Zak Brown: Formula One can learn from Super Bowl

McLaren’s new boss Zak Brown says F1 can learn a lot from the Super Bowl and the way it involves and engages its fans. Formula One commands a massive global audience, but television figures have fallen in recent years, down to 400 million in 2015 compared to 600 million in 2008. Quizzed on how that trend can be reversed and what needs to be done to improve the fan experience, Brown added that the format of a grand prix weekend may also need tweaking.

“I think we need to take a look at the weekend format and how we engage with the consumers in the grandstands and how close can we get them to our team and drivers, so that is here on site,” he explained.

“Also you go to these cities and it is a big event leading up to it. I think the Super Bowl does an excellent job, if you look at when they put on a Super Bowl, the level of fan engagement: they come into town a week before, they take over the cities, they take over the hotels and they take over the airports.

“We have got 21 Super Bowls that we put on across the world. So, I’d like to see that in market.”

Brown also said the sport needs to do more digitally and he is hopeful that will now happen following the take-over by Liberty Media.

“I think digital, which we all talk about, which is a quickly, fast paced and evolving [area] and what worked yesterday may or may not work tomorrow [needs looking at] and I think given that Liberty has a media-centric background and specifically Chase [Carey] comes from the media world, I have got high expectations that they will do great things in the media space, which is ultimately how we reach the largest audience we can,” he concluded