Formula One’s Media Transformation is a Blueprint for Modern Sport

From Drive to Survive and Apple’s new U.S. rights deal to creator-led drivers and explosive social growth, F1 has become one of sport’s smartest media case studies

Liberty Media modernised F1’s distribution

Liberty Media bought Formula One in 2017, and the most important change was not simply financial. It was strategic. The sport moved from a relatively closed, broadcast-led model into a far more aggressive, multi-platform media business.

The numbers tell the story. Formula 1 revenue rose to $3.87 billion in 2025, with Liberty Media reporting growth across all primary revenue lines, including sponsorship, media rights and direct-to-consumer subscription revenue through F1 TV. Sponsorship growth was helped by new partners and digital advertising, while media rights growth was also supported by F1 TV subscriptions.

That commercial growth has been matched by media momentum. Reuters reported this month that Formula One’s 2025 cumulative audience reached 1.83 billion, up 6.8% on 2024, while the average audience per Grand Prix rose to 76.1 million, the highest since 2020. Live race viewing jumped 19.8%, even as the sport continued to expand its streaming and OTT footprint.

The lesson for other sports is obvious: rights deals still matter, but distribution strategy now matters just as much.

F1’s U.S. rise is the clearest proof of the model

No market better illustrates Formula One’s transformation than the United States.

F1 says its U.S. fanbase reached 52 million in 2025, up 11% year on year. The U.S. was also the sport’s biggest market for YouTube viewership, generating 171 million video views in 2025, and its largest social market across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram with 6.3 million followers. Live U.S. race viewership in 2025 was up 21% versus the 2024 season average.

That tracks with ESPN’s final year carrying the championship. ESPN said F1 telecasts reached nearly 30 million U.S. fans in 2024, and that average viewership had effectively doubled from 554,000 in 2018 to 1.1 million in 2023 and 2024.

Now the next phase has already begun. Formula 1 announced a five-year U.S. media partnership with Apple, and Apple confirmed that the 2026 season begins exclusively on Apple TV in the U.S.

That is a major signal. F1 has gone from fighting for relevance in the U.S. to becoming valuable enough for a premium tech platform to make it a flagship rights property. It is not just a sports rights story; it is a platform strategy story.

Social media powering F1 growth

One of the easiest mistakes is to reduce Formula One’s rise to Drive to Survive alone. The Netflix series mattered enormously, but F1’s real strength has been how effectively it used the documentary as an entry point into a broader digital ecosystem.

Formula 1’s social media following reached 107.6 million by August 2025, up 21% year on year and up from 18.7 million in 2018. F1 also reported 30% growth in YouTube highlights views, while total content views across F1.com and the official app were up 17%.

That is the key point: F1 did not just create one hit show. It built an always-on media machine around short-form clips, highlights, race-weekend content, app engagement, creator activations and platform-native storytelling.

Its own 2025 Global Fan Survey described the shift clearly: “Content is the new entry point” for fandom. The same survey found 94% of fans expect to still follow F1 in five years’ time, and 86% watch 16 or more races per season.

In other words, media content is no longer just there to support the core product. It increasingly is part of the core product.

Drive to Survive changed how fans relate to the sport

Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive has now become the default example every other sport points to when discussing audience growth through storytelling. That is understandable.

It helped repackage F1 for audiences who were less interested in technical regulations and more interested in rivalries, personalities, pressure and access. Formula 1 itself said that the series has had a huge impact in bringing new fans into the sport and changing how people interact with racing.

But the deeper lesson is not simply “make a documentary”.

The deeper lesson is that Drive to Survive worked because it sat on top of a sport willing to embrace character-driven, behind-the-scenes media at exactly the moment digital audiences wanted that kind of access.

Other sports have tried to follow the same path. Netflix’s golf series Full Swing is now at three seasons; tennis’ Break Point ran for two seasons; and cycling’s Tour de France: Unchained has also reached three seasons.

What F1 shows, however, is that the documentary is not the strategy. It is the accelerant. The sports that win are the ones that can convert that attention into social engagement, direct audience relationships, platform growth and commercial leverage.

F1 drivers are now media properties

Another crucial part of the F1 story is the rise of the driver as an individual content brand.

Lando Norris has built one of the clearest examples. His Twitch channel has 1.8 million followers, while his YouTube channel has 1.4 million subscribers. Charles Leclerc runs an official YouTube presence of his own, and George Russell has also built a Twitch following.

Even where some of those gaming and streaming habits began more casually, the signal is unmistakable: modern fans do not only want race-day performance. They want access to personality, humour, friendships and off-track identity.

That matters because it changes the economics of sports media.

When athletes become content ecosystems in their own right, they create:

• more entry points for younger audiences

• more sponsor inventory outside the live event

• more reasons to follow the sport between races

• more editorial opportunities for teams, broadcasters and rights holders

This is not unique to F1, but Formula One has embraced it unusually well. It understands that in modern sports media, personality scales.

What other sports should take from F1

There are at least four major lessons here.

1) Media should be treated as growth infrastructure, not just promotion. F1 did not rely on live rights alone; it layered documentaries, social clips, creator content, direct-to-consumer products and platform partnerships around the core championship.

2) Storytelling broadens the funnel. You do not need every new fan to start with the technicalities of the sport. Some will enter through Netflix, some through TikTok, some through YouTube highlights, some through creator collaborations.

3) Athlete personality is now a strategic asset. The rise of Norris, Leclerc, Russell and others as digital personalities signals where all modern sports are heading: fans follow people, not just properties.

4) Global growth now comes from combining scale with intimacy. F1 remains a huge international rights business, but it has become better at making fans feel close to the sport, whether through behind-the-scenes access, social media, streaming features or driver-led content.

Why this matters for sports media professionals

For anyone working in or entering sports media, Formula One is not just a sports business success story. It is a blueprint for how media, rights, talent and culture now intersect.

The old model was simple: own rights, broadcast the event, sell sponsors.

The modern model is far broader:

• own the live event

• create year-round content

• develop athletes as personalities

• build direct audience channels

• turn social media into discovery

• use premium rights deals to amplify, not limit, accessibility

Formula One did not just become bigger. It became more legible to modern audiences.

That is why its rise matters. And that is why so many other sports are still trying to copy it.

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