Life is a highway... or a race track. NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby hated Formula 1 in “Talladega Nights,” but Americans are loving it. That's why F1 just added a race in Vegas that’ll debut in November 2023.
- Fast: The 3.8-mile street course will run along the Vegas Strip, passing landmarks like Caesars Palace and the Bellagio Fountain (top speed: 212 mph).
- Furious: Vegas will be F1’s third race in the US — that’s more F1 races than any other country. F1's other US Grand Prix's are in Austin and Miami.
- Too fast, too furious: F1′s first race in Miami this May sold out in a day. The GP in Austin last year had 400K+ fans — the most-attended race in F1's 70-year history.
NASCAR has #StreamEnvy… so does IndyCar. The US has become F1's fastest-growing market, largely thanks to Netflix. Interest in F1 has soared since Netflix's docuseries “F1: Drive to Survive” premiered in 2019.
- Rewind to 2016: Liberty Media, the public company that owns the Atlanta Braves and SiriusXM, bought Formula 1 for $4.4B.
- Back then, F1 had 100M global viewers per race — but US interest was weak, F1 was under-monetized, and fans skewed older.
- New strategy: Slick marketing with a focus on young Americans boosted F1’s US fanbase and made it the fastest-growing major sport on social media.
If you wanna go big, go broad… F1 used to be seen as a Euro-centric luxury sport for the wealthy (think: Rolex ads, races in Monaco). But one Netflix series and a strategy shift later, F1 fans are younger and more diverse (average age: 32). By focusing on US expansion, Liberty Media is accessing an economy that’s 6-7X larger than any European country. And Liberty’s Formula One Series C shares are up 60% in the past year.