When I first heard Apple was finalizing a deal to take over F1 broadcasting rights in America, my gut reaction wasn’t excitement.
It was concern.
The headlines are calling this a revolution in how we watch racing. But the math tells a different story.
Apple is offering around $140 million annually to replace ESPN’s $90 million deal. That’s a 55% increase. Formula One Management sees dollar signs. Apple sees a trojan horse to sell hardware.
What do American F1 fans get? A narrower door to walk through.
The Reach Problem Nobody’s Talking About
ESPN reaches approximately 70 million households in the United States. It’s part of most basic cable packages. That wide footprint is exactly why ESPN became valuable in the first place.
Apple TV+ holds 8-9% of the US streaming market.
We’re trading accessibility for exclusivity. And F1 has spent the last decade doing the opposite.
Under ESPN’s watch, F1 viewership nearly doubled from 554,000 average viewers per race in 2018 to 1.1 million in 2024. The Miami Grand Prix pulled 3.1 million viewers. That growth happened because the barrier to entry was low.
Now we’re about to raise it.
What Apple Really Wants
Apple TV+ loses over a billion dollars annually on streaming content. They’re not buying F1 rights to make money on subscriptions. They’re buying F1 to sell you an iPhone, an Apple TV device, a subscription bundle.
The business model is ecosystem lock-in. Use F1 as bait but optimize the experience for Apple hardware. Make alternatives feel degraded by design.
I don’t trust Big Tech companies to be hardware neutral when their entire business depends on selling hardware.
The F1 TV Problem
Here’s what really concerns me. Apple is reportedly demanding that F1 shut down F1 TV in the United States.
F1 TV costs $85 per year. It offers ad-free access to all sessions, team radios, onboard cameras, along with exclusive content. It’s a good service and I use it.
Apple TV+ costs $120 annually. For that premium, you get locked into their platform and lose the direct relationship with the sport itself.
This isn’t about improving the viewing experience. The experience is already good. This is about control.
We’ve Been Here Before
Years ago, you needed a satellite dish or premium cable package to watch F1 in America. The sport was inaccessible to casual fans. Coverage was limited. Growth was stunted.
It took a decade of expanding access through ESPN and services like F1 TV to tap into the massive American sports market. Drive to Survive didn’t hurt either.
Now we’re rebuilding those walls. Just digital ones instead of satellite dishes.
The NFL kept free over-the-air broadcasts while building premium options. They made sure casual fans could still access content. That’s how you grow a sport.
There’s nothing over-the-air about Apple TV+.
What’s Actually At Stake
Formula One Management wants to cash in while the sport is hot. Apple wants to use F1 as a customer acquisition tool. Both strategies make business sense.
But American F1 fans are caught in the middle.
Three years into an Apple deal, I fear we’ll have a vastly more expensive subscription within an exclusive technology ecosystem. Viewership will be narrower but deeper. The expansion of F1 in the US market will stall.
We’ll trade growth for premium revenue.
The coverage on current platforms is already excellent. F1 TV offers features and content you won’t find on traditional broadcasts. The price is reasonable. The access is direct.
Apple will position their offering as exclusive and innovative. That’s what they do well.
But the truth is simpler. Their offerings are sold at a premium while being only marginally better than the alternatives.
The real revolution would be making F1 more accessible, not less.
This deal does the opposite.
