F1 Chair Chase Carey "has been given the task of turning around a sport" that has lost 200 million TV viewers since '08, according to Rebecca Clancy of the LONDON TIMES. The Harvard-educated American "has decades of experience of working in sports media," as Rupert Murdoch’s "right-hand man" and exec vice-chair of 21st Century Fox in the U.S. Carey said that he and Liberty were attracted to the sport because it is an "iconic unique global event content" and has "not been managed to its potential." He said, "There are probably two overriding views. One is that unique global event content will appreciate in value in a world where everything else is fragmenting. F1 is all of that. It’s the sweet spot in the content world. I think the second would be that we think it is a franchise that has really not been managed to its full potential, I guess particularly in the last five or six years." Carey added that the management of the sport "will not be played out in public." He said, "Generally I’ve always been of the world where you try to get something done and then explain publicly why you thought that was the right thing to do." Of his broad view of the sport, Carey said, "The top line view I’ve heard multiple times is that the racing needs to be more exciting and less predictable. The rules have become very complicated. Engineers have overtaken the drivers, so we need to push the drivers back to the forefront. ... We want them all to be stars." There are about 70 employees in the company that runs F1, "mostly working in finance and legal." Carey plans to keep the organization "lean" but is "likely to double the number of staff" by hiring people in areas such as sponsorship, media, marketing and digital. Former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone "openly shunned digital platforms and social media." Carey is talking to "multiple" cities in the U.S. about hosting a race, including a street race like Monaco and Singapore. He says that he would "like to get another American race on the calendar" for the '19 season, alongside the existing grand prix in Austin, Texas. As it stands, "he is not looking to lose any of the 20 grands prix" on the calendar for '17 (LONDON TIMES, 3/20).
'ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM': AUTOSPORT's Glenn Freeman reported F1 Managing Dir Ross Brawn wants F1 to avoid a "Mexican standoff" over its future, but has "hinted that the richest teams should be prepared to sacrifice" their current favorable financial terms. Following Liberty Media's takeover of F1, "there is hope that revenue will be split more fairly" when new deals come into place after '20. Brawn: "There's always going to be differences of opinion, there's going to be different views on things and things sometimes get a bit heated. But at the core of it, there's lots of willingness to cooperate. The elephant in the room, we all know, is distribution of funds. We don't want to have a Mexican standoff in 2020 to see who's 'chicken,' that's what happened last time" (AUTOSPORT, 3/20).
