They’re talking about how F1 is growing in the U.S. and whether that’s a good thing for racing culture. The episode sets up a “better or worse” question.
They’re citing how many people in the U.S. are watching F1 on TV, and how that number has grown a lot. It’s used as evidence that F1 is getting more popular in America.
Apple TV is the streaming service that the host says will become F1’s main broadcaster in the U.S. from 2026. They mention it because it may be boosting how many people watch.
“Exclusive broadcaster” means only one TV or streaming service has the rights to show F1 in the U.S. The host says Apple TV will be the only one starting in 2026.
F1 has more than just the race: practice is teams testing and adjusting, and qualifying decides the starting order. The host says more fans are watching those parts too.
This is the F1 race track in Austin, Texas. The show points out it’s been on the F1 calendar since 2012 and is part of why the U.S. now hosts multiple races.
A “constructor” in F1 is the team that runs the car program and competes in the championship. It’s not just a brand name—it’s the racing team entering the cars.
IMSA is a big U.S. sports-car racing series. In this discussion, it’s brought up to show that other American racing categories haven’t grown at the same rate as F1.
It means the steps that help young drivers grow—like moving from beginner racing to bigger and more competitive series. The host is asking whether F1 invested in that kind of pathway in the U.S.
Karting is where many future race drivers start. The host is asking whether investing in karting would have helped grow American motorsports more broadly.
Accessible race experiences are efforts to make attending and engaging with racing easier for more people—through ticketing, venues, programming, and fan access. The host frames this as part of a grassroots-friendly growth model that could improve the overall health of American motorsports.
They’re contrasting two approaches: building racing culture from local participation upward versus relying on big, flashy events that attract attention quickly. The question is whether the second approach is enough by itself.
Technical regulations are the official rules that limit what teams can build. They control car design so the competition is about engineering within the same boundaries.
A track day is an event where private drivers take their own cars onto a racetrack for timed laps and practice. It’s a common “gateway” activity for people who want to experience motorsport beyond watching races.
LIVE
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Thursday Pit Stop here
on the BDifferential podcast.
I'm your host, Ava Gregory, and this week we're staying in the Formula One world, but
we're pulling way back from the race weekends and actually asking a bigger question.
Last week I talked about Silverstone and what makes it really like the soul of Formula
One.
This week, I want to ask whether that soul is changing and whether the force behind
that change is something we should be celebrating or something we should be paying closer attention
to.
The question is, is Formula One's American expansion good for motor sports?
And I mean genuinely good and not just good for viewership numbers and sponsorship revenue,
but good for the sport itself, good for the culture, people who were here
before it was cool, quite frankly.
And this is something that I actually talked about and discussed a little bit further with
the Hold the Past podcast host, and you guys should definitely go listen to that if you
want a deeper dive.
But first, let's have a brief little catch up on what I've been doing behind the scenes.
As I'm recording this, I'm sitting in my hotel bed.
LOL.
Sometimes we have to work where we are, okay?
So sorry to the YouTube watchers for my casual appearance.
Also, despite traveling and not being home, I'm navigating some things back home as I'm
gearing up to move across multiple states.
Oh my God, this is a big change and a new and exciting season is really happening.
So more on that later, but I wanted to share the update with you guys.
So let's get into this week's topic and I want to be upfront that this episode is not
going to necessarily give you a clean answer because I don't necessarily think there is
one and maybe that's the wrong thing to start with, but what I'm going to give you is my
honest picture, okay?
My perspective from inside of the industry and a few questions that I genuinely want
to ask and I want you to sit with.
So let's talk about what growth is actually looking like within F1.
Let's start with the facts because they are genuinely impressive and I don't want to be
the person who dismisses them.
Formula 1's US television audience grew 135% between 2018 and the end of the 2025 season.
In 2017, the average race drew about 538,000 American viewers and by 2025, that number
had climbed to 1.3 million per race.
And in 2026, Apple TV took over from ESPN as F1's exclusive US broadcaster and early
numbers suggest that viewership is up again significantly with fans watching not just race
day, but practice and qualifying sessions too.
The US now hosts three races, Austin Circuit of the Americas, which has been on the calendar
since 2012, Miami, which joined in 2022, and Las Vegas, which launched in 2023.
All three have locked in long-term deals.
The US is the only country in the world that hosts three Formula 1 races and American sponsors
now make up more than 45% of F1's total partnership base.
Cadillac joined the grid this season as the first American constructor in decades, okay?
So from a pure growth story perspective, this is one of the most remarkable expansions
in the history of professional sports, not just racing.
Formula 1 took a sport that had most Americans had never heard of or never tuned in for and
they turned it into a cultural moment, okay?
And I say that as someone who works in marketing and partnerships, the execution has been exceptional.
I talk all the time about Drive to Survive, but really, that show, the social media strategy,
the celebrity integration at race weekends, the three-race calendar footprint,
it all built on itself in a way that very few sports properties like ever managed to do.
So that's the case for the strong expansion.
And it really is a strong case, but here's where I want to push on it a little bit, okay?
I'm not trying to be problematic, but I want to talk about the tension and what the numbers
don't necessarily tell you.
So here's my honest take as someone who spent her career in motorsports
and now manages partnerships across the automotive and motorsports space
with Hagerty and also in other like side various projects.
F1's American expansion has been phenomenal for exposure, right?
It has brought millions of people into contact with the sport they might never have discovered
otherwise.
And some percentage of those people, I believe truly like a meaningful percentage,
have gone deeper.
They've learned the technical side, they follow driver development,
they care about what happens in the midfield.
They've become real true fans of the sport and not just consumers
of the content that's around it.
But I do think we have to be honest that the primary vehicle for F1's American growth
has been spectacle.
Drive to survive dramatized relationships and manufactured storylines,
the Las Vegas Grand Prix launched with a concert lineup and a price tag that
positioned it as a luxury lifestyle event first and race second.
The celebrity grid walks at Miami and I say this having watched them from a marketing
perspective with genuine appreciation for the reach that they generate
are not really about racing.
They're about making Formula One feel like the place to be seen.
And none of that is inherently wrong, right?
Sports have always used entertainment to grow their audiences.
The Super Bowl is as much about the halftime show as it is the game.
Lord knows that's why I tune in, okay?
And I understand the strategy and I respect the execution.
But what I find myself asking and I don't have a definitive answer is this.
What is the ratio of the millions of new American F1 fans?
How many are genuinely engaged with the sport itself?
And how many are engaged with the content or the drama or the lifestyle imagery around it?
And quite frankly, the better question, does that ratio matter?
I think it does a little bit because here's what I've observed working in this industry.
There is a difference between an audience and a community.
An audience watches and a community participates.
They advocate, they show up, they carry the culture forward, right?
I think that one example is NASCAR has built one of the most durable communities in American
sports over decades.
And it did that through accessibility, through regional identity,
and through making people feel like the sport belonged to them.
They still have some work to do, don't get me wrong.
But F1's American growth has been extraordinarily fast and extraordinarily top-down.
And fast top-down growth produces audiences more reliably than it produces communities.
So there's also a question I want to raise about what this growth means for American domestic
motorsports as a whole.
Because while F1 has been expanding its footprint here,
IndyCar, IMSA, and the grassroots scene have not necessarily seen the same proportional shift.
Now, I will say for IndyCar and IMSA, there have certainly been massive, massive increases in
viewership, in partnership, in fans that are attending, participants, right?
At the smaller, lower-tier entry level, I say lower-tier, but what I mean is really like
we're talking entry level, your foot in the door, grassroots scene have not necessarily seen
that proportional lift, right?
Like it's something that there's arguably a decrease or a diminishing of.
So if anything, the conversation in American motorsports media has become more F1-centric
than ever, which means less oxygen for the series and disciplines that have deeper American roots.
So whether that's a direct consequence of F1's growth or just a coincidence of timing
is genuinely hard to separate, especially as someone that has participated and worked in
kind of both worlds at this point.
So what I actually want you to think about now, and I told you at the top that I wasn't
going to give you a clean answer because I'm not because I just want to pose these questions.
I do want to leave you with something, some specific questions because I think that the
way you answer them says something real about how you relate to this sport and this culture.
So the question one is if F1 had grown its American audience through grassroots development,
more carting investment, more driver development pipelines, more accessible race experiences,
would we be having a different conversation about the health of American motorsports right now?
Or is top-down spectacle-driven growth the only kind that works at scale?
I think there are other series that say otherwise, so I'd love to ask that about F1.
Question two is is there a version of F1's American expansion that is good for American
motorsports more broadly and not just for Formula One itself?
And if so, what would it actually require from the sport and its stakeholders to make that happen?
Question three, and this is to me the most personal, if you're a newer F1 fan who came
through Drive to Survive or the Las Vegas Grand Prix or the Miami Celebrity Grid Walk,
what has your journey looked like since then? Have you gone deeper into the sport?
Have you tried a track day? Have you attended a local race or learned about the technical
regulations? Or has your fandom stayed mostly at the content level? I'm not asking this in a
judging way. I'm genuinely curious because the answer to that question multiplied across millions
of fans is the answer to whether this expansion is actually changing the culture of motorsports
in America or just changing the viewership numbers. So I find this genuinely fascinating
to think about and I'd love to know where you land. I work inside this industry. I'm also a fan
inside the industry. I see what partnerships look like, what brands are buying and what audiences
are trying to reach. And personally, I don't think I still have a clean verdict on whether the net
effect of F1's American moment is positive for the sport that I and we love at every level.
So I have a suspicion, but I'd rather hear from you guys. So my closing and final question here
is what do you think F1 owes American Motorsports or United States American Motorsports in exchange
for three races, billions in sponsorship revenue and a generation of new fans? Would we say anything
or nothing? Is there something specific? Send me your answer and I mean this. I always try to start
some conversation and communication, but this is the kind of conversation that I started this show
to have. So again, I'll just kind of reiterate here. A few weeks ago, I joined the Hold the Pass
podcast with hosts Misha and Fatima and they actually came on my podcast as well. So you guys
can take a listen back to that. I think there were some really, really meaningful questions that were
raised for the two of them who were maybe newer fans to F1 and especially newer to some non F1
races now and disciplines and things like that, getting involved with IMSA and others. But I do,
there's so many of this, like if we want to continue seeing this industry that we all love and care
about move forward, we have to see people that are doing more than just consuming content and it's
no shade because I consume a lot of content, okay? But it's like, hey, how can we transfer you watching
a video about someone doing a track day or doing, you know, a driving school to getting you behind
the wheel and actually doing those two so that we can continue to see more growth. That said,
that's it for this week's pit stop. Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter so you can stay in
the know and we'll see you next week. Bye.
About this episode
Ava Gregory weighs F1’s American expansion as both a triumph and a potential cultural tradeoff. She cites major growth stats—US TV viewership up sharply, three US races locked in long-term, Apple TV taking over, and US sponsors dominating partnerships. But she argues the engine of growth is largely spectacle: Drive to Survive, celebrity moments, and Las Vegas’ lifestyle-first launch. That raises questions about audience vs community, spillover to IndyCar/IMSA/grassroots, and what F1 owes American motorsports in return for new fans and money.
Formula 1's American expansion is one of the most remarkable growth stories in professional sports history — 135% audience growth since 2018, three US races, Cadillac on the grid, and Apple TV now broadcasting to a fanbase that barely existed a decade ago. By every measurable standard, the numbers are extraordinary.
But are the numbers the whole story?
In this week's Thursday Pit Stop, host Eva Gregory pulls back from the race weekend and asks the bigger question: is F1's American expansion actually good for motorsports — not just good for viewership, sponsorship revenue, and cultural cachet, but good for the sport itself? Good for the people who were here before it was cool?
Eva brings her perspective from inside the industry to offer an honest read on what Drive to Survive built, what the Las Vegas Grand Prix really was, and what the difference between an audience and a community actually means for the long-term health of the sport. She also raises the question that doesn't get asked enough: while F1 has been expanding its American footprint, what has happened to IndyCar, IMSA, and the grassroots scene that gave American motorsports its identity in the first place?
This episode won't give you a clean answer — because Eva doesn't think there is one. What it will give you are three questions worth sitting with, and one closing question she genuinely wants you to answer.
If you came to F1 through Drive to Survive, the Miami grid walk, or the Las Vegas spectacle — this episode is for you. If you've been here for decades and you're not sure how to feel about the new crowd — this one is for you too.
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