TV programming has a long history of inspiring audiences to get more involved in their passions and pick up new hobbies. In some cases, TV shows have allowed a lucky few to live out their dream jobs, such as Last Comic Standing winner Iliza Shlesinger and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard.
But TV programming can do more than just fuel internal passions: In the case of docuseries, which are becoming increasingly popular on streaming platforms, research has found that they can transform audiences into sports fans.
There’s no short-changing the power of sports and its influence on live TV viewing. During its first days on the platform, Drive to Survive was 27th on the Netflix top series ranking for March 4, 2019, and 24th the following week, capturing 1.1 million and 1.3 million Unique Viewers (UVs), respectively.
A show for all-comers
Accessibility was always the priority. F1 preferred a series that covered the whole grid, not the All or Nothing approach of focusing on a single team throughout a season.
F1’s an innately secretive sport, and teams initially hesitated about participating — Ferrari and Mercedes sat out Season One. But they soon realized this wouldn’t be a show about front wings, telemetry analysis, and tire degradation. It was an opportunity to engage with fans without prior knowledge of motor racing by focusing on the characters.
That approach broke F1 away from its traditional older, male audience. Last year, a global survey by Motorsport Network found the average age of F1 fans — not just Drive to Survive viewers — had fallen from 36 to 32 since 2017. Female participation had doubled.
The shift in fan base even surprised Netflix.
The audience that Netflix thought would come and watch it was very different from the audience that has shown up. It’s reignited people’s passion for the sport, bringing this a new audience.
People like people
The show has led to the coining of the Drive to Survive effect, highlighting and using personalities to tell the story of a sport away from its traditional mediums.
That has been the secret sauce to the success of Drive to Survive and why it has resonated so strongly with the American audience.
Viewers have come to love Daniel Ricciardo’s random singing, for example, and Guenther Steiner’s colorful language. They’ve seen drivers celebrate first wins and 100th wins, grapple with crushing defeats, and, at the series’ rawest points, handle the deaths of friends and loved ones.
Like never before, American fans have been able to understand the drivers as human beings and celebrate them as athletes. It has meant the drivers they come to root for aren’t just the most prominent names fighting for wins or championships, which helps because, unlike most sports, few in F1 get the chance to win anything. Last year, only five drivers won at least one race.
The surge in F1 betting interest adds another layer of excitement for fans, providing an interactive avenue to support their favorite drivers. Enthusiasts keen on placing bets often leverage bonuses and rewards to enhance their experience, such as the exclusive Caesars Sportsbook Promo Code.
Indeed, the storytelling in Drive to Survive has helped change the definition of a winner for American F1 fans and expanded the definition of what matters in the sport. Viewers can see what a shock pole position in Brazil means to Kevin Magnussen or why an eighth-place finish in Hungary left George Russell in tears.
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Turning new fans into avid fans
The challenge F1 has faced in recent years is to convert those hooked on Drive to Survive into fans who never miss a race on TV and insist on getting there in person to get up close with the cars, drivers, and teams.
The timing of the new season’s release, a week ahead of the Bahrain GP, helped. But viewers stayed hungry even when there wasn’t racing right off the heels of the release — the show took off when the pandemic hit in 2020. They quickly snapped up tickets once fans could attend events again in 2021.
The United States Grand Prix in Austin has sold out both years since returning to the calendar, and demand for tickets remains so fierce that race officials keep searching for new ways to add seats.
But the drivers and teams have also leaned into the added acclaim and fame that has come their way. Ricciardo, arguably the biggest star of the show, has been a yearly fixture on prime-time U.S. talk shows like The Daily Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Teams have turned notable moments into merchandise and started to embrace social media as a way to connect with fans all year round.
While the average viewership looks impressive, this year could be even more significant. The season opener in Bahrain was watched by 1.353 million viewers on average, and the Miami Grand Prix noted 2.6 million viewers on average, which was the US’s largest audience for a live F1 broadcast ever.
From 2023 onward, the Las Vegas Grand Prix will join the list, meaning the United States will see three record-breaking races in a year. The American driver Logan Sargeant will make his F1 debut during the United States Grand Prix weekend, driving for Williams in Free Practice.
Drive to Survive is proof of the transformational potential of storytelling in sports. Its importance is highlighted by its capacity to speak to a global audience and break through the limited world of Formula 1.
Formula 1 has become more popular and appealing to a broader range of people worldwide due to the series’ humanization of the sport, its emotional connections, and its unmatched access. The series’ influence on sport’s expansion and international appeal is still felt today, as it draws viewers in and keeps changing.
