10/04/2024
FEATURE BY MAX NOBLE
Politicians, those promoting questionable investment schemes, and now it appears Liberty Media, all love a straight line.
Yes, that straight line graph which promises that. "...based on our extensive three-week history, we believe that two years from now our company/product will be worth over seven trillion dollars!!" Join us now and let the fun begin! Quick limited time offer, past performance is no indicator of anything other than I've built a spreadsheet, these numbers have not been independently verified, and any quotes from notable figures may, or may not, be officially endorsed by said person, or entity, but act now or miss out FOREVER!
Yup! Viewing figures that were projected to reach Mars around August this year have gone backward big time. How can that be so? Well Liberty Media has simply forward projected the stunning growth achieved at points in the past few years infinitely into the future. Back in the days of Mr. Chase he was presenting figures which would suggest within a few years F1 would have more viewers than there are humans on Earth. Yes! Either people are tuning in from the afterlife or from a Galaxy far, far away...
The opposite of a straight line obsession can be considered the concept of "regression to the norm". This concept states that any major deviation, either positive or negative, will over time ease back to the long-term normalised average. Some people are using this right now to deny climate change, stating the current run of record breaking temperatures, and weather events is simply a blip, not unlike those in the distant past. That's fine... except for several billion years Earth was incapable of supporting human life. So we have a bit of a vested interest in not going back to a naturally toxic atmosphere! But I digress...
If we consider the COVID lock-down and Drive to Survive lucking into a period when people would binge-watch paint drying on the walls of Mexican haciendas, that would be a positive blip for Liberty Media. A major upward deviation from the norm. This year we are witnessing a slump back to the norm. Which is to say, those regularly watching F1 are the core fans who have watched it for many years, and pass the love along to their kids, and dear friends, over time. Modest year-on-year growth might be witnessed, but not the nose bleed altitudes predicted by Liberty based on selective figures from a blip not of their making.
The viewer slump this year has nothing to do with V. Max dominating. As I've previously noted. Did everyone cease watching during the Schumacher years? No! The fan base increased, especially in Germany which briefly enjoyed two grands prix a year! Did Tennis suffer while Rodger Federer won nearly everything he entered? No! Fans flocked to see his greatness in action, breathless to see the master at work. Did we hear the Professional Tennis Association screaming for new rules to hobble Rodger's performance? No! They did not straight line predict into the future that Rodger would win every major tournament out to 2055. They knew all such moments pass, and the sport will then witness a new generation of heroes.
We are seeing that right now. Rodger is long retired. Nadal can hardly keep his body working long enough to walk from the Airport to the tennis court. And Novak has now been repeatedly beaten in both quarter and semi-final matches, failing to make finals for the first time in years! There is no panic in the Tennis universe.
Yet Liberty and the FIA have broken out the ruler and used it to predict that the fan base will reach eight billion by next Christmas, and that V. Max will win every race between now and his 70th birthday. Both uses of the straight line are extreme rot.
The fan base will stabilise around pre-COVID levels, give or take a few percent. The move to pay TV in many countries did more harm to viewing figures than V. Max winning for a couple of seasons. Then, at some point V. Max will cease to win. This will be because...
Option one, another team builds a superior car, and they have a good enough driver to edge V. Max. Option two, V. Max ceases to find the obsessive passion to win, and "does a Nico" and promptly quits on the spot. Option three, Red Bull implode/forget how to generate the magic and the car is no good. Option four, when Honda moves to Aston it makes their package the best on the grid and Alonso finally gets his third championship. Option five, the 2026 rule changes promote Aston, Ferrari, Mercedes or McLaren back to the top of the heap. Option six, V. Max gets old enough his reflexes start to fail and a younger driver can simply beat him on track. Option seven... none of the above, but a Black Swan event.
So, just as straight lines on a track are boring, it's an amazing mix of curves which generates the playground for greatness, so straight lines and useful maths really do not go together. Does a Newey designed car look like a Tesla Cyber truck? No. Do Dolphins look like cornflake packets? No. Do you maintain laminar flow over an aircraft wing by making it as flat and square as a floorboard. No (well, unless you're a Boeing 737 MAX but don't get me started on that design disaster... and they put my bloody name on it!). Parking bays, tennis court markings, the sides if Victoria Beckham's dresses? Yes, here straight lines work wonders.
Heck if you're lucky the cushions around the edge of the pool table down at your local. Yes. There are places for straight lines. But, not in finance forecasts. Not in earning projections. Not in viewer growth figures. Not for predicting "the same old outcome" for decades to come within any sport. Why even stupidity does not rise as a straight line. It might feel like it... but stupidity has been a constant ever since the second caveman tried to sell the first caveman dumb neighbour rock insurance. You know. Just in case all that granite in places like Stonehenge got washed away one rainy April morning. It could happen! (Sign here, here, and here... payments in velociraptor skins by 108 instalments...)
Politicians to the trough? Yup that's a straight line. Sociopathic, narcissistic, ego maniacs to the mirror? Yup, another straight line. Trump to X (formally Twitter), but now "Truth Social"? Yup a straight line with bells on. Same-same for Trump's index finger travelling to the CAPS LOCK key...
Best tracks on the planet? Most beautiful Ferraris of all time? A wedge-tail eagle in full flight? Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm? Curves, curves and more curves. Nature hates a straight line. Physics works in "one over r squared" circles of softly decaying beauty.
Which would confuse Liberty Media, the FIA, and the clamouring masses of TikTok obsessed new-age F1 fans. Curves and physics or straight line madness? Do we send a convocation of eagles to torment them? Personally I'd be in favour of the following solution. Dress Nicole as the Lady Galadriel from the battle with the Dark Lord in the Hobbit (if you've not seen it, it is well worth a watch - should you enjoy fantasy films). Then add out-sized wedge-tail eagles around her in adamantine Steam-Punk battle armour filling the skies like the flying monkeys in the original Wizard of Oz movie. Now we have a battle on our hands.
This battle would result in one of only two outcomes. Option one, the FIA and Liberty Media finally get that straight lines are both overrated and incorrect. They would finally realise a vision of curves adding beauty to all aspects of life, most especially racing specific tracks of great beauty. Option two, like Prometheus, they refuse to see sense, and thus will be pinned to a rock and have the eagles eat their liver every day for all eternity. A lifetime of regret will be gifted to them. Ouch... Watch out for those straight lines dear reader! They can cut and hurt!
Max Noble
Learn more about Max and check out his previous features, here