, Lewis and Nico are fighting about the bitter pain of which one of them comes second, and Alonso is continuing his Zen march to transcendental enlightenment. Thankfully the internet is available in Australia (even free to air if you hang out in airport lounges, or respectable coffee houses...) so my personal desire to have a small clue as to what is going on can be sated post-race, in print and still pictures. Rather like returning to cycle racing coverage in the 1960s.
So rather than an eccentric, quaint, or irritating round up of results (depending on your view of my writing style), this short week, until we get real coverage of a race again (praise be) I'll lay forth my opinion on the pay TV free-to-air issue.
Actually I cannot resist a small round-up: Lewis and Nico only have themselves to fight. Vettel is born anew. Kimi likewise. Daniel is going to need to work on smiling under frustrating pressure for a few races yet. And Max V, bless him, really does appear to be a very fine driver. His classy over-takes in China (the brief angles I saw in the highlights show) were so sweet and clean each was a delight to watch. And Alonso is one week closer to Zen Mastery.
Now. Please share some back-story with me here for context... Not too long I promise...
Boxing has been around a long time. Since we evolved fingers and opposing thumbs this grand sport has presented minimal barriers to participation, and even fewer to spectating. Muhammad Ali remains a leading icon of the 20th century, and boxing matches such as "the rumble in the jungle", or the Tyson ear biting mess are as much cultural landmarks as they are boxing moments.
There was a time from the early days of the 20th century until the last few days of that questionable century, when most people could name the leading boxers, refer to one of the boxing 'cultural moments', or indeed had a clear and frequently informed view on fighters and up-coming fights.
Ask a general sporty type to name a few boxers, a couple of recent champions, or the current state of title fights, most likely you'll get a blank look. Ask a true die-hard boxing fan and they will know. And many of them will bet. And most of them use pay-per-view to see anything other than Olympic boxing once every four years.
The up-coming Mayweather, Pacquiao bout on 2nd May is finally generating headlines that are making it out to the general public. This is a long-awaited mainstream revival. Leading into the mid-1990s Boxing was frequently on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Easy to understand, dramatic to watch, a timeless gladiatorial combat. Since the start of this century I believe the cover count is one. The grip on the general interest viewer/follower fading during the long, dark, pay-per-view years.
Consider these figures; the largest pay-per-view global (note, global) audience for a boxing match was Mayweather vs. Oscar De la Hoya in 2007. A total of 2.5 million watched. 2.5 million out of the five or six billion of us that can access free to air TV in some manner. That's a viewing percentage around 0.042% of the total possible global audience. You reading this CVC? That's not a good return on eyeballs for marketing dollars.
The fight on 2nd May is anticipated to generate around $250m (US) You could run Ferrari for several months on that! Oh, and they are looking to charge around $100 (US) in America to watch the fight, and around $50 (US) in the UK. Do you want to pay that per Grand Prix...? Would you still care at $100 per race? Or would you read it all on the Internet for free a day or so later? And after a few years, just may-be, you'd stop doing even that.
My point? Free to air TV, supported by print newspapers reporting is what fascinated people and gave Boxing a huge global following. It made it a global sport, with a massive casual following, plus many loyal fans, and many fanatical fans. All bound together via the joy of free-access televised coverage.
Boxing got so big, those chasing the dollar wanted to convert to pay-TV in the very early days of such mechanisms. And lo, since that decision was made, those in control have made a massive amount of money, while boxing as a sport has faded considerably from general cultural awareness.
Training a world-class fighter (once one has slimed it down to realistic possibles) is not an expensive exercise. You need good food, a good gym, and a young fighter who can soak-up damage with indifference while maintaining a calm mind of iron. Add a coach, training buddies, and manager as required. A lawyer is optional until the contracts get bigger. So, even allowing for some ineffective hires, a team of less than twenty could run a class-leading boxer.
Where does this lead? Well boxing, approximately twenty-five years after entering pay-per-view land, is starting to spread back into mainstream media. Boxing needs to revive cultural awareness or its value as a moneymaking entertainment is going to slide off the radar totally. Even those in charge can see that no audience will eventually lead to no income at all.
So back to F1. Couple a growing loss of engagement due to pay only access with the general level of engagement with cars (as I argued in my piece Goodbye Horseless Carriage) and you've just over-fed the golden goose, produced just enough foie gras to make everyone feel uncomfortable, and then buried the body in an unmarked grave. But those enjoying the foie gras did have fun for a while, and grew very rich on it...
The point at which boxing becomes uneconomic via pay-per-view is a bar set very low. So pushing pay-per-view hurts cultural awareness, but the guys in the game still make significant money as general awareness and audience numbers tumbled. It has taken more than twenty years to reach a significant turning point. This would not be so for F1. It costs, really costs, to run F1 teams. An audience of 2.5 million people, even paying $100 each, will not support the sport for five minutes. The tipping point would arrive rapidly, and possibly be terminal.
Can F1 save itself twenty-five years of slipping audiences, and a general loss of cultural awareness and simply skip directly to mass media coverage, continued free-to-air viewing, and a huge Internet distribution? Learn the road trip story that boxing travelled, and, while taking a short term hit on profits, take a quick walk down a less travelled path to a more successful future? Or will a tipping point of Biblical proportions be reached far sooner and more dramatically than even Max Mosely forewarned?
Together we will find out over the next few years as finally, a new management will replace Bernie, and something will happen, or the tipping point will be reached and F1 will sink and pass into distant legend as surely as Atlantis.
Which one CVC? More smash and grab pay-only access, or an enlightened free-to-air policy, with the paying-view offering premium content over and above a basic good quality service. Or leave it to the Fates, keep eating the foie gras and await the moment of ending?
What would I consider good quality for the free-to-air? Well cover qualifying, give a half-hour bridging show between qualifying and the race, to summarise the outcome of the grid order, and set the scene for race day. Then commence with the formation lap, follow the entire race, the podium, and the post-race (initial) interviews. With a couple of graphics of driver and team standings, plus a few tag lines about what this all means for the next race – you've got a basic engaging show. The internet, such as perfectly demonstrated by Pitpass, can then provide a huge amount of valuable free data with which the avid fan can mull over the day's proceedings and eventual outcome.
Then for the cashed-up die-hard fans add the premium content. All the practice sessions, team interviews, pit walks, alternate viewing angles, follow the car, live-via-the-net chats and question times. All those 'nice to have' delights of high definition instant media that, in many instances, the Olympics delivers to the world for free every four years (where, like F1, it is usually the venue owners and hosts who take a cold shower on the cash front...).
So we had a race in China, as presented by fifty minutes of coverage, combined carelessly with an alarming number of adverts for hair restoral surgery, cameras, and top-of the-range Mercedes which most of us will never purchase. It was not an engaging experience. I only sat and watched because I'm already a fully engaged follower of F1. If I presented those fifty minutes to a passionate soccer or cricket follower they would, I'm sure, inform me that regardless of the dates of future races they were busy. On all of them.
As boxing kindly exposed for F1, should anyone in F1 management retain the facility to listen and learn, pay-per-view does not earn you a massive new audience. It retains the cashed-up avid fans you already had while attracting a few new ones over the years. But not at a rate to offset the losses caused by abandoning free-to-air.
Right now I'm looking back in anger at two Grand Prix weekends that were effectively lost to me on free-to-air.
It is worrying that all too soon I could be looking back in anger at those that killed the golden goose, ate the foie gras, took the money, and smiled in contentment as this once great sport sank below the waves passing behind the pay-wall, into myth, and so from the minds of mortal men.