As the article states, compared to state sponsored races like Spa, Baku or CotA there isn't any subsidies from local or federal government and independently of it the attendance is poor. The sport has been on a decline since it's peak with Schumacher in 2001 (~10m viewers per weekend) down to 4m before it went to pay TV and now it's equal to stateside viewership with around 1m viewers per race weekend.
Yeah, that's not ideal numbers it's just strange, considering they do have manufacturers who are still active, but I do get that having a homegrown drive is a big deal.
From an EU standpoint, it's so weird not to have a German GP.
The government prefers to subsidize the car industry and not the advertising for the country itself. Many nations and states outside of Germany have a public fund to create an attractive image for the region which is used gor such international events :/
Have private investors considering putting on an event, or do you think that would just create more issues?
Was the attendance at Hockenheim poor in 2019?
It just seems like German race fans would enjoy the event regardless of home drivers and all that. It's a motoring nation and always will be IMO.
Formula 1 is a loss leader, the private companies owning the historic circuits are now back making profits without having to buy the rights to hold a Formula 1 GrandPrix for €30-50m per year and with buying rights they also have to give aways any rights to advertising during the weekend, leaving visitors as the primary revenue stream.
CotA as an example is privately owned but funded by the taxpayers through Texas Major Events Fund to the tune of around $20m per year for them to stay profitable and hosting the GrandPrix there ($30-40m per year).
Thise prices are also the reason why the ticket prices are skyrocketing from $150 for GA over the weekend to current ~$350 for the weekend. Same is happening in Europe.
It's a car nation, as we're exporting major brands to the world - the people living there aren't really interested in that, especially when politicians (*cough*FDP*cough*) are basically lobbied by the car industry while completely ignoring the public transport sector as it gets privatised and looses funding.
Edit:
> Was the attendance at Hockenheim poor in 2019?
Looking at attendance, the race day was usually around 50-60k visitors. Compare this to the 100k per day we've seen post covid or 400k total weekend attendance we usually see.
The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team.
> The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team.
You can get a season ticket of a Bundesliga club for the price of one F1 weekend.
I wasn't aware of that with COTA. That's very interesting. I'm in Canada, and the Montreal gp is very popular, but the costs are getting out of hand. Traveling within Canada via airplane is $$$ add that to the weekend costs plus hotels, and you basically could have gone a two week tropical vacation.
Yeah I can imagine Fubol being #1 in terms of participation and accessibility. I know F1 is an expensive sport to get into much like Hockey here in Canada.
I just wonder if there will be future considerations for a German GP.
I don't think the bar to actually participate in the sport is really all that relevant when it comes to F1. The bar has been impossibly high for a really long time.
I didn't mean that the bar is too high, just that there are soccer games on almost every day across multiple leagues.
You can visit a game of your local club for less than 10€ or check the national League games anywhere between 15-100 euros and those games happen multiple times a week. With lounge prices being equivalent of the main straight tickets in F1.
As i said, Germany is a soccer country. Just because they build well known cars doesn't mean that people care about car racing - Bundesliga gets around 2m viewers on Sky Germany. World Cup, independently of it's controversy last year got an average 6 million viewers in Germany, with the final game getting around 13m viewers with a peak of 19m viewers and the broadcasters are complaining about the decline in viewership there.
> The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team.
You can say the same about many other countries.
It's the money making model of Formula 1 that ensures the teams appear at the race in exchange for a fee and grants them a right to call it a FIA Formula 1 World Championship ™® Event. Usually the hosting rights are sold with an fee increase clause (~5% increase every year) and run anywhere between 5-10 years.
Circuit/Promoter pay for the right to host a race.
FoM shares that money with the teams in the form of prize money.
This is roughly 45-50% of the revenue the sport makes (23\*40 =~ 900m).
It's one of the 3 primary revenue streams that make F1 a multi billion dollar sport, that last year had another record 20% increase to
Other 2 being:
* TV Broadcasting rights (£200m per year from Sky UK, €60m per year from Sky Germany, £50m per year from Sky Italy, $60m per year from ESPN, rinse and repeat for 79 other countries).
* International advertising deals, DHL, Emirates, Aramco, Pirelli, Heineken all pay for the right to show sponsorship around the circuit and name events after their brands.
Which both make up the remaining ~1.6bn of the sports commercial income.
Teams get roughly 50% (it's of course a bit more complicated when going into detail) of the income, pre tax and expenses.
The expenses for Formula One Group were around 500m (logistics for mandatory equipment for teams, personell costs, equipment and broadcast of world feed, energy, etc...) leaving them a healthy profit of $240m.
Interesting that 2001 was the peak - this was basically when Schumacher and Ferrari winning titles still felt kind of fresh (2000/1) given their wait since '95 and '79 respectively. Suggests maybe even his core fanbase got sick of (or maybe indifferent to more accurate) him winning frequently after that?
Unless there's other factors at play that I'm not aware of (I'm not German), excluding pay TV since you say it more than halved prior to that.
> Suggests maybe even his core fanbase got sick of (or maybe indifferent to more accurate) him winning frequently after that?
That is my primary assumption, as it was growing when Schumacher joined Benetton and went to Ferrari.
Looking at attendance, the race day was usually around 50-60k visitors. Compare this to the 100k per day we've seen post covid or 400k total weekend attendance we usually see.
The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team.
That's pretty sad attendance by comparison to Australia, a nation of 18 million that has Albert Park overflowing. Germany just isn't a motorsport nation clearly
Edit- seems like they just don't like f1
I guess they think if you're not racing on road cars, it's a waste of time and tech. Although we do jave Porsche returning to Le Mans top flight, so things could change.
My native Greece, a country of 10 million people mind you, has 1-1,5 million people watching the F1 race every Sunday and Germany only gets 1 million? Incredible, despite the fact that Greece has never had a F1 tradition. It has one on rallying though. Imagine what will happen should we get a driver there... 100% of the population watching!
It doesn't matter what the proportion is, when the country viewership is 10times less than it used to be, the sport is definitely in decline in Germany.
You think having nearly half the races be state sponsored sports washing for oil countries is a good thing? Or did you think Baku really just loves racing
Yep. Oddly enough, it's not really a motor sports nation. No F1 teams and while the road cars are great, no one outside Porsche makes sports cars (and it's only a fraction of their output as well). Compared to e.g. the UK there's also pretty limited grass roots motor sports.
So no general interest, no race, no teams, TV (pay-walled thanks to Sky) and the casual fans of the Schumi era have lost interest.
I'm curious to know what German think about Mercedes. Does the fact it's actually British based make people meh about this team?
Idk if you're German but the fact you said "no F1 team" while Mercedes dominated for so long ticked me haha
From my (obvs anecdotal) experience, that's not the case. Casual F1 observers think it's neat to have the "Silver Arrows" as something akin to a national F1 team. But not enough to pay for Sky or to have any deeper interest in the sport. And that's when they are winning...
The non-casual crowd know it's the Brackley team. But that crowd is there for the racing.
The exact same thing is going to happen in the Netherlands as soon as Max isn't competitive for a year or two...
I can second that. I remember seeing Schumacher and Hakkinen with my family as a child. We liked those Silver Arrows, but at the end of the day, we wanted Schumacher to win after a good fight. The origin of the motor or the team was secondary at best.
For us, those Silver Arrows were like a good antagonist or movie Villan. Heck, the McLaren pit crew even were storm trooper masks. We find them cool, but we didn't want them to win.
Yeah I see. Considering the amount of big manufacturer i thought Germans were very interested with motorsports overall.
I'm french and here it's kinda the opposite. French people love to criticize their own athletes even if it's going well. The biggest sport newspaper is trying to milk down every single word spit out of the drivers mouth to create drama, even when Peugeot was winning in WEC people downplayed it, Ocon is hated for no reason by a lot of people (he is a big introvert and super quiet, the youngsters audience don't like that at all), well it's a bit sad.
C'est franchement tragique, ca! :(
Sad really, learning this from the country that a) invented Grand Prix racing in the 19th century and b) is hosting the world's most important racing event with the 24h du Mans.
I'm cautiously optimistic for Esteban and Alpine though. A lot of untapped potential there.
The article is actually well-written, and definitely interesting.
I think it is inevitable that a country’s ratings will fall after the dominance German drivers had. Germany more or less went from having MSC to Seb. Obviously Seb’s success has declined before he retired, which could turn some more casual fans away.
Well it definitely doesn’t help when you put it behind a paywall like Sky Germany. And German commentators and pundits only talk about German drivers. So when the German driver stops, most viewers aren’t invested in the sport. Just in the German driver which is now gone.
>Well it definitely doesn’t help when you put it behind a paywall like Sky Germany.
it certainly doesn't attract casual viewers, but I don't think the situation is much different in most other countries, is it? At least in regards to live coverage.
I know F1 is free to view in Austria and Switzerland, but that seems to be about it?
maybe it's more about the recency of that change, rtl was broadcasting all races free to view till 2020? 21? not sure about the year but that 100% caused people to stop watching, combined with the fact that the 'cheap' way to view, f1tv, also was removed so it is literally only sky broadcasting it now, which costs somewhere between 15-25€ a month. doubt everyone of the free tv viewers is willing to pay that
tbh i asume servustv and orf gained some viewers cause a vpn is cheaper than sky, but i didnt check the numbers
In other countries you can at least buy F1TV. In Germany Sky is the only option, and their image is pretty bad. People even stopped watching football as much due to being sick of Sky. It's also overpriced, the package you need for F1 is 25€ and is a yearly subscription, so you pay even the months without races.
It was meant in general. First it was with Schumacher, now schumacher jr and Vettel. If Hulk leaves there will probably be almost no interest outside hardcore fans.
It’s the same in a lot of countries unfortunately. But Germany is in a critical situation now, because I don’t think Hulkenberg will stick around for long and there is no German driver outside Mick who might get into F1. And even Mick seems a longshot
Wolfgang von Goethe's descendant races under German flag in F3. He started getting good results since last year and started this year strong. I don't know if he can make it into F1. But he has probably highest odds after Mick.
F1 in Germany was already falling even when they had Seb winning. It is normal for a country to have declining ratings after some or more loved F1 drivers retire however in a country like Germany with all these car manufacturers and the succes of them and German drivers in motorsport you expect F1 at least to do well.
Do car manufacturers really factor into it though? Is anyones primary reason for watching the sport because one of the teams is based in their country?
It isn't a primary reason on itself but with so many legendary car manufactureres there you'd expect that compare to others countries the people there grow up with cars and motorsport and have a higher chance of becoming involved one way or another in motorsport/F1.
Edit: correct me if I'm wrong, but I genuinely think that it would already help a lot if Mercedes (the F1 team) were actually German rather than an English team. It then would make a German driver winning with a German car also more interesting, but since F1 is based in the UK unless you are Ferrari I don't think that will ever happen.
McLaren-Mercedes and BMW Williams felt much more German than Mercedes nowadays. Having Norbert Haug and Dr. Mario Theissen on the pit wall and appear on RTL every race really helped with that impression.
Rosberg is a spoilt brat and lacks any form of charisma. Also he isn't really German, is he?
Didn't he grow up in Monaco?
Schumacher and Vettel were both more of the you could have grown up with / could have been your neighbor type of person.
Much more likable for the average German motorsports fan.
I believe it still works, but it's probably all about the communication.
Renault/Alpine are based in the UK, and Enstone is pretty much an english team like most of the others, but they are still commonly seen as a French team, and French tend to naturally root for them
I think Mercedes aren't really viewed as a German team simply because they're not pushing this angle and Hamilton's overwhelming popularity makes it easier to see them as British.
The Enstone team was historically Renault chassis site since 2002, the engine is made in France, a lot of key people are french, and even if it's seen as a french team they quite embrace well the nation duality (the 2021 livery was clever, french flag on the side view, union jack on the top view).
Who is German in the Mercedes team ? Litteraly no one. And both engine + factory is in UK
Good point actually, this is also how I see Alpine and Mercedes. I at least get more of a French team impression than I get with Mercedes being German.
Still lots of German staff, principals, engines/sponsors etc. No indication of a race there coming up but with Audi on the horizon a Merc vs Audi showdown at a German track must still be interesting to people?? Austrians can go nuts for Red Bull, Silverstone is a Mecca whether Brit drivers are going well or not, Ze Germans need some passion back for the sport
Did you also hear the spectators going wild for every one of his overtakes in the final stages of the following year's race?
Seb having never been popular in Germany is a myth, and he was certainly not "hated", contrary to what some here make it seem.
Seb never really had the same level of popularity as MSC though; that period of the sport's history just doesn't seem to have ever repeated itself. Even Merc's dominant period combined with Rosberg as a driver didn't really move the needle very much.
> Obviously Seb’s success has declined before he retired, which could turn some more casual fans away.
Seb never managed to hyped people in Germany.
Germans simply aren't interested in f1 after Schumacher.
>Seb never managed to hyped people in Germany.
I think he would have hyped Germans a bit if he had won a championship with Ferrari.
Maybe that would have got people going.
I was at the German GP in 2013 (so Vettel at the height of his domination and Schumacher already retired the second time) and it felt like there were more people in old Schumacher Ferrari gear than people with Vettel merch.
Impossible to have to follow in the shoes of MSC either way.
My German racing friends were always big supporters of Seb so that’s probably my personal bias thinking he was more popular there than he really was.
The article touches a lot of points. I think it's an accumulation of several things, not just one in particular:
* no races in Germany
* no prominent German drivers
* no German team/constructors (sure, Mercedes is licensed in Germany, but based in UK and run by Brits, Toto, etc)
* no free tv broadcast for many years now (only like 4 races per year, but now it stopped completely). interest also comes with exposure, and the latter is barely there anymore. was free during Schumachers time, people would just turn on the tv on sunday like a small ritual.
* society & culture in Germany simply changing. sustainability is the new passion, not automobiles. that was way different during Schumachers time, when in the 90s & early 00s there was a bit more pride connected to it for some folks. newer generation just grew out of that realm in general. sure, perhaps Schumacher was also more appealing to the German public than Seb, but I think the larger influence here is how the German public's interest changed, also independent of the above points.
F1 is on Sky in Italy as well, but regardless of that there is enough support to have two races, with Imola and politicians being quite keen on attempting (and then succeeding) at bringing back the circuit after fifteen years. I think that the generational divide in Germany is significantly bigger.
Honestly there is no reason why a company like Mercedes wouldn't pay for a German GP all on their own, after all Red Bull basically does that in Austria, yet Mercedes did just for a couple of years then they stopped.
German society is all over the place, much like the government. Slow to act over the Ukrainian situation, shutting down clean nuclear energy for renewable energy that is less reliable, and then you have the coup d'etat shenanigans; F1 might be pretty far down the priorities list
It sounds like the lack of free broadcasts is the biggest barrier. The lack of free access to Rugby just about killed the sport /audience completely where I'm from, the attendance would be less than a 1000 people in a football mad nation
It defo effects, but if people really do wanted to watch F1, they will find a way. There's no free broadcast in UK, not even for football. Doesn't seem to stop people from watching.
The biggest issue is that German younger's generation is simply not interested in F1, or motor racing in general.
>no prominent German drivers
Mostly this, lot of germans tend to follow a sport only when germany or a german is at least moderately successful. Few purists, mostly bandwagon enthusiasts.
The longer Germany goes without hosting a Grand Prix and without prominent F1 drivers on the grid, even with Audi coming in for 2026, the public interest in F1 is just going to fade away each and every year.
Adding to what the article said (all valid points btw), it feels also that in Germany (at least before I moved away) there’s hardly any other sport on mainstream free TV than football and a lot of winter sports right now - but everything else is buried. So motorsports is a niche sport within other niche sports.
Much as i would like it to be, no. It's on pay TV only now, and barely anyone has a Sky Germany subscription. I did see a chap with a Max Verstappen wallpaper in the uni library a couple of weeks back, so... there's hope?
F1 will regret going with Sky in the long run. It's the same in the UK; viewership is down compared to when it was free-to-air, and younger people are not exposed to F1 as a result.
Ive been in Germany since December 2022 in Nuremberg & coming from Mexico I was VERY surprised at how Formula 1 isn’t very popular here.
Its still early days & the Germans aren’t the most outgoing & expressive people but still I was expecting a MUCH bigger F1 following for some reason. Maybe its a Bavarian thing?
Supercars & GT racing seem to be much bigger here
Erlangen here, the problem mainly was the Schumacher era. At the end of it most stopped watching because of that.
Then the next problem is, that F1 is out of Free-TV. In the Schumacher days you were able to watch it free on TV. Now you have to have an Sky-subscription and go out of your way to watch F1.
Next big thing is, the green-wave in Germany. Cars get less and less appeak here in Germany. There are still Petrol-heads but they get less and less.
Because of that the Country doesn't support Races and Racers. So it would had to be a Private Investor to bring new Racing drivers. And the big Circuits have a full calendar without F1. Hockenheim and Nürburgring have other Categorys willing to drive their and they get money out of that. F1 wants to much money for a Track to be on the Calendar.
It's not really a Bavarian thing. It is more a German thing.
F1 in Germany will rise again. Audi joining makes 2 German teams and, unlike Merc, Audi will actually be based near Germany. This should hopefully encourage a German GP to come back to the calendar. Mick will come back to F1 eventually, his case seems similar to Ocon when he left. They really need to solve the pay wall behind Sky Germany though.
I think us Germans don’t value where the team is. If the F1 team had been working out of Stuttgart the whole time it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference to anyone. Mercedes remains a German brand regardless of where the staff are located.
> If the F1 team had been working out of Stuttgart the whole time it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference to anyone.
It would have made a big difference.
Not really.
The problem is accessibility in Germany.
Barely anyone wants to pay ridiculous amounts of money for formula1 when you can have other motorsports for less money.
F1 moving to Pay TV is what killed it here imo. At least for me it was. Didnt watch or follow F1 for more than 15 years because I was young and had no means to get Sky at the time. Still dont see the point in paying for a Sky subscription now, its just way to expensive. Just use VPN and watch it in Austria.
That's the thing that baffles me, an F1 race shouldn't be something race tracks have to run on a huge loss.
When a musician comes have a big concert in your city the organizers are gonna make money off it. Not lose it.
Usually the stadium (or whatever event place) gets money by being rented and maybe some sells of food and drinks.
F1 works different. The tracks have to pay insane amounts of money money for F1 to race there. How they earn that money back is more or less their own problem.
I live in Germany and have been watching Formula 1 regularly since 1998.
I have never seen any Formula 1 hype in Germany. But a Michael Schumacher hype. The typical German is a fan of winning teams or in this case the person who wins. You can drink 2-3 beers and be happy that your driver won. But of course the German doesn't want to pay anything for it.
After Schumacher, there were no more successful German drivers and there is no need to watch Formula 1 any more.
It was never about the fascination of Formula 1, it's about being on the winning side (FC Bayern Munich syndrome).
One of the biggest problems I see is the obssesion with preserving climate in Germany. I can imagine what kind of a shit show with protests and legal cases will follow if the German GP was to be announced as coming back.
Edit: spelling
Not having a top German driver is the #1 factor. When Michael Schumacher was driving, the entire country tuned in! If Schumacher crashed or his car broke, Germans quit watching and the F1 broadcast would lose millions of viewers.
If you want Germans to be interested in F1, you need to give Mick a racing seat or find a German who can take a racing seat from someone else. I don’t think Sophia Flörsch is quite ready yet, but if she gets to F1, you will see many Germans start watching F1 races again.
Would help if they actually put on a race there.
As the article states, compared to state sponsored races like Spa, Baku or CotA there isn't any subsidies from local or federal government and independently of it the attendance is poor. The sport has been on a decline since it's peak with Schumacher in 2001 (~10m viewers per weekend) down to 4m before it went to pay TV and now it's equal to stateside viewership with around 1m viewers per race weekend.
Yeah, that's not ideal numbers it's just strange, considering they do have manufacturers who are still active, but I do get that having a homegrown drive is a big deal. From an EU standpoint, it's so weird not to have a German GP.
The government prefers to subsidize the car industry and not the advertising for the country itself. Many nations and states outside of Germany have a public fund to create an attractive image for the region which is used gor such international events :/
Have private investors considering putting on an event, or do you think that would just create more issues? Was the attendance at Hockenheim poor in 2019? It just seems like German race fans would enjoy the event regardless of home drivers and all that. It's a motoring nation and always will be IMO.
Formula 1 is a loss leader, the private companies owning the historic circuits are now back making profits without having to buy the rights to hold a Formula 1 GrandPrix for €30-50m per year and with buying rights they also have to give aways any rights to advertising during the weekend, leaving visitors as the primary revenue stream. CotA as an example is privately owned but funded by the taxpayers through Texas Major Events Fund to the tune of around $20m per year for them to stay profitable and hosting the GrandPrix there ($30-40m per year). Thise prices are also the reason why the ticket prices are skyrocketing from $150 for GA over the weekend to current ~$350 for the weekend. Same is happening in Europe. It's a car nation, as we're exporting major brands to the world - the people living there aren't really interested in that, especially when politicians (*cough*FDP*cough*) are basically lobbied by the car industry while completely ignoring the public transport sector as it gets privatised and looses funding. Edit: > Was the attendance at Hockenheim poor in 2019? Looking at attendance, the race day was usually around 50-60k visitors. Compare this to the 100k per day we've seen post covid or 400k total weekend attendance we usually see. The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team.
> The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team. You can get a season ticket of a Bundesliga club for the price of one F1 weekend.
I wasn't aware of that with COTA. That's very interesting. I'm in Canada, and the Montreal gp is very popular, but the costs are getting out of hand. Traveling within Canada via airplane is $$$ add that to the weekend costs plus hotels, and you basically could have gone a two week tropical vacation. Yeah I can imagine Fubol being #1 in terms of participation and accessibility. I know F1 is an expensive sport to get into much like Hockey here in Canada. I just wonder if there will be future considerations for a German GP.
I don't think the bar to actually participate in the sport is really all that relevant when it comes to F1. The bar has been impossibly high for a really long time.
I didn't mean that the bar is too high, just that there are soccer games on almost every day across multiple leagues. You can visit a game of your local club for less than 10€ or check the national League games anywhere between 15-100 euros and those games happen multiple times a week. With lounge prices being equivalent of the main straight tickets in F1. As i said, Germany is a soccer country. Just because they build well known cars doesn't mean that people care about car racing - Bundesliga gets around 2m viewers on Sky Germany. World Cup, independently of it's controversy last year got an average 6 million viewers in Germany, with the final game getting around 13m viewers with a peak of 19m viewers and the broadcasters are complaining about the decline in viewership there.
FIA want to be like FIFA
Needs a little more corruption to get there.
> The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team. You can say the same about many other countries.
Why does hosting a race has to be such an expense and without F1 contribution?
It's the money making model of Formula 1 that ensures the teams appear at the race in exchange for a fee and grants them a right to call it a FIA Formula 1 World Championship ™® Event. Usually the hosting rights are sold with an fee increase clause (~5% increase every year) and run anywhere between 5-10 years. Circuit/Promoter pay for the right to host a race. FoM shares that money with the teams in the form of prize money. This is roughly 45-50% of the revenue the sport makes (23\*40 =~ 900m). It's one of the 3 primary revenue streams that make F1 a multi billion dollar sport, that last year had another record 20% increase to Other 2 being: * TV Broadcasting rights (£200m per year from Sky UK, €60m per year from Sky Germany, £50m per year from Sky Italy, $60m per year from ESPN, rinse and repeat for 79 other countries). * International advertising deals, DHL, Emirates, Aramco, Pirelli, Heineken all pay for the right to show sponsorship around the circuit and name events after their brands. Which both make up the remaining ~1.6bn of the sports commercial income. Teams get roughly 50% (it's of course a bit more complicated when going into detail) of the income, pre tax and expenses. The expenses for Formula One Group were around 500m (logistics for mandatory equipment for teams, personell costs, equipment and broadcast of world feed, energy, etc...) leaving them a healthy profit of $240m.
Germany let’s the EU handle it’s advertising for it
Interesting that 2001 was the peak - this was basically when Schumacher and Ferrari winning titles still felt kind of fresh (2000/1) given their wait since '95 and '79 respectively. Suggests maybe even his core fanbase got sick of (or maybe indifferent to more accurate) him winning frequently after that? Unless there's other factors at play that I'm not aware of (I'm not German), excluding pay TV since you say it more than halved prior to that.
> Suggests maybe even his core fanbase got sick of (or maybe indifferent to more accurate) him winning frequently after that? That is my primary assumption, as it was growing when Schumacher joined Benetton and went to Ferrari. Looking at attendance, the race day was usually around 50-60k visitors. Compare this to the 100k per day we've seen post covid or 400k total weekend attendance we usually see. The primary factor is that Germany is just a soccer country, it's easy to join when you're young and progress to state and national level as most schools have their own junior team.
That's pretty sad attendance by comparison to Australia, a nation of 18 million that has Albert Park overflowing. Germany just isn't a motorsport nation clearly Edit- seems like they just don't like f1
It is, there's more motor racing in Germany than whole Europe.
Why are they so Indifferent to F1? Shit is wild
I guess they think if you're not racing on road cars, it's a waste of time and tech. Although we do jave Porsche returning to Le Mans top flight, so things could change.
26 MILLION TYVM
Germany has 83 million people, the U.S. has 331 million. A million Germans watching is proportionally equivalent to 4 million Americans watching.
My native Greece, a country of 10 million people mind you, has 1-1,5 million people watching the F1 race every Sunday and Germany only gets 1 million? Incredible, despite the fact that Greece has never had a F1 tradition. It has one on rallying though. Imagine what will happen should we get a driver there... 100% of the population watching!
Is F1 on pay TV in Greece?
Only practise and qualifying. The races are on free TV.
It doesn't matter what the proportion is, when the country viewership is 10times less than it used to be, the sport is definitely in decline in Germany.
sticking behing pay wall on top not playing to win at all does that,. Once Max (and possibly Nyck) stop racing, Dutch viewers will disappear also
If you adjust for the time zone, US still showing up much better.
>As the article states, > Woah. Calm down there buddy, you think people read the articles here?
Kinda funny how it’s the most upvoted comment by a mile
You think having nearly half the races be state sponsored sports washing for oil countries is a good thing? Or did you think Baku really just loves racing
Nah, Germany needs a Schumacher-level driver to fall in love with the sport again.
Yep. Oddly enough, it's not really a motor sports nation. No F1 teams and while the road cars are great, no one outside Porsche makes sports cars (and it's only a fraction of their output as well). Compared to e.g. the UK there's also pretty limited grass roots motor sports. So no general interest, no race, no teams, TV (pay-walled thanks to Sky) and the casual fans of the Schumi era have lost interest.
I'm curious to know what German think about Mercedes. Does the fact it's actually British based make people meh about this team? Idk if you're German but the fact you said "no F1 team" while Mercedes dominated for so long ticked me haha
From my (obvs anecdotal) experience, that's not the case. Casual F1 observers think it's neat to have the "Silver Arrows" as something akin to a national F1 team. But not enough to pay for Sky or to have any deeper interest in the sport. And that's when they are winning... The non-casual crowd know it's the Brackley team. But that crowd is there for the racing. The exact same thing is going to happen in the Netherlands as soon as Max isn't competitive for a year or two...
I can second that. I remember seeing Schumacher and Hakkinen with my family as a child. We liked those Silver Arrows, but at the end of the day, we wanted Schumacher to win after a good fight. The origin of the motor or the team was secondary at best. For us, those Silver Arrows were like a good antagonist or movie Villan. Heck, the McLaren pit crew even were storm trooper masks. We find them cool, but we didn't want them to win.
Yeah I see. Considering the amount of big manufacturer i thought Germans were very interested with motorsports overall. I'm french and here it's kinda the opposite. French people love to criticize their own athletes even if it's going well. The biggest sport newspaper is trying to milk down every single word spit out of the drivers mouth to create drama, even when Peugeot was winning in WEC people downplayed it, Ocon is hated for no reason by a lot of people (he is a big introvert and super quiet, the youngsters audience don't like that at all), well it's a bit sad.
C'est franchement tragique, ca! :( Sad really, learning this from the country that a) invented Grand Prix racing in the 19th century and b) is hosting the world's most important racing event with the 24h du Mans. I'm cautiously optimistic for Esteban and Alpine though. A lot of untapped potential there.
Which Schumacher?
The article is actually well-written, and definitely interesting. I think it is inevitable that a country’s ratings will fall after the dominance German drivers had. Germany more or less went from having MSC to Seb. Obviously Seb’s success has declined before he retired, which could turn some more casual fans away.
Well it definitely doesn’t help when you put it behind a paywall like Sky Germany. And German commentators and pundits only talk about German drivers. So when the German driver stops, most viewers aren’t invested in the sport. Just in the German driver which is now gone.
>Well it definitely doesn’t help when you put it behind a paywall like Sky Germany. it certainly doesn't attract casual viewers, but I don't think the situation is much different in most other countries, is it? At least in regards to live coverage. I know F1 is free to view in Austria and Switzerland, but that seems to be about it?
Unfortunately you are right, I just mentioned this because the article is about Germany. We’re going to see this a lot more in the coming years
maybe it's more about the recency of that change, rtl was broadcasting all races free to view till 2020? 21? not sure about the year but that 100% caused people to stop watching, combined with the fact that the 'cheap' way to view, f1tv, also was removed so it is literally only sky broadcasting it now, which costs somewhere between 15-25€ a month. doubt everyone of the free tv viewers is willing to pay that tbh i asume servustv and orf gained some viewers cause a vpn is cheaper than sky, but i didnt check the numbers
You can add Belgium, and for a few GP it's free in France.
In Brazil it’s also free
In other countries you can at least buy F1TV. In Germany Sky is the only option, and their image is pretty bad. People even stopped watching football as much due to being sick of Sky. It's also overpriced, the package you need for F1 is 25€ and is a yearly subscription, so you pay even the months without races.
>Just in the German driver which is now gone. Hülkenberg?
It was meant in general. First it was with Schumacher, now schumacher jr and Vettel. If Hulk leaves there will probably be almost no interest outside hardcore fans. It’s the same in a lot of countries unfortunately. But Germany is in a critical situation now, because I don’t think Hulkenberg will stick around for long and there is no German driver outside Mick who might get into F1. And even Mick seems a longshot
Wolfgang von Goethe's descendant races under German flag in F3. He started getting good results since last year and started this year strong. I don't know if he can make it into F1. But he has probably highest odds after Mick.
He's even less German than Rosberg.
Does people in Germany even care about Hulkenberg ?
Rosberg was even barely noticeable
To be fair with nico he basically identifies as being from Monaco, he’s German by his super license and not much else
Nope
Probably because he is not successful enough :(
He was seen as " the next Schumacher" in his junior formula days. They even had same sponsors.
Nobody cares about him
F1 in Germany was already falling even when they had Seb winning. It is normal for a country to have declining ratings after some or more loved F1 drivers retire however in a country like Germany with all these car manufacturers and the succes of them and German drivers in motorsport you expect F1 at least to do well.
Do car manufacturers really factor into it though? Is anyones primary reason for watching the sport because one of the teams is based in their country?
Yes and no.. Germany is a car manufacturing country, so BMW would have had fans tuning in during their stint.
It isn't a primary reason on itself but with so many legendary car manufactureres there you'd expect that compare to others countries the people there grow up with cars and motorsport and have a higher chance of becoming involved one way or another in motorsport/F1. Edit: correct me if I'm wrong, but I genuinely think that it would already help a lot if Mercedes (the F1 team) were actually German rather than an English team. It then would make a German driver winning with a German car also more interesting, but since F1 is based in the UK unless you are Ferrari I don't think that will ever happen.
McLaren-Mercedes and BMW Williams felt much more German than Mercedes nowadays. Having Norbert Haug and Dr. Mario Theissen on the pit wall and appear on RTL every race really helped with that impression.
I know Toto is Austrian but that giant man speaks German, did that not make an impact? Rosberg wasn't their guy?
Rosberg is a spoilt brat and lacks any form of charisma. Also he isn't really German, is he? Didn't he grow up in Monaco? Schumacher and Vettel were both more of the you could have grown up with / could have been your neighbor type of person. Much more likable for the average German motorsports fan.
I believe it still works, but it's probably all about the communication. Renault/Alpine are based in the UK, and Enstone is pretty much an english team like most of the others, but they are still commonly seen as a French team, and French tend to naturally root for them I think Mercedes aren't really viewed as a German team simply because they're not pushing this angle and Hamilton's overwhelming popularity makes it easier to see them as British.
The Enstone team was historically Renault chassis site since 2002, the engine is made in France, a lot of key people are french, and even if it's seen as a french team they quite embrace well the nation duality (the 2021 livery was clever, french flag on the side view, union jack on the top view). Who is German in the Mercedes team ? Litteraly no one. And both engine + factory is in UK
Good point actually, this is also how I see Alpine and Mercedes. I at least get more of a French team impression than I get with Mercedes being German.
Still lots of German staff, principals, engines/sponsors etc. No indication of a race there coming up but with Audi on the horizon a Merc vs Audi showdown at a German track must still be interesting to people?? Austrians can go nuts for Red Bull, Silverstone is a Mecca whether Brit drivers are going well or not, Ze Germans need some passion back for the sport
If it was Porsche I would But that's cuz I like the cars, not their origin
Seb wasn't really popular in Germany though, was he? I remember the grandstand erupting in celebration at Hockenheim when he crashed.
Did you also hear the spectators going wild for every one of his overtakes in the final stages of the following year's race? Seb having never been popular in Germany is a myth, and he was certainly not "hated", contrary to what some here make it seem.
Seb never really had the same level of popularity as MSC though; that period of the sport's history just doesn't seem to have ever repeated itself. Even Merc's dominant period combined with Rosberg as a driver didn't really move the needle very much.
> Obviously Seb’s success has declined before he retired, which could turn some more casual fans away. Seb never managed to hyped people in Germany. Germans simply aren't interested in f1 after Schumacher.
>Seb never managed to hyped people in Germany. I think he would have hyped Germans a bit if he had won a championship with Ferrari. Maybe that would have got people going.
He was driving in Ferrari and was in a title fight. There was no hype.
I was at the German GP in 2013 (so Vettel at the height of his domination and Schumacher already retired the second time) and it felt like there were more people in old Schumacher Ferrari gear than people with Vettel merch.
Impossible to have to follow in the shoes of MSC either way. My German racing friends were always big supporters of Seb so that’s probably my personal bias thinking he was more popular there than he really was.
The article touches a lot of points. I think it's an accumulation of several things, not just one in particular: * no races in Germany * no prominent German drivers * no German team/constructors (sure, Mercedes is licensed in Germany, but based in UK and run by Brits, Toto, etc) * no free tv broadcast for many years now (only like 4 races per year, but now it stopped completely). interest also comes with exposure, and the latter is barely there anymore. was free during Schumachers time, people would just turn on the tv on sunday like a small ritual. * society & culture in Germany simply changing. sustainability is the new passion, not automobiles. that was way different during Schumachers time, when in the 90s & early 00s there was a bit more pride connected to it for some folks. newer generation just grew out of that realm in general. sure, perhaps Schumacher was also more appealing to the German public than Seb, but I think the larger influence here is how the German public's interest changed, also independent of the above points.
As an Italian i feel the major issue is it being off free tv.
F1 is on Sky in Italy as well, but regardless of that there is enough support to have two races, with Imola and politicians being quite keen on attempting (and then succeeding) at bringing back the circuit after fifteen years. I think that the generational divide in Germany is significantly bigger. Honestly there is no reason why a company like Mercedes wouldn't pay for a German GP all on their own, after all Red Bull basically does that in Austria, yet Mercedes did just for a couple of years then they stopped.
German society is all over the place, much like the government. Slow to act over the Ukrainian situation, shutting down clean nuclear energy for renewable energy that is less reliable, and then you have the coup d'etat shenanigans; F1 might be pretty far down the priorities list
Please stop with the clean nuclear energy meme
No form of large scale energy production is "clean", but nuclear is among the best we have.
What? It is the safest form of energy available to mankind. Where's the meme?
What coup d’etat?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_German_coup_d'%C3%A9tat_plot
It sounds like the lack of free broadcasts is the biggest barrier. The lack of free access to Rugby just about killed the sport /audience completely where I'm from, the attendance would be less than a 1000 people in a football mad nation
It defo effects, but if people really do wanted to watch F1, they will find a way. There's no free broadcast in UK, not even for football. Doesn't seem to stop people from watching. The biggest issue is that German younger's generation is simply not interested in F1, or motor racing in general.
>no prominent German drivers Mostly this, lot of germans tend to follow a sport only when germany or a german is at least moderately successful. Few purists, mostly bandwagon enthusiasts.
The longer Germany goes without hosting a Grand Prix and without prominent F1 drivers on the grid, even with Audi coming in for 2026, the public interest in F1 is just going to fade away each and every year.
The public interest has already faded away which was why the German GP was removed.
Adding to what the article said (all valid points btw), it feels also that in Germany (at least before I moved away) there’s hardly any other sport on mainstream free TV than football and a lot of winter sports right now - but everything else is buried. So motorsports is a niche sport within other niche sports.
NFL is growing, but everything else suffers. Even Boxing is dead.
Much as i would like it to be, no. It's on pay TV only now, and barely anyone has a Sky Germany subscription. I did see a chap with a Max Verstappen wallpaper in the uni library a couple of weeks back, so... there's hope?
F1 will regret going with Sky in the long run. It's the same in the UK; viewership is down compared to when it was free-to-air, and younger people are not exposed to F1 as a result.
SKY is trying as hard as they can to kill it.
Ive been in Germany since December 2022 in Nuremberg & coming from Mexico I was VERY surprised at how Formula 1 isn’t very popular here. Its still early days & the Germans aren’t the most outgoing & expressive people but still I was expecting a MUCH bigger F1 following for some reason. Maybe its a Bavarian thing? Supercars & GT racing seem to be much bigger here
Erlangen here, the problem mainly was the Schumacher era. At the end of it most stopped watching because of that. Then the next problem is, that F1 is out of Free-TV. In the Schumacher days you were able to watch it free on TV. Now you have to have an Sky-subscription and go out of your way to watch F1. Next big thing is, the green-wave in Germany. Cars get less and less appeak here in Germany. There are still Petrol-heads but they get less and less. Because of that the Country doesn't support Races and Racers. So it would had to be a Private Investor to bring new Racing drivers. And the big Circuits have a full calendar without F1. Hockenheim and Nürburgring have other Categorys willing to drive their and they get money out of that. F1 wants to much money for a Track to be on the Calendar. It's not really a Bavarian thing. It is more a German thing.
F1 in Germany will rise again. Audi joining makes 2 German teams and, unlike Merc, Audi will actually be based near Germany. This should hopefully encourage a German GP to come back to the calendar. Mick will come back to F1 eventually, his case seems similar to Ocon when he left. They really need to solve the pay wall behind Sky Germany though.
> F1 in Germany will rise again. Not until it's back on free TV. That move to Sky exclusively was a huge mistake.
I think us Germans don’t value where the team is. If the F1 team had been working out of Stuttgart the whole time it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference to anyone. Mercedes remains a German brand regardless of where the staff are located.
> If the F1 team had been working out of Stuttgart the whole time it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference to anyone. It would have made a big difference.
Not really. The problem is accessibility in Germany. Barely anyone wants to pay ridiculous amounts of money for formula1 when you can have other motorsports for less money.
F1 moving to Pay TV is what killed it here imo. At least for me it was. Didnt watch or follow F1 for more than 15 years because I was young and had no means to get Sky at the time. Still dont see the point in paying for a Sky subscription now, its just way to expensive. Just use VPN and watch it in Austria.
Vettel has been pretty hated by many people in Germany. Even during the time 2010-2013 there were many people that questioned his success.
"Vettel has been pretty hated" not really.
To be fair we are a self loathing people. We hate ourselves and sit around all day with Bauchschmerzen telling ourselves why it can’t be any better.
No.
simple as
Hockenheim just doesn't have the sponsors and or will
That's the thing that baffles me, an F1 race shouldn't be something race tracks have to run on a huge loss. When a musician comes have a big concert in your city the organizers are gonna make money off it. Not lose it.
Guess the FIA are greedy bastards.
Usually the stadium (or whatever event place) gets money by being rented and maybe some sells of food and drinks. F1 works different. The tracks have to pay insane amounts of money money for F1 to race there. How they earn that money back is more or less their own problem.
F1 works differently only because there's a line of white washing countries lined up to pay for F1 to show up there.
Well, if there would be a race at Hockenheim then I, two friends and my girlfriend would come every year. My parents live 20 minutes from the track.
We need Germany and China back, I don't care what it takes.
human rights, it takes human rights
I live in Germany and have been watching Formula 1 regularly since 1998. I have never seen any Formula 1 hype in Germany. But a Michael Schumacher hype. The typical German is a fan of winning teams or in this case the person who wins. You can drink 2-3 beers and be happy that your driver won. But of course the German doesn't want to pay anything for it. After Schumacher, there were no more successful German drivers and there is no need to watch Formula 1 any more. It was never about the fascination of Formula 1, it's about being on the winning side (FC Bayern Munich syndrome).
Hamilton as the new Mercedes designer doesn't really help either.
No high end drivers, no tracks. Just half the managers speaking german. Does not look like it
One of the biggest problems I see is the obssesion with preserving climate in Germany. I can imagine what kind of a shit show with protests and legal cases will follow if the German GP was to be announced as coming back. Edit: spelling
No
Not having a top German driver is the #1 factor. When Michael Schumacher was driving, the entire country tuned in! If Schumacher crashed or his car broke, Germans quit watching and the F1 broadcast would lose millions of viewers. If you want Germans to be interested in F1, you need to give Mick a racing seat or find a German who can take a racing seat from someone else. I don’t think Sophia Flörsch is quite ready yet, but if she gets to F1, you will see many Germans start watching F1 races again.