Formula 1 Circuits

[Chrill]

On the topic of F1 circuits, Denmark is apparently moving closer to an actual offer put forth to Liberty. They do seem to be able to make it for the 2020 season, if not 2019. I'll be there.

[Chrill]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-begins-talks-to-hold-dutch-street-race-963828/

Dutch street race? Amsterdam or Rotterdam looking likely.

I dislike how Liberty seems to prefer street races. I really dislike it. They rarely produce good racing.

[Penfold]

Run it at night, that will guarantee excitement....

[Chrill]

Then again, if they put one million tickets on sale then one million tickets would be sold. Which in itself creates a spectacle.

[Penfold]

Whatever they do, hardly anyone in the UK will be watching once free-to-air coverage expires at the end of next year.

[Chrill]

Free to air coverage is returning to French TV, I believe it was. Who knows if a new deal will be negotiated in the years to come for UK?

[Penfold]

Not until 2025: http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/354775/f1-uk-pay-tv-2019-24-deal-immutable/

[Matt]

It's on cable here, but ESPN just acquired the rights from NBC. Somewhat disappointing because NBC did a good job and we got our own commentary team, whereas ESPN stated that they'll use the world feed commentary.

[Penfold]

Funnily enough, people do seem to prefer sports coverage with domestic commentators - makes me struggle to understand why Liberty Media has gone this route.

Problem with SKY having F1 is you have to take their basic package of channels and then add F1 on top, so that's about £500/year to have F1 and a bunch of channels I wouldn't watch.  I like F1, but not at £25/race.

[Chrill]

It's the same in Sweden, where it comes out to about £35 per month which is roughly in the ballpark of Sky (£430ish a year). This gives me a lot of football (soccer), motorsports, ice hockey, and other sports. I do watch the other channels so it's acceptable to me.

This is provided by Viasat, who do offer basic packages too, but this can also be bought as an addition to your regular cable tv which is what I do. I pay these £35 per month for roughly 5-6 sports channels plus an app which allows them to broadcast a lot of stuff simultaneously. Viasat owns the rights to the Winter and Summer Olympics too, so that's a plus.

[Matt]

Funnily enough, people do seem to prefer sports coverage with domestic commentators - makes me struggle to understand why Liberty Media has gone this route.

Liberty wanted a short-term deal and NBC wanted a long-term deal, for one. That seems to be based in Liberty's interest in developing their own streaming service, which ESPN doesn't seem to care about. ESPN isn't doing any of their own production and apparently are paying nothing, or almost nothing, for the rights. It's just a placeholder.

[Penfold]

That makes more sense from Liberty's perspective; I wonder how much they'd charge for streamed coverage.

It's the same in Sweden, where it comes out to about £35 per month which is roughly in the ballpark of Sky (£430ish a year). This gives me a lot of football (soccer), motorsports, ice hockey, and other sports. I do watch the other channels so it's acceptable to me.

I do enjoy a spot of football/rugby/cricket but really only bothered about seeing the big international contests, so having Sky would be all about watching F1.  Could go for their 'Now TV' offering which streams over broadband to a dedicated box/Smart TV.  You buy either a daily, weekly, or monthly 'Sports Pass' for unfettered access to all Sky Sport channels, no recording so a pain for certain races, but would mean more like £10/GP which is reasonable to me - and I'd force myself to watch a ton of other sports just to get my money's worth.

[Chrill]

I watch ze PREMIER LEAGUE and ze CHAMPIONS LEAGUE in ze football. The occasional NHL game of ice hockey. And various random motorsports such as Formula 2, Formula 3, rally and rally cross.

[Penfold]

Preparation for Copenhagen 2020 continues with F1 bosses taking a city day trip: https://www.crash.net/f1/news/888589/1/f1-bosses-set-latest-copenhagen-visit-next-week

[Chrill]

I'd love a race in Scandinavia. Whilst the track looks shit, at least Copenhagen as a city is very beautiful.