Episode 230: Toto Wolff & Eddy Cue @ Autosport Business Exchange

and culture with Jason Stein

here on Sirius XM Business

Channel 132. Great to have you

along for the ride again this

week. Today the episode takes

us into the heart of Manhattan

inside one of the industry's

most dynamic new gatherings. The

auto sport business exchange a

motorsport network event

bringing together decision

makers who sit at the

intersection of racing,

technology, entertainment and

global business strategy. It's

there in this new forum for

motorsport thought leadership

the two conversations unfolded

each offering a rare window into

how the sport is being shaped at

the highest levels. First we

have a sit down with total wolf

the architect of modern formula

one dominance and the CEO team

principal and co owner of the

Mercedes AMG Patronus F1 team

in a year defined by competition

innovation and change total

reflects on leadership in a

shifting competitive landscape

the future of team ownership and

the continued global transformation

of formula one. Then it's a

conversation with Eddie Q Apple

senior vice president of services

and one of the key figures steering

Apple's expanding presence in live

sports from technology integrations

to storytelling platform strategy

and the global reach of the Apple

ecosystem. Eddie provides a unique

inside look at how the company

views formula one and why motorsport

presents a unique opportunity at

the crossroads of audience growth

digital engagement and premium content

two different perspectives one sport

in transition and a front row

seat from New York as formula one's

cultural commercial and technological

influence continues its rise.

This is cars and culture

episode 230 from

the auto sport business exchange

in New York. Thank you so much for being

here. I know everyone is excited for

this conversation. My first

question is just why are there so

many Austrians in motorsports

yeah first of all good afternoon

you know when I've been

long enough in the sport but when I

see these videos with the music it

it always feels a little bit weird

to see to see yourself

but it shows its testimony to how much

the sport has grown

in the United States but

coming back to your question about

Austrians you know we are tiny

little country of ski teachers

pretty much so we are

the intersection between

the German corporate

discipline

and Italian

easiness

Dolce Vita and I think that

we ended up in this sport because

back in the days

with Bernie Ecclestone he was keen in having

animators around

so we had great racing drivers

with Jochen Rind

Nikky Lauda

Gerhard Berger

the guy who runs all of

hospitality and catering

is Austrian Attila

who has a billion plus dollar catering

empire built around Formula 1

and that's why

there's a few of us

and a few of us competing against each other

and in terms of world championships

there's only one that

not an Austrian has won in the last 15 years

I love it

I want to talk about the business

Formula 1 but also Mercedes

I think you've been at Mercedes 13 years now

13?

A lot has changed in that time I imagine you would admit

but it's a big business today

I know Mercedes recently reported

financials $850 million of

revenue $160 million in profit

and that's just sort of the racing team

there's other businesses as well

but what is the next

big thing for Mercedes

how do you grow that from there?

That seems like a tremendously big business

in sports specifically already

but what is next for the team?

The sport has changed tremendously

because when I started

it was a marketing exercise only

for

big OEMs or consumer brands

so Ferrari

Mercedes and Red Bull

we were fighting for glory, for sporting success

with the hope of enhancing

our mother brands

and

that environment

the landscape changed

when we introduced the cost cap

the main reason for the cost cap

was not in increasing profits of the teams

but the main reason was to

balance the performances between the teams

smaller teams that were running

on

little budgets

where in a theoretical way

competed us in the long term

against the big teams

and

that was the right decision for the sport

it created more

variability in the results

and the

consequence

that we have seen was tremendous on the P&L

but having said that

and this is maybe

some nuts for any conventional

entrepreneur

is that I would give up any profit

for winning championships

and that is the race of mentality

that many of us have in the team

that hasn't changed since we started

in the sport as drivers

or as entrepreneurs

it's especially interesting because

you're the team principal but you're also an equity holder

in the business so you're sacrificing more there

speaking of

the performance on the track

you had an announcement today that you're going to be continuing

at the same driver lineup next year

so congratulations I think

George is

he's phenomenal

I think many people have recognized that for a long time

Kimi is as well

but Kimi was sort of a unique

prospect because he was so young

when he entered Formula 1

he's still so young

what was it about him specifically

that made you confident he was ready

for the pressure and expectations around Formula 1

first of all

I think there was so much hype

around Luis leaving

and an 18-year-old coming

and the

risk that we were taking

but as a matter of fact

there was not so much risk because we had George

and in a way he was always underrated

in all of those years

maybe because of his

more introverted personality

and then obviously

if your teammate is Luis Hamilton

you won't get a lot of

how can I say

percentage of eyeballs

the photographers are following him

when he was in the paddock

I mean if George would have kind of

bought into the

fashion style of Luis

maybe it would have given him more photos

but that's not how he is

so it was always good

to know that we had George

as one of the best drivers

and then bringing Kimi on was a long-term

was a long-term plan

we knew that giving him

one year in the current regulations

would be tough

because all of these drivers have driven those

ground-effect cars

the tires are very tricky to understand

many

racetracks that he hasn't been

and then the enormous media pressure that comes

when you're an Italian

this country has been staffed

for a world champion since God knows

50, 60 years

and all of that has happened

all of that led to good results

I think a highlight was

certainly the poll in the spring in Miami

and the podium in Montreal

but also to some very

difficult races

the media pressure was

enormous in Europe

and I think we've learned the lesson

we've shielded him a little bit

and the two last two races were really good

back on track and next year is going to be

a completely different starting point

for him having seen it all

having been there and I'm sure he's going to be a very good one

you mentioned the regulations

and I think everyone here understands

that when regulation changes come

it's great for the sport and fans because it sort of shakes up

the order a little bit

what are you seeing?

and I imagine you're not going to tell me a ton

but are there any data points

or evidence or anything that you're seeing

on your end that gives you confidence relative

to the other teams starting next year in 2026?

my mindset is always the glass

is half empty, never half full

and I'd rather

be wary about

making predictions and

saying well our engines

hopefully are pretty decent because we've done a good

job in 2014 when

the last hybrid generation was introduced

but as a matter of fact we don't know

we don't know the objectives

we don't know the data of the other teams

I would also

not underestimate the new teams coming in

with a fresh set of

eyes without any burden

and trauma from previous

regulations

and that's why

I'm also really curious

to see how all of this is going to pan out

and we're going to see in the end of January

when the first tests have happened

how the packing order is going to be

what do you think is the single biggest difference

that Liberty Media has made over the last

five or seven years?

I think first of all

the stability of ownership

the decision making

was

very rational from a date

to the next

I think when

Liberty came in, when Chase came in

it was

process orientated

what is it we need to do in terms of

having this sport grow and prosper

the

politics ended

and it gave us

stability to

get a growth of sport and do what's best

the years

with the first up and Hamilton

competition were very interesting

great rivalry

polarized

ended up in

Abu Dhabi 2021 which created

so much media attention

in a way also

positiveness around our brand

because before we were the

German

the huge German brand that crushed everybody

and suddenly we were not

and

younger drivers coming in

good personalities

great racing

Covid hit

people were at home, drive to survive, dropped

younger

audiences connected with their parents

and grandparents around Formula 1

and we've grown

since then and continue to grow

but we have to be always wary

because fundamentally we need to deliver

credible and good sport

and if that goes

I think the rest of

the other KPIs are going to

perform positively

why did Mercedes initially not

want to participate in Drive to Survive?

so when

we first heard from Drive

to Survive

I felt that

our core mission

is to win Grand Prix

and world championships

and

I was a bit short-sighted to be honest

but it had a benefit

so I connected with my friend

from Ferrari

who was the team principal back in the day

Maurizio Arriva Bene

a proper Italian mafioso

like you can imagine

very straightforward, simple view of life

and he said we are not doing this either

and we were interviewed and he said

Ferrari and Mercedes

we are here to win world championships

we are not Cirque du Soleil

so we didn't participate

in any of the show

and interestingly

I thought

that it was a good decision

and the year on

the first series dropped

and I was on my flight to Australia

and thought I am going to look at some of the episodes

so I started to

watch the episodes and I hated it

the first one

because they were like piecing things together

or it was too drama?

No I'll come to that

so I think the first one was called King of Spain

and it was Fernando Alonso against Carlos Sainz

and it was made up like this is the competition

for the world championship

and it was between B12 and 14

back in the day because those cars were not good

and I thought

that's not for me, switched it off

didn't even watch the second one

and then I traveled back to Europe

and a friend of mine called me and said

that she would really like

to come with her two sons

to the Austrian Grand Prix

and I said

how come you have never been interested

in Formula 1

and she said my son's love drive to survive

so what happened

is because we didn't feature

it gave Netflix the opportunity

to show

smaller teams

drivers that were not so much in the spotlight

like the four of us

like the two Ferrari and the two Mercedes drivers

I remember lots of

Daniel Ricciardo

the difficult upbringing of Esteban O'Conn

and I think that captured the audiences

so in a way

what we did was right

but it wasn't the reason we did it

I love that

you mentioned earlier about

Formula 1 changing a little bit

it used to be marketing exercise

now it's a little bit different, there's P&L and stuff like that

but I'd love to talk about the marketing

still, Mercedes as a brand

and the impact that Formula 1 has

on the bigger parent company and brand

I know that you guys have mentioned in the past

the share of TV time

that the team gets in the global broadcast

I think it's ranged anywhere between 15 to 25%

depending on the year

are there any other metrics

or data points that are helpful

when explaining that relationship to the brand

and how it impacts road car sales

and other things like that?

So when I joined Mercedes in 2013

I remember being at the marketing event

of what was back then

in Daimler AG

and it showed the marketing platforms

and one was Tennis, the other one was Golf

Fashion Week

and Formula 1

and I said to the guy

who was back then at the CMO

I said this is a misunderstanding because we're not producing tennis records

or golf clubs

nor are we really good in doing fashion

motor racing

is our core product

it's around the automobile

and as a matter of fact the first Mercedes ever done

was a racing car

and the guy called it after his daughter Mercedes

so what we do today

and this is very much understood within the organization

we build road cars

and we build race cars

this is what we do

and if the race car performs

if we win

and if we lose

the emotional attachment is big

and buys into the product

and I think that Mercedes has greatly benefited from that

AMG

Mercedes is still growing solidly

the most sport

in technically advanced cars are selling very well

and Formula 1 has been part of

making that brand

grow

and is now the biggest

by far the biggest

activation platform for Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-AMG

I'd love to talk about America specifically

and sort of the role that it's had in growing your business

and from the one as a whole

we're obviously here in New York City

but there's three races in America now

Miami, Austin and Las Vegas

but there was a time

where there was a period of time where there were no races

and then obviously they went back to Austin

but when the rights came over here with Liberty Media

ESPN and others didn't want to pay a bunch of money for them

those rights are obviously going up in value

what role has America

and the growth of the American audience played

in Mercedes business but also Formula 1

so the United States

is one of our most important markets

and

in that way

it's important for us to do well

on track

and

advertise our road car products

and in that

that's gone well so far

I think we have a lot of

buying from our road car customers

into the racing program

MBUSA is heavily involved

in activating

in what we do

we create emotional attachment

around the car

which other sport

makes grown up men

in a garage

not having known each other half an hour before

and it's all around the car

so creating this emotional attachment

is something that worked very well

and we love to be here

last year Austin

was the single largest event in the United States

with 440,000 people

we are sold out

at every single Grand Prix

and

for us as a car company

that is a great benefit

Do you think 3 is the max

3 races?

I think what Stefano Domenicali does

very well is balancing

balancing

the geographical

footprint of Formula 1

we'd love to do more races

in the United States

but I think it's important

to not do it to the detriment

of other regions

and at the moment

we are pretty much everywhere

around the globe

I'd love to race in New York City

that would be awesome

not sure we can because last year we ran a car

with Lewis Hamilton for a WhatsApp

event on Fifth Avenue

I don't think the police was very

impressed with us

and

I'm not sure this is going to happen anytime soon

doing donuts on Fifth Avenue

might not be the best idea

you mentioned WhatsApp though

and I think sponsors are a really interesting conversation

because it seems like

that role has evolved over time

back in the day we talked about this before

you used to just slap the logo on the car

they would pay you and maybe there were some other services outside of that

but it really feels like

WhatsApp and other sponsors like that are more deeply integrated

in the teams

the team is using their technology

or their services or their platforms

but there's also the hospitality

and other things like that

maybe just talk to us a little bit about how

the sponsorships in general have evolved

from when you first started till now

for us it's all about

generating return on investment for the sponsor

so it all starts with the exercise

what are you trying to achieve

by joining us as a partner

is it an internal activation

or external activation

do you want to have

your employees or your customers on the track

what's the kind of hospitality experience

do you want to achieve

do you want to go ice racing with an AMG

in Lapland

or

is there any other

aspect of this kind of human

interaction that you would want to achieve

is it your

logo presence

and footprint

and if yes in which countries

and so on

and so forth

and we're trying to

come up with a plan

that generates return on investment

we're not keen in having relationships

where we fail to do so

and we're lucky

we have a great group of partners

in the various domains

and growing

and trying to

satisfy their objectives

being connected to us

I heard a story about you

it's not a bad one don't worry

it's my wedding anniversary today

so be careful what you say

congratulations

no this is a good story

I want you one to tell me if it's true

but then two I want to talk about

some of the downstream effects of it

someone told me they heard once that

when you first got to Mercedes

you literally went in

the toilet area

the hospitality area

and we're explaining to them how it should be cleaned

and how it should be cared for

because it was important for sponsors to see the team

in a very positive light

and that may seem silly to some people

but it also seems like a great attention to detail

is that one true

but two how has that attention to detail

to help Mercedes over the years

you know I think

that was always

part of who I am

that in a way

everything that's not

done well in the detail it kind of

jumps into my face and I continue to

staring at it and it really bothers me

and it started with my first

visit to the team because

I was a shareholder and it was my first time

there I sat in the lobby and there was an old

Daily Mail newspaper taken into

few bits and an old coffee cup

where you could see the coffee that was

drank a few hours earlier before

and it wasn't at all the way I wanted

the team to

as a point of sale so I went up

to Ross Braun who let the team

back in the day and I said

you know thank you for having me

and

but it's not what I would expect

from a one team and he said

the old Daily Mail which by the way

people are interested in reading or the coffee

cup isn't making the car faster

it is good engineering

and I said I disagree because it shows

the attention to detail

and if the lobby isn't properly presented

how does the car look under the bonnet

and I think this is the kind of

story

of what I do

is that the detail needs

to be right you know I came into the garage

and there was on our kind of

panels, wall panels

the left side had little plastic black

feet and the other one has metal black

feet and I said to the guy I was running it

what do you see here and

at the beginning

no one saw that and I think over the

course of the years we really became

obsessed by the detail

how we present ourselves

and how the racing car is manufactured

and the toilet episode

is a very simple one I mean

we have a hospitality in our

at the center of the paddock

you only get

to go into this hospitality if you're

someone really really important for the team

your sponsor

your husband or wife of a sponsor

you're being invited

and so

people expect this to be formal one

so you expect to have

a restaurant Michelin like

Mille because you're in formal one

and I don't want to have

anyone an experience that he goes on

or she goes on the toilet and it's dirty

the last thing so

it was difficult to bring that message

across until one day

we hired a hygiene manager

and we had a whole team and I said to them

okay I'm going to explain

to you how that goes because it's important

and I showed them how

I wanted the toilet to be cleaned

and how I wanted how

to use the brush not having

crap on the brush when you put it back

and then how you clean the sink

and put all the towers

back in there and then I said

on the Friday free practice day I want you to be

in there every 15 minutes

and clean it on a Saturday every 5 minutes

and on the Sunday

after every single person that goes on the toilet

you go in there like a ghost

you're out there after 30 seconds

and it needs to be immaculate

for every single guest

because I don't want the wife of a CEO

of all going in there and thinking what's this

it's a public toilet

so over the time we had

process we had a checklist

like when you're flying an airplane

and since then it's always been a pleasure for me to go in there

I think you beat the Daily Mail on that one

for sure

talk to me a little bit about the

Formula One expansion process

obviously you're with Mercedes

but you have

I imagine they took input from different

team principals, stakeholders like yourself

who are very experienced

and have insight into the business

how did that conversation go from what it initially started

to ultimately accepting Cadillac General Motors as a team

we were hesitant

at the beginning if not more

for any other team to join

because we've grown the sport

with being 10 teams

some of the smaller teams have really struggled over the years

Gene Haas has put hundreds of millions into the project

in order to

be part of it

the same for Finrausing

with Sauber

and our teams were having literally zero value

and then the cost cap came

and we've done well over those years

and we wanted to make sure that whoever

jumps on the bandwagon

contributes his part

of the business

and when you look at the final

product, the Cadillac team

is something that we are proud

of being associated with

because it's a formidable

US American brand

the structure, financial structure behind it

is solid, the people

make sense in how

they are tackling the project

Cadillac is going to put lots of marketing behind it

and from that angle now

it is a proper contributor to the sport

financial contributor

to the sport and the team that we very much welcome

how it is being set up today

but we were skeptical of how it looked

a few years ago so in that respect

if you can contribute

you are welcome, particularly with such

a strong brand.

Is it fair to say that your collaboration

with the form of the one movie was a make up call

for not being involved with Drivers Survive initially?

Yeah, you know, interestingly

we made the cars for the Apple movie

and we helped

Brad Pitt to get

up to speed

driving

driving those cars

he's talented actually

and

yeah, so we got very

involved straight from the beginning

in trying to provide the right technology

building those cars that looked like

Formula One cars

providing the feedback together with Lewis

what was realistic and not

and it was a funny process also to

you know, to kind of

describe of what we felt was a

Was there anything that stood out where you are like

that definitely can't go in the final cut?

Yeah, so

at the beginning

I'm lucky enough

I'm seeing lots of people that have a big media profile

but there was one

dinner that we organized

with Joe

who is the director and Jerry Brookheimer

Lewis

Brad Pitt, Susie and I

and we had dinner at our place in Oxford

and suddenly the door opens and there's Brad Pitt

in the driveway and says

thank you for having me for dinner

so that was a bit of a surreal experience

and the initial concept

was, you know, him being a driver

and, you know, fighting for

a world championship and then Lewis said

that's not going to go your much too old for a Formula One driver

and Brad was

not impressed by it

he felt that he was

in his prime to be a Formula One driver

and how they adapted the script

was fantastic because it was credible

his role was credible and I think

we looked at

all of the F1 drivers and the team

we looked at

the premiere in Monaco

around the Grand Prix and we liked it

there was nothing that was not

about to be liked, it's good entertainment

and

the revenue that the movie

has been generating is phenomenal

My last question is

how many miles do you fly every year?

I feel like it's a lot

I don't know miles but it's

about 250 hours

Roughly how many days?

Well

Over 200?

Yeah, for sure

but I spent 220 hotel nights

which is

a big number

You have status at

Four Seasons

You have status at Four Seasons

Yeah, we are rich people

We are married group people

We love Marriott

Exactly

Somebody from Rich here

Yeah, but

we are circus

We are 10 months traveling circus

and we are lucky to

travel in a comfortable way

and it's part of what we do

Yeah, it's a lot

Total Wolf everyone, thank you

Thank you

After the break

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Welcome back to Cars and Culture

here on SiriusXM, I'm your host Jason Stein

Great to have you backlisting again with us

Now here's the continuation of the conversation

from the Autosport Business Exchange

in New York, a Motorsport Network event

To see more Cars and Culture interviews

visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel

Subscribe, comment and check out

hundreds of conversations with the creators,

collectors and culture makers

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Sorry I am not Brad Pitt

because when you watch that you're like

expecting Brad Pitt to show up so

Fortunately I am

Which one of these cars is your favorite Eddie?

I

You had a chance to look at them? I did

I would take the Blue MG right there

I think it's an early 60s

and imagine driving

Park Down Park Avenue

in 1962 or 63

in that car, that would be pretty cool

You could do it today, just walk out with it

These things are free to take

That's what you promised right?

Exactly, that's the

gift for being here

Alright we are at a racing event

and I and others

have reported that Apple

is on the verge of

acquiring F1

live rights, so I'm just giving you the floor

here, is there an announcement you'd like to make?

No

but we do love

F1, you know we've done

the movie and I've been

a huge fan of F1 since I've been a kid

Huge huge fan

Alright well let's hypothetically

assume that Apple is acquiring

the rights to F1, it would

be an epic troll by the way if you were here

and then you didn't do that in front of the racing audience

but

let's say this

look, we just saw the clip

of the Apple movie, how has

your relationship with F1

evolved over the years?

I think it started

when I was about 10 years old

I grew up in Miami

and when you're 10 years old

as old as I am, Formula 1 races

were not on television here in the US

but I went to the library

and I discovered this magazine called AutoWeek

and

there was a page in AutoWeek

and every one of their issues, the magazine came out weekly

and there was a page in there

about F1

and so that's how I discovered the sport

I grew up always loving cars

and

Ferrari was really good at that time

so I was a big Ferrari fan because that's what you read

and that's how it all started

and over time

I was very lucky to be a part of

I'm on the board of Ferrari

I've been there for a long time

and so I got the

Insider view of Formula 1 from

that point of view

then we had the opportunity to build the movie

New Louis

having Louis involved in the movie

I knew was going to

to make it really epic

from a real point of view

I think one of the challenges

when you're trying to do something like this is

how do you make it real

and one of the things that I don't think people appreciate

as much is what incredible

athletes Formula 1 drivers are

what it takes to race

when you watch on television

it kind of looks like they're on a Sunday drive

you can't feel the G-Force

you can't do that

so we started working on technology

with Formula 1 to put the cameras

and the cars in the right place

so when you watch the movie it feels like you're actually in

what does it feel like to be in a Formula 1 car

and I think it definitely did that

the attention to detail

in the movie is incredible

thanks to Louis

I always say everything that happened

in that movie has happened

in a race

there's nothing in there including everybody

jokes around oh like you put that

if you haven't seen the movie please go see it

but hopefully you have

it's the biggest sport movie of all time

by the way Brad Pitt's biggest

movie of all time

but there's a scene in there at the end where

there's a red flag and that's how he's

you know he can win the race

and he was like oh that's crazy that would never happen

that's how Max Verstappen won a world championship

so

I've had a lot of history with Formula 1

and Stefano who's the CEO

of Formula 1 is a very very dear

friend I knew him back when he was working

at Ferrari and then later on

at Lamborghini and now at Formula 1

so

I have a long history with it

yeah the takeaway from the movie for me was

there are so many different ways to game this sport

that you know there's so many loopholes

in it that

you know maybe F1 wants to like clear up some of that

it was sort of poking at it I thought a little bit too

but look

assuming

again that the reporting is correct and that

you're about to spend let's say

$140, $150 million

per year on F1 there wasn't

long ago that F1 right sold for like

I think it was $4 million

maybe 12 years ago at NBC

where has all the

value come from

it's not all drive to survive

no look I think in the US

everyone talks about how big Formula 1 is

now

and the reality is is because it was

nowhere

and so if you're nowhere it's gotten

huge but the truth is

it's not huge yet it's only about a million people

or so that watch a given race that's right

and so when you compare it from a sports

point of view that's pretty tiny

so there's a huge potential

for the sport

and when you look at it it's a sport that's global

it's a sport that

it's the only sport in the world that I can

recall that where the actual events take place

everywhere in the world not in a single place

the athletes

they're incredible athletes

there is

what they can do

very few other athletes can do

so that's another piece of it

you have those incredible brands

and I love Cadillac coming on board

so you have all these brands of cars that are

involved in it

you have these

it's much more than just driving

now there's a whole social component

culture component

with the athletes themselves

heck even the team

principles have become movie stars

or TV stars now

I know Toto's coming in later

we were having dinner last night in Soho

and he gets stopped all the time for photos

you know

everybody's like

like five years ago

nobody would know who Toto was as he was walking down

Soho

not everyone but tons of people do know

so I think there's a huge huge potential

for the sport

in the US specifically

what can Apple do

to improve

the viewing experience

you've dabbled now

are there certain lessons you can take from your partnership with MLS

for instance?

yeah we learned a lot with Major League Baseball and MLS

one of the first things

which is kind of obvious

but you'd be surprised if you've never watched

a Major League Baseball game

or an MLS game on Apple

on our service

the first thing you notice is the quality

and you'd say well what do you mean the quality

you're 4k everybody else is 4k

everybody else compresses their video

quite a bit

and so when you watch one of our games

you're like well wait a second

why does this look better

than anything I've ever seen

so when you watch a Major League Baseball game

you've never seen that at that level

so we've done that

we've put cameras in places

that have never been on the empire

we did one cool thing

we put it on a foul pole

with an iPhone

so for the first time ever

couple months ago we had the iPhone actually

live broadcasting

from a baseball game

and we put the iPhone

on the foul pole obviously

you could never put a camera there

or other places

and you could not tell

the only way you could tell is because we put a bug on the bottom saying

hey this is being broadcast by an iPhone

imagine why we would do that

so we've done a lot of innovative things

and I think Formula One

can do that in spades

because there's so much data that happens in Formula One

there's all the radio broadcast

there's all the different teams

that you want to follow or drivers

so there's all kinds of capabilities

but it's hard to do today

how important is the Vision Pro

to your

desire for sports rights

because I can certainly imagine

a world where you put that device on

and somehow

if you're in the car to some degree

that would revolutionize

the viewing experience

there's a third party actually

I think one of the coolest apps that ever happened

on Vision Pro was

a small developer

decided to do this for Formula One

and so what he did is he creates the tracks

in three dimensions

and all the cars you can follow on the track

and obviously you've got this whole scene

and then you've got all the videos playing

of the cars that you want to follow

the data one

and so it gives you this whole experience

now obviously it's not being recorded yet

in a virtual mode

and so that's right

it'll be the first time we did this with Brad Pitt

we took one of the laughs and put a

the cameras were pretty big so right now

these virtual cameras you're not going to see them in a race yet

but you'll be able to put them around the track

to really for the first time

actually get even a closer experience

as to what does it take

to be in a rocket

because the g-force that they take

is more than an astronaut takes

when they're going up to space

so it's pretty crazy

is the

partnership between Apple and F1

or even where it could go

based on the

linking of high-end branding

between Apple and F1

it seems like there's a natural connection there

and I'm curious

if that's the case

does F1 kind of stand alone

in the broader scope of

motorsports as something that would be

keenly Apple

specific

well I think one of the things

that we love about motorsports

is the amount of technology involved in it

and obviously

formula one is the epitome

of that

so that's a

fun thing that ties to us

which is the combination

it's not just technology

there's a human involved in this

we were in this AI space

and all of that stuff

but the human part

is the key to the whole thing

Max Verstappen is the one

who wins the race

Orlando

or Oscar

but at the same time there's a level of technology

that's off the charts and so

that's near and dear to our heart

it's who we are and what we try to do

and so I love that part

of formula one

I want to talk about Apple's sport strategy

a little bit more broadly

you have said that

there has never been a better time

and never been a worse time

to be a sports fan right now

what did you mean by that

you know it's never been a better time

because let's face it every

sport in the world

is available in some fashion

or another to watch

that's never, that wasn't the case

you know not that many years back

and so that's amazing right

that we can get access to any sport

and it really doesn't matter we can watch the dark championships

live

the problem though

is we all know we can all watch everything

but it's very hard to find

you have to sign up

for you know 1200 subscriptions

around them

and

if you're traveling you're screwed

and it's crazy

like I travel a lot it's like I want to watch an NFL game

and I'm sitting in London and it's like

when I want to do that I have to

find a way to subscribe to a thing in London

but I can't really subscribe because I don't have

an English credit card

it's just

idiotic

so like I always thought like what's the analogy of that

well we you know we do a show

called the morning show

and the morning show is filmed here in New York

and so

the way we should do that is we should only let people in New York

watch the morning show

and so

it's not a great experience for customers

and if you're a sports fan

I'm a huge sports fan

I went to Duke for example

I want to watch the Duke game

I don't care what channel it's on

and everyone knows I'm a huge Duke fan

my phone

certainly knows I'm a huge Duke fan

and so it's really easy to

give it to me but

it sucks

so on the subscription front what is the solution

well

in a way we've gone backwards

because you used to buy

one subscription

your cable subscription and you got

pretty much everything they had

now like I said

there's so many different subscriptions

so I think that needs to be fixed

you can't ask people to subscribe

so how do you fix that

you opt into a bundle of streaming services

look I don't

have all the answers from that standpoint

I think we fixed it with MLS

because

well sort of

because you're also contributing to the problem

right now if I want to watch MLS

I've got to subscribe to Apple TV

if it was just on ESPN I wouldn't have to do that

that's right

you got to have some more bundles

from that standpoint everything being single is a problem

but I think

having

a single place where there are no blackouts

no matter where you are in the world

anyone can buy it from that standpoint

you can watch any game

it's easy to switch back and forth from that standpoint

picture in picture has been around forever

but it's really hard to do

if they let you do it at all

but in most cases they can't let you do it

because of the rights issues

this is pretty

basic stuff that I think can

grow the sport and I think one of the concerns

that you see is

when I was a kid

you were competing against what

I had

5 TV channels or whatever there is from that standpoint

now

if you're a kid growing up today

and you want people to watch your sport

there's a lot of competition

for those eyes

and so I think the bar is really high

and I think if we want people to watch games

and we want

all of sports to grow

I think some of these things need to be fixed

there seems to me to be a little bit of a tension

in that I know

your stated strategy with sports is that

you want

like the MLS you want all the rights

globally you want the whole package

you don't want to compete

for just sort of chunks of sports

although that is what you do with baseball

yeah I would say it's slightly differently

I think it's okay

you know

there are sports where that's not going to happen

not going to happen anytime soon

exactly it's not going to happen with basketball

it's not going to happen with football

it's not going to happen with the NFL

let's just start with

sports in the US that's not going to happen

to me that's a tension

but that doesn't mean

that a league or a sport

could demand its

partners to work together

for example

to provide a better experience

now that's not the case

so I think you have to think outside the box

there are certain things that are not going to happen

but again let's put the sports fan

front and center

that's the customer

that's the fan

can you get a little more specific with me

hypothetically a league

needs to force its partners to work together

what do you mean by that

access

so that you can go from one to the other

blackouts is another one

that happens because of that

and so there's

a lot of different things

if I want to get you to a better

game from that standpoint I'm not going to do that

if I have to switch from

one broadcast to another but

that's

in the interest of

a sports league

I don't have all the answers

I've got ideas as you can see but

it doesn't really matter what you want is you want to go and say

what does a sport fan want

so pick a sport what do you want

and then

if you own or you're responsible

then you got to go figure out ways to address that

so what you're saying is

if you're a league maybe you sell

a package of all of your games together

that type of thing

that's a possibility

that's one of the possibilities

you can

do the things that

if I'm a league and I have two

partners for example

and I happen to subscribe to two partners

it should be very easy for me to

go between them and do all kinds of things

between them and do picture and picture

and do

but I can't

so I think that

there are definitely solutions to some of these

it's harder

but that's why we're all here

to make hard problems

just take me behind the curtain a little bit

when you're having discussions with leagues

are you bringing up these ideas

and either the league itself or other media partners

are saying no thanks

I think look

it's a complicated business

these are big companies

successful companies around

and so

sure I bring up ideas

most of my ideas have to do with being a huge sports fan

it's what I want

as a fan

so I'm not trying to sell

something that's in the interest of Apple

I think what we do is great

but we're trying to address the sports fan

and so that's where the ideas

or thoughts come from

well given that you're a huge sports fan today

put up one aside

you have a little sliver of Major League Baseball

and you have MLS

do you want to own

many more sports rights

I think again

if we can do the kinds of things that we want to do

yes the answer is yes we do

if we can offer things that are

unique and special that lets us

really do the level of

differentiation, innovation

that we would like to do

then the answer is yes but

these things are

complicated

even worldwide rights are complicated

an ESPN executive once told me

that you would love to buy ESPN

is that true?

look

I love Bob Iger

he's a great company

and ESPN is a huge fan of ESPN

as a sports fan but

at Apple we like doing things

ourselves

we like building things

we start

generally from scratch and build

and that takes a little longer

from that standpoint but I think it lets us do things

that are unique and special

Apple Car

is that still on the table at all?

you like all these rumors

surrounded by cars

that would be something you could just throw the Apple name

on

we'd like what we're

focused on

cars are great they're a hobby

that I have that I love to do

it's great personally

I'm just curious

we saw the racing

video have you raced

a Formula 1 racing car before?

no but that's a good idea

you know

Brad did

after the movie

was done he went to Austin

because he's definitely

caught the bug

I have not I've done

a Formula

Ford car but those are a lot slower

you know

like I said

the athletes that they are

the truth is I really can't drive a Formula 1 car

I don't have the talent or the skill

set

to do that and so I could drive it slowly

I'm sure but

they don't even work very well slowly

I know what would happen when they put me

in a Formula 1 car and the first thing that happens

is when it's time to go

and sputter

and I'll be stuck and then

you have to bring the starter back out to start it

but someday

maybe who knows

you touched on it a little bit but to bring this back to racing

help me

envision where we're headed

in terms of where

you think the viewing experience

can go for racing you mentioned

there's new camera angles in the car

the picture quality is better

but I'd imagine you've thought about it even more intently than that

stay tuned

maybe someday we'll be able to give you some more

well

I would imagine that day may be coming soon

I would hope

that you'll maybe have some more announcements

on that front soon

you know

is this a

as you look at the current sports landscape

there's only so many sports you can buy

in the way that you want

to buy them

there's only so that you mentioned that

most of the leagues don't allow you

to acquire rights in the way

you're looking to acquire them

so that leads you to one of two things

you either need to compromise

which again you did it for baseball

we didn't

we won't compromise

we don't have to be

but you don't own the global rights to baseball

but you had to start somewhere to learn

what it takes to broadcast

before you decide to take on a whole league

and broadcast worldwide

so baseball was a test

it was a test for us

now we've enjoyed it and we've done a great job for them

but

that's never was never our intent

and that's not the reason we got into baseball

we got into baseball with them

with some greater visions

and thoughts that we had with them

and who knows they might come true

someday it takes longer on that front

but no we don't

we're not going to compromise

we don't have to do sports the way that they are

there's plenty of people doing that

so the world doesn't need us to do that

and so our view around it

is if we can do something unique then we'll do it

if not then we'll let it stay the way it is

but there are

I guess what I'm saying is that definitionally

you're kind of limited in the sports rights you can buy

to do it the way you want to do it

correct?

I think that's true today

but we are in it for the long run

we're in

we expect to be around

for a while

and so

the world

has this habit of changing

relatively fast at times

when you least expect it

and so right now I'm not expecting it

I agree with you but who the heck knows

what I do know

and I'll go back

I'd see some nodding heads when I look at the crowd

I mean there's a lot of sports fans out there

and I think

they want some of these changes

and so that's the best thing

and if fans want it

then you know it'll get figured out

maybe you can be the next commissioner

of one of these leagues right that's a way forward

Eddie Q everybody thank you

thank you very much

thank you Alex

thanks again to our partners at the motorsport network

and the autosport business exchange in New York

to see more cars and culture interviews

visit the cars and culture youtube channel

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that's episode 230

I'm your host Jason Stein we'll see you down the road

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Episode 230: Toto Wolff & Eddy Cue @ Autosport Business Exchange

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