McLaren boss, Zak Brown believes that Miami is one of the best things to happen to F1, and will bring a Super Bowl vibe to the sport.

Doing what he does best - selling the dream - after all it is Andreas Seidl who has finally put the Woking outfit back on course again, Brown believes Miami is the perfect fit for the sport in the Drive to Survive era.

"It's going to be awesome," he tells Reuters. "I've been here six years and I've never seen demand or buzz for a grand prix like I've seen for Miami.

"We can easily double our hospitality and we're already the largest hospitality buyer in Miami," he adds, "it rivals the Super Bowl as far as ‘are you going to the Miami race?'

"I've been around F1 for twenty years and I'm used to going to grands prix but I've never seen anything like it," he says.

Revealing that his team will have a thousand guests, "including A-list celebrities", the team will a McLaren House in addition to Paddock Club hospitality.

"Having been around the Super Bowl, where there's the football game and then there's the halftime celebs and shows, this feels like the Super Bowl," he enthuses.

With the sport supposedly already enjoying a boom, Brown is confident that the addition of Las Vegas in 2023 will continue to open up the sport to new fans, especially in the United States.

"Now you've got Vegas the sport's never been healthier and more exciting," he says. "If you look at the corporate partners on our car, half of our car are U.S.-based companies. So U.S.-based companies are now actually starting to get behind it. I think we've got a long way to go."

Fact is, Brown sums it up himself, when he says of the Super Bowl, "there's the football game and then there's the halftime celebs and shows".

In recent years, the Super Bowl, which admittedly is the among most watched single sporting events, has seen the Game become a sideshow, an afterthought as attention is focussed on the specially produced, ever more controversial TV ads and the music acts.

Indeed, as far as the actual game is concerned it is typical style over substance.

As for "A-list celebrities" these will no doubt prove to be mostly rap stars and various others who have been "turned on" to the sport courtesy of Drive to Survive.

In all likelihood it is going to be a freak show, both on and off track.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Superbird70, 03/05/2022 19:01

"@alvarezh3, thank you for the data. A nice insight to potential problems up the road. I'll nitpick a couple of times, MLB, and NFL closer to 3 hours, NBA about 2.5 hours , and the ultimate gate driven professional sports league NHL, about 2.5 hours.

One interesting thing that popped up recently was Netflix started posting '90 minute movies' as search criteria.

There is definitely a sweet spot of total matches/ games etc and relative importance to the standings. A lot of North American sports leagues have opted to include almost everyone in some sort of playoff format. Almost all have loosened the criteria to qualify in the last couple of decades.
F1 is only sport/entertainment in your narrative that does NOT have a playoff format. ...yet

Thanks again for being objective."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by alvarezh3, 02/05/2022 2:15

"@Editor & Max Noble

Thank you gentlemen for your kind words, totally unexpected and surprised by your comments."

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by Editor, 01/05/2022 8:09

"@ alvarezh3

Great post... very informative."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by Max Noble, 01/05/2022 7:48

"@USAF1Genius - Quite! Do not get greedy… Long ago Lucio D’M of Ferrari said his goal each year was to build one less Ferrari than the globe demanded… He knew the value of limiting supply. :-)"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

5. Posted by Max Noble, 01/05/2022 7:44

"@alvarezh3 - First 11/10 for an exceptional post in terms of length, content, and reasoning. Damn - I need to keep on my toes with my articles!!

The quality of most posts on this site are clause for joy. It is clear our readership are an informed, and reasoned bunch. That makes me happy.

I’m solidly intrigued by your line of reasoning. I also agree with your selected “this time is enough time” selections. Rock concerts around two to three hours with a brief break and an encore is spot on. Sport around 90 minutes to two hours.

Yet limited availability does aid in making the event more enticing. There is a “right” number for any activity.

One pint of beer a year… too few… Twelve pints of beer in one hour… wayyyy too many.

Being an ex-Pom, and a confirmed Aussie - look at test Cricket. The Ashes is beloved in both countries… yet it occurs once every two years, and consists of only five test matches… Five games every two years…!!!

I believe the reason Soccer manages so many games is they do not have the complexity of pre-season testing, practice, qualifying, and then race… It is turn up, warm up, play. Repeat. No machines, just boots, balls, and humans. It is not a complex intellectual load to assess.

Baseball, like cricket, and F1, has a huge amount of statistical data that can be collated, analysed, and used for deeper consideration. Soccer analysis tends to be of the “Is he having a laugh?” Sort of review… (cough…).

I mean none of us were performing an in-depth analysis of Usain Bolt launch angles, take off speeds, shoe thickness… He was simply a human capable of running *really* fast. I’m sure he and his support team did much analysis, and planning, but for the fan it was simple. A *few* times a year watch Usain make everyone else look useless…

Great post. My thanks.
"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

6. Posted by alvarezh3, 01/05/2022 4:00

"Regarding NASCARS's loss of spectators, I have an opinion based on personal observation and comparisons, not on facts obtained from research, so, my conclusions may or may not be fully nor partially true. I present them here just as food for thought.

I believe that NASCAR could be failing to investigate two things that could be at least part of their spectator problem: The length of the CUP race as being too long and that they have too many races during the weekend.

The Hollywood Film industry's first "feature" or "full-length" film was produced in 1906, these type of films are between 75 and 210 minutes long (from Wikipedia). On average, they are around an hour forty five minutes in duration. That's close to the length of a F1 and/or INDY race.

Bring in the length of a rock concert. Past two hours, most people are not much interested in listening to the Rolling Stones. Furthermore, there is a professionally accepted term referred to as "listener fatigue", that is caused by long exposure to loud sounds.

Football (soccer) games, 90 minutes, plus half time break. American football about two hours complete, baseball and basketball normally about the same.

Loud ICE sounds listened for over two hours, would, to the average human being, incite him/her, to leave the premises. Add to that, that at the racetrack, people are sitting on hard surfaces (concrete benches or wooden chairs), standing or sitting on the ground, none are very confortable elements to accommodate yourself to for a long period of time.

Reading in Wikipedia about the INDY 500, it expresses the reason for the race being 500 miles long. Back in 1911 the speed of the cars made the length of the race to be a little over 7 hours long and that's what the organizers wanted, they wanted the race to be a "field-day" event. But today, as I have shown above by the length of other types of entertainment, not all spectators are willing to wait 4 hours for a NASCAR race to show its result, nor an otherwise entertainment show/spectacle to finish. It's not rare, specially in the ovals, that the last 20 laps of a CUP race is made to last half an hour (or more) after having to endure the cleanup of one or two (and sometimes three) so called "Big Ones". It's frustrating to me!

I tend to think that a shorter CUP race would be beneficial to NASCAR. The INDY 500 today is around three hours (including some accident cleanups) but you have to take into account that the 500 is a yearly event, it's not happening over twenty times a year like the over 400 mile NASCAR oval races. At INDY, do to this (yearly event) and probably other factors, spectators are prone to be less demanding in regards to the length of the race.

Those spectators with their campers may not be too concerned on the length of the race for they are not only more confortable, they like to use the race as an excuse to drink and eat. But, that's the minority. People on the stands and on their tvs at home may not be as complacent to the length of the event.

The three major MASCAR series, Cup, Xfinity and Trucks use basically the same engine. Trucks and Xfinity exactly the same and the Cup cars engine's main difference is on the use of fuel injection. So the difference between the Trucks and Xfinity is the shape of the bodywork. Cup cars and Xfinity bodywork is almost identical, so, the show from these two series are relatively similar. Xfinity is a little slower, but not by much as engine power is only from 50 to 100 hp less.

The Trucks on Friday and Xfinity on Saturday are races that last close to two hours, plus four hours (on average) for a Cup race, that's almost eight hours of racing per most weekends (there are weekends when one or the other smaller series do not race concurrently with CUP races).

NASCAR sees more racing hours as more financial income, but it's my belief that the excess racing during the weekend has gotten where it has reached the point of diminished financial returns because of loss of viewers. The lower the viewers ratings the less they will get paid from sponsors, tv and radio broadcasting licenses, etc.

If we compare the number of NASCAR races during the year to the number of games played by teams in other sports around the world we can observe that the NBA and MLB teams have more than twice the amount of games they play, than the number of NASCAR races it runs. Real Madrid played 83 games in 2019, that is also more than double the amount of NASCAR races, yet these sports are not showing a decrease in spectators. I bring this up because there is a difference between too many races during a weekend -which could cause a rejection due to saturation- and too many races in a calendar year which is less likely to cause the same effect.

For sure that there must be other factors causing NASCAR's loss of spectators, but I believe these two just mentioned may also be supporting/influencing the viewers to withdraw from the sport.
"

Rating: Positive (3) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

7. Posted by USAF1genius, 30/04/2022 12:31

"There is such a thing as too much "candy". NASCAR here in the U.S. made itself sick with 36 races in their season and have now resorted to throwing dirt on tracks to give it some good ole boy nostalgia but attendance and interest has nosedived over the past years. I say...give Miami a chance before the collective turn their noses up against it although past experience...i.e. Detroit and previous Las Vegas does not bode well. My 2 cents here (I'm sure Liberty Media reads these posts ;-) STOP at 23 races in a season. I cant imagine the burden on the support members, pit crews etc with all that travel. If Miami and the new Las Vegas Circuit prove successful, alternate them each year leaving 2 races in the U.S. any given year. Back down to 21 races max. $$ may be made in the short term with 23 or more races, but we'll all wake up with a hangover later only to find that we start throwing dirt or hosing down the tracks to liven things up!"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

8. Posted by alvarezh3, 30/04/2022 0:45

"@kenji

Your posting reminded me of a tv series from 62 years ago:

"The Naked City" where the narrator, at the end of each episode would say: "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

That was before NYC was called "The Big Apple". :-)"

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

9. Posted by kenji, 29/04/2022 23:36

"@ Alvarezh3....Nothing much changes...47 years ago, on my first busines trip to New York. Having been out for a walk after a very long flight from LA i was returning to my 3rd floor room at the Carlyle. Stepping out of the elevator I was roughly grabbed and pushed up against the wall by a guy who identified as a plain clothes policeman and told not to move. There followed further down the passage three or more shots! I immediately called the lift and left for the ground floor. Straight to the bar and all was very quite and no one was showing the slightest interest? Great start...welcome to the 'Big Apple'.

"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

10. Posted by alvarezh3, 29/04/2022 18:44

"@LiamIII

You mentioned crime.

Incredible, in Dade/Broward counties you are not safe anywhere. From road rage and shopping mall shootings all the way to South Beach, and all this in daylight/early evenings and in front of dozens of people, highly worrisome."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

11. Posted by LiamIII, 29/04/2022 17:20

"I have to say that I live in Florida and because of the lunacy associated with Miami re. traffic and crime, the cost to attend far outweighs the benefit. I can't see spending a house payment to attend this. As another observer pointed out, the view from my couch is much friendlier and the food if way less expensive, plus there will be no long lines of traffic and crime sprees to dodge.

BTW- long time Pitpass subscriber, and loyal reader but lost my log-in so starting over. "

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

12. Posted by alvarezh3, 29/04/2022 15:00

"Although I don't live in Miami anymore, my cable service has the Miami channels of ABC, CBS and NBC. A few days ago there was a very short promo of the GP and it went like this, shown in order of importance:

Food....Drinks....Music.....Beach Party......written in the foreground of a color sketch of part of the track showing a formula car and a stand. It was about 10 seconds long.

Is this to think that the promoters are aware that the race is not of much importance to their audience?

It seems to me that the race is just an excuse to sell a somewhat expensive party.

I didn't think it to be a very bright idea to hop on an airplane and spend over US2,000.00 to see the race leaders for between 5 and 10 seconds (varies with the stand you are in) as they pass by 57 times every minute and a half or so.

Sky does a very good job and the F1 timing screen on my iPad serves me well while resting on my couch, all for a few pennies!"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

13. Posted by Cobra Driver, 29/04/2022 9:01

"Brown, I suppose you will fit racing in there somewhere? I will pass this one. I have a more exciting event planned, cleaning my septic tank.
"

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

14. Posted by Editor, 28/04/2022 21:48

"@R1Racing71

Agree, he was good... but Greeny was the man"

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

15. Posted by @R1Racing71, 28/04/2022 19:41

"@ed
Or indeed Danny Kirwen, although perhaps I’m being pedantic.
But I totally get you Maaaaaaan ;)"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Miami to give F1 a Super Bowl vibe, says Brown

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page