Why the escalating war of words over F1 expansion is good for business

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How the tension over F1 expansion mirrors a practice from the NFL

The war of words over Formula 1 expansion continues.

But it might, in the long run, be huge for the sport.

Regardless of whether the field expands in the short-term, or in the long-term.

Here in the United States, the NFL remains atop the sports world. Look no further than this list of the highest-rated television programs from 2022. Of the top 100, 82 were NFL games, including a Christmas Day game between the Denver Broncos and the Los Angeles Rams, two teams with matching 4-10 records.

That game captured more viewers than any event at the Winter Olympics, the Oscars, or any NBA game.

As a writer whose main focus is the NFL, there are a number of reasons that the NFL remains atop the sporting world here in the United States. One is certainly the idea that the NFL offseason — especially the NFL draft and the free agency period — is packaged hope. Every fan base, regardless of how they finished the year before, can talk themselves into Super Bowl dreams over the offseason, provided the team just makes the right moves in free agency, and picks the right players in the draft.

We will return to that ideal in a moment.

But another reason for the NFL’s continued domination is how the league manages to stay in the conversation, even in the months when football is the last thing on anyone’s mind. A prime example is the release of the NFL schedule. In early May, the league will release each team’s schedule for the upcoming season, and that release will dominant sports coverage for days, if not weeks.

Writers like myself will opine about the “best matchups” and the “biggest revenge games,” and shows will debate which games are critical for each team’s Super Bowl dreams.

This will happen next May for the 2023 season. However, there is a caveat to this.

We already know what teams are playing each other next year.

Due to the NFL’s scheduling formula, we know all 17 games on each team’s schedule. FOr example, here are the 17 games for the Washington Commanders next year:

But in May, we will know the order, and the exact dates. And it will dominate coverage for a few days, keeping the NFL in the discussion even in the middle of the offseason.

At this point you are probably wondering: What in the world does this have to do with F1?

So let’s return to the escalating war of words over expansion. Ever since Michael Andretti and Mark Reuss of General Motors announced the Andretti-Cadillac partnership, the idea of expanding the F1 field has gone from a simmer to a full-on rolling boil. Every day a new story emerges, over teams in the current field pushing back on the idea of expansion, or FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem making a case for growing the field, or most recently, when Andretti himself referred to the uproar over the Andretti-Cadillac bid a matter of “greed.”

What has this done?

It has kept F1 in the news during the quiet season.

As F1 continues to grow, and expand into emerging markets, finding ways to keep the sport on everyone’s mind as much as possible — even in the offseason — is critical. The established fan bases are going to be there year-round. Long-suffering Ferrari fans are glued to every bit of coverage, whether it is the middle of September, or the middle of January.

But as the sport picks up new fans, finding ways to stay on their minds even in the quieter months is critical. The current tension over F1 expansion is filling in the gap between the silly season of driver and team principal movement following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and car reveals and preseason testing next month.

As for silly season? Well, that brings us to another angle. Regarding the NFL, free agency and the draft are some of the biggest months of the NFL year. Obviously the opportunities for player movement in the NFL is much, much bigger than driver movement in F1. You might only have a handful of drivers on the move at the end of the given season, whereas in the NFL you might see more quarterbacks move teams in an offseason than there are seats in all of F1.

Still, the addition of one or two more teams opens up a few more opportunities for driver movement during each silly season.

Something else that will keep fan bases — including fans in emerging markets — engaged over the quieter months.

Will we see F1 creep into the NFL’s dominance of the media market here in the United States? That seems a long way off, given the numbers that football continues to produce. But the current debate over expanding the F1 field — with a potential all-American team involved — is keeping F1 in the discussion during the quiet months.

Something that has worked extremely well for the NFL.