Formula One (F1) is racing towards the mainstream stratosphere and a key reason for the surge in fan interest can be attributed to the embracement of US sports’ entertainment-focused strategies.
Nick LaManna, Brand Strategy Lead at Designit, argues that this opening of arms to digital content storytelling, personalisation of athletes, while maintaining its traditional roots have expanded its global fanbase by attracting new eyes.
When F1 celebrated its 75th birthday in London this spring, something felt different. Amid the gleaming cars and champagne, the sport wasn’t just honouring its past… it was unveiling its American-inspired future.
The F1 75 launch traded the sport’s traditionally buttoned-up European announcements into something akin to a glitzy, in-your-face Hollywood awards show. This wasn’t just a new marketing strategy; it was the visible result of F1’s most ambitious experiment: bringing over the top American-style entertainment to a European institution.
While Netflix’s Drive To Survive has famously attracted American fans, F1’s transformation reflects an understanding that entertainment elements aren’t merely decorative additions but strategic amplifiers of the core product. Use spectacle to draw new audiences through the door, but rely on the dramatic performances and stories of triumph and heartbreak to hook people and turn viewers into fans.
In this delicate calibration, F1 offers a blueprint for how legacy sporting institutions might embrace cultural evolution without surrendering their soul.
Bringing storytelling into the fast lane
There have been fly-on-the-wall style sport documentaries that take fans behind the scenes – like Amazon Prime’s All or Nothing – but the true magic of Drive to Survive lies in its ability to use reality show techniques to humanise the drivers.
Behind the helmets and fireproof suits are real people with ambitions, fears, and rivalries that transcend the track. By placing these personalities at the forefront of the narrative, the show transforms an intricate, technical sport into accessible human drama powered by the raw emotion of competition.
And F1’s growth trajectory hinges on this narrative arbitrage. While legacy fans can obsess over pit strategies and tyre degradation, new markets will be conquered through emotional currency. The nail-biting finish to the 2021 championship, defined by the rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, made for TV gold – even if you didn’t understand exactly what was at stake, the tension between the two drivers made it a gripping watch.
Giving audiences the opportunity to see the real personalities of the drivers comes in stark contrast to how athletes across other sports tend to present themselves to fans. Football and rugby players, for example, are famously well-rehearsed for their highly predictable, and therefore often dull, post-match interviews.
But this is beginning to change as sports stars leverage social media to build and monetise their personal brands. Inside the paddock, McLaren’s Lando Norris founded Quadrant, a gaming and lifestyle brand where he collaborates with content creators, and Red Bull Racing’s Yuki Tsunoda launched a streetwear line. Other young sports stars are taking similar steps to grow their online presence and personal brands, like darts champion Luke Littler and sprinter Noah Lyles.
This points to a broader change in the way that fans interact with the athletes they support, which is increasingly focused on an individual rather than a team. F1 has the perfect balance of individual and team storytelling, so when it comes to delivering what both established and newer fans are seeking, a blending of stories from off the track with performances on it will make for a more rounded and satisfying fan experience.
That’s entertainment
In today’s relentless attention economy, the pathway to F1 fandom doesn’t begin with awareness of racing – it starts with awareness of entertainment options that compete for those same eyeballs.
This is because people aren’t just choosing between F1 and other sports – they’re choosing between F1 and whatever else might delight them for two hours on a Sunday. To thrive, F1 must transform itself into an entertainment brand capable of standing toe-to-toe with giants like Disney+ and Netflix.
Building an entertainment powerhouse that can compete with these heavyweights means expanding F1’s offering far beyond just the races themselves. The true opportunity lies in creating an ecosystem where the racing remains the heartbeat, but the entertainment value of bringing together more of the things fans love – like music, digital content, exclusive content – extends across platforms and experiences.
F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali, has spoken before about his desire to grow the sport into an all-encompassing “entertainment platform”. Through the inclusion of musical acts as part of race weekends, and such spectacles as the F1 75 Live event, he’s getting closer to realising that ambition.
It’s not exactly traditional, at least not outside the US, but there’s no denying that musical guests are a great lure for bringing in first-time viewers, and enticing casual fans to delve deeper into a sport.
The uninitiated might not look twice as they walk past a screen showing the Austin Grand Prix – but they might well do if they spot Taylor Swift. It certainly adds to the spectacle, and turns what might be a fairly niche event into a cultural phenomenon.
The Super Bowl is the market leader in this regard. Its half-time show makes it a far more momentous date on the sporting calendar, especially for international fans. More than 62.5 million viewers outside the US tuned in to watch the 2024 Super Bowl, a record-breaking figure at the time, undoubtedly made larger by the series of A-list celebrities taking the stage at half-time. This year’s game attracted a record number of viewers outright, as a result of the sport’s growth outside the States.
It has to feel right
However, despite all this added entertainment, you can’t afford to alienate long-time supporters of the sport. Changes will only be accepted by fans – old and new – if the fundamental ingredients are protected: the sounds, the smells, the competition.
The races will always be at the heart of whatever the bigger F1 experience grows to be. It’s heartening to see that while those who attend the physical events will get more value for money, the actual races will remain uninterrupted. There’s no ‘half-time’ aspect to the off-track performances at race weekends.
New fans will be drawn in by spectacle and star power, but the sport’s soul needs to be protected. Taking the brand to the next stage in its evolution means learning to embrace influences outside of F1, without compromising the sport’s heritage and its integrity.
Musical guests and big personalities must be nurtured in a way that adds to the value F1 offers fans without changing the sport entirely; growth must come from building on F1’s enduring strengths, rather than creating something new altogether.
Success will result from preservation of the tension, technical excellence and drama that’s always been at the heart of racing. Making it more accessible and ultimately more entertaining can only be a positive, provided it still feels like F1.
Formula One’s brave new world.
The brilliance of F1’s American-influenced trajectory is its recognition that spectacle and substance aren’t opposing forces but complementary ones. This is the central insight that eludes so many legacy institutions: Americanisation at its best doesn’t flatten legacies – it frames them within accessible narratives.
F1 isn’t abandoning its European roots — it’s grafting them onto a storytelling tradition that Americans have perfected. The American sports template, with its emphasis on personality, narrative, and entertainment value, provides F1 with tools to amplify what has always made racing extraordinary.
In this sense, the Americanisation of F1 isn’t a betrayal of tradition but perhaps its salvation in a fractured attention economy where even excellence needs amplification to be seen and appreciated.
