Liberty Media to 'make changes' in Barcelona...

[Crafty_]

https://twitter.com/Circuitcat_eng/status/85970704...

Chase Carey: “There is no better place than Barcelona to start changing things. There are more surprises to come”

I think its is going to be quiet interesting ? any guesses ?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address...

[Crafty_]

Eric Mc said:

So glad he's gone.

That article summed up more or less everything wrong about his mindset.

What worked in 1987 is not going to work in 2017.

But he's right.15 year olds are not interested in thousands of dollars of watches or banks.

They might be interested in racing though, thats where the interest should be built.

[Crafty_]

Be under no illusions that LM want their pound of flesh, they are not going to do anything about pay TV contracts, they want the same number or more races, they let Malaysia walk away because they wouldn't drop the price.

Right now LM are saying a lot of things and all the "Bernie is a villan/scumbag/idiot/delete as applicable" are buying it. Honeymoon period is still in full effect, lets see in a few years when teams start acting like a spoilt 3 year old and stamping their feet because they can't get their way.

But for now, you go right ahead and blame Eccelstone for everything from the year dot....

[Crafty_]

Newscuttlepanel said:

Nobody's blaming Ecclestone for everything, but the business model was unsustainable, and I think Liberty know that, hopefully they realise they need to appeal to a MUCH broader range of punters.

Eric is. Eric always does.

[Crafty_]

Derek Smith said:

One good thing about dictatorships is that there's only one person to praise or blame.

Thats right because no one else had any influence whatsoever right ? Bernie wandered off to Ferrari and said "Well, seeing as you've been around so long, here's a bunch of extra cash". Likewise, he went to his bosses at CVC and said "I know you weren't that bothered about making money, but I've made $xxxm, here you go".

Derek Smith said:

As for pay TV, I think we will have to wait for their model to develop before we can come to any conclusions. Their YT channel is move that Ecclestone dismissed out of hand, in fact contemptuously.

They have already stated they don't see a need to return to FTA TV and are quite happy with the broadcasters paying. They have suggested that they might look at streaming at some point.

Derek Smith said:

Ecclestone is yesterday's man, of little consequence to the sport. Let's forget about him. What would be silly would be to eulogise him and his influences on aspects of the sport. What made F1 exciting, not to say thrilling, are the teams and the drivers. They are the ones that provided the memories and the thrills.

Derek, you and others have told us at great length many, many times that Eccelstone ruined the sport and he's a nasty evil man and so on.

Now he's of little consequence. Which is it ?

No-one is suggesting that Bernie is blameless, but to suggest that everything will be wonderful because he's gone is naive in the extreme.

[Crafty_]

Derek Smith said:

1/ Either Ecclestone was the decision maker or he wasn't. I think he was, but let's run with him being a lowly tool of CVC. So, why should we suggest he's great when he was merely a hireling doing what he was told?

He wasn't. CVC told him they wanted to make X revenue, make it happen and he did. If you doubt that you must have been living under a rock for a long time

Derek Smith said:

2/ Ah! A company said something and you believe them. That's really strange. However, I did not suggest the option of free to air so your information, whilst no doubt useful, has nothing to do with what I stated. I did mention YouTube though and I think that's an option they might try. I might be wrong; I might be right, but their present conduct suggests that they might try new options.

I mentioned streaming as well, which they said they weren't in a rush to look at but may investigate. I suspect it'll be a case of race highlights or even full races after the event. We're a very long way from live streaming

Derek Smith said:

3/ He's yesterday's man. Today it is Liberty. What's so difficult to understand?

You tell me that "to suggest that everything will be wonderful because he's gone is naive in the extreme". Thank you for that information. I will take it on board and continue not to suggest anything of the sort, not saying it 'at great length' time and time again, as I've done for post after post. After all I don't want to be hit by the incisive and clever argument of ""

Why be so obtuse ? you've bhed long and hard about Eccelstone being the worst person in the world ever and how he's ruined the sport and all the bad stuff has outweighed the good and then post "he is of little consequence" - Surely, whichever way you look at it his influence has an awful lot of consequences, no ?

Derek Smith said:

Due to enlightened self interest, I would assume that Liberty might want to favour the lower teams in some way rather than throw money at the bigger ones. Or they might try some other method of increasing the grid in the interests of their investment. There are lots of ways in which the costs of the sport could be cut, but despite lip service to the concept, budgets have increased almost year on year. The FIA has little influence.

The only reason LM will seek to lower budgets will be to make more money. There has never been "lip service" to cutting budgets, we have seen cost control - most notably with the current engines, but of course that all went out the window when competitors decided they didn't want to do that. And it all went out the window.
By the way, there was a key figure in F1 who said the new engines would be far too expensive and wouldn't improve the show, he got outvited. I wonder who that was ? He was completely right of course, no doubt you'll manage to twist events to be Eccelstone's fault.

FIA don't have any influence over the commercial side of things, that was the whole point of the EU ruling 20 odd years ago.

Derek Smith said:

The constructors were broken by money being thrust in the hands of certain team managers.

This is exactly the sort of stupid post you keep putting up here.

I've no doubt you honestly think that Eccelstone has been bribing people to get his own little evil way and that all these team managers are being taken advantage of. Thats not the way it works, it really isn't.

Seriously, if your myopic hatred of Bernie blinds you to everyone who looks after their own interests you seriously need to go and do some research and reading.

Derek Smith said:

As I've stated time and again, my argument is with those who eulogise Ecclestone, suggesting that the sport would not have survived in an enjoyable form without him, or, remarkably, that it wouldn't have even been covered on television. I will continue to argue the reverse.

And no-one can prove what would have happened in either case.

However, you can't deny that F1 is still the premier motorsport series in the world - no other car series gets 100,000 people at Silverstone year after year or Monza, Spa, Interlagos and others. The only thing that gets close is Indycar, which has had its own headaches over the years.

WEC has become popular in motorsport circles over the past few years - next time a race is on TV take a look and see how many people are at the track, it still doesn't have the draw despite the massive increase in popularity. I speak to colleagues/friends/acquaintances that aren't even aware that stuff like Blancpain exists.

All that didn't happen by coincidence. Not all of the implications of that are positive, its rare that anything is perfect so we have to accept it warts & all, in the hope that we can improve it.

[Crafty_]

KevinCamaroSS said:

Crafty, your statement makes no sense. BE made all the strategic and tactical decisions. CVC did not tell him to make a specific change, they just wanted the revenue and profits.

I agree, but given the demands from CVC in terms of revenue generation he didn't exactly have a free hand. CVC wanted short term gain, fk the long term, they like a good balance sheet.

And for clarity - yes Eccelstone made mistakes, despite what some may tell you the guy is human.
He should have looked at what other sports did/do with social media and fan interaction, NASCAR for one is light years ahead in this.
Ultimately some gambles he made haven't worked out - India and the tax situation is bizarre, Korea just wasn't a goer.
We could argue that he should of balanced money in and out better, but given we don't (and probably won't ever) know the circumstances nor the actual deals made its difficult to say definitively.

LM have a different game plan to CVC, they are interested in long term growth (or so they say), but from what they've already said they are obviously keen on short term income - Pay TV staying, more traces, they let Malaysia walk away instead of cutting a deal.

I think we're going to see another could of GPs in the USA pop up over the next few years. Over the past 3 or so years there has been a big increase in US fans, I think they'll want to exploit that and increase the momentum behind it.

Generally Americans like history and traditions, this is good for the EU races I think.

The real test will come when they have to battle with teams and promoters. Believe it or not Eccelstone didn't always get his way (V6 engines for example). How LM resolve conflicts like that will be interesting.

The most intriguing thing will be what Brawn comes up with.

[Crafty_]

Eric Mc said:

I just like racing cars to have nice big numbers. It's a "tradition" thing.

And the numbers can lend to the mythology which I think is an important aspect of sport.- like Gilles Villeneuve's No.12, or Moss No.7 or Mansell's "Red 5".

Even Lewis recognises this and he would love, I'm sure,. for his No.44 to become more iconic. Think of the branding potential.

Big, obvious, numbers make so much sense it's unbelievable that they were ever dropped. But, as we know, for years F1 has been run by arrogant and disinterested idiots who only saw the sport (and it still is a sport at heart) from their restricted viewpoint.

Not quite Gilles era, but Ferrari went retro with their numbers. I kinda like it.



NASCAR had the driver's name on the sunstrip for a while changed this year because the series title sponsor has claimed it;

Pre 2017


2017


Not a huge issue because your car number is as important as your name. Even if you are a casual viewer you'll know "your" drivers by their race number. They've got plenty of space to have the numbers easily visible too of course - they are on every surface of the car..

[Crafty_]

hairyben said:

Interviewing the top 3 plus freddy on the grid is a nice nod to the attendee fans i thought, rather than it being just about the tv viewers

Yep I think thats good, they need to sort out the sound issue to prevent the PA feedback though