F1 warned over digital future 10/12/2009 |
|
| |
| |
Senior industry figures in Formula 1 believe the sport must move with the times and work harder to engage with fans using new technology, rather than television.
Speaking at the Motor Sport Business Forum in Monaco, Gerard Lopez, the businessman who is looking to buy the Renault team, said F1 needed to do more in the area of digital media and the internet.
Lopez, who was an early investor in Skype, said: “The teams can bring the sport closer to the audience. The sport and its environment is going to be forced to change.
“Most of the broadcast contracts are based on a way of looking at things from 15, 20, 25 years ago. The fact is that in three or fours years’ time, most people in a lot of countries will be watching it not on TV as we know it today, but over the internet. And that completely redefines how you negotiate contracts and how you distribute content.
“You can’t control the internet audience in the same way as you can control the television audience. It’s a similar process to what the music industry has gone through in terms of digitising itself. You have to figure out new ways of making money out of it, because at the end of the day that’s what keeps the sport alive.”
Lotus team principal Tony Fernandes, who worked in the music industry before setting up Air Asia, was in agreement.
“I look at the future of where F1 could go if managed correctly,” he added. “It is a massive sport that is as yet untapped. We haven’t touched the whole world yet through online.
“I left the music business because it didn’t want to embrace the internet. I was at Time Warner and I said to the people there, ‘if you do not embrace the internet then the music industry will be destroyed’. They were more concerned about EBITDA – that’s earnings before everything you don’t like! I left, I quit that day and flew back from New York to London, saw Stelios [of Easyjet] on TV talking about a low cost carrier.
“Everyone thinks I am nuts to go into F1, but there is a massive opportunity there – working with the online properties, and reaching audiences that have never been reached before. There is an opportunity to make it a truly global sport like football. It can be done and I think that is why we are interested in it.”
|
| Back |
| |
| |
|
|
 |
Advertisement
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
