Brad Pitt’s New Movie Has a Big Goal: Make Americans F1 Fans

The Formula One driver Alex Albon was coming around the Canadian Grand Prix’s famous Turn 10 earlier this month when he suddenly slid past the curve to a desolate spot off the track, forced by an engine issue to retire.

As he dejectedly pulled himself out of his car to exit the course, Albon found himself walking right through the stands, where hundreds of spectators pulled out their phones and cheered as he dramatically raised his arm in acknowledgement. It was a startling moment: a minute earlier the Thai-British driver was peeling through at 220 MPH in Williams’ blue FW47. Now he was being applauded by fans who’d flocked to Montreal and its throbbing June sun for exactly this elbow-rubbing moment. “Well that was cool,” said a bearded Millennial in a cowboy hat as his friends, their phones up, high-fived with their other hands.

Formula One is at a hairpin moment. It has fast cars, good-looking drivers, drama galore and, as the Montreal moment suggested, the kind of intimate appeal other sports envy. But it doesn’t have America. Now, after years of unrealized promise that it can make tracks here, the European-dominated circuit may finally have the weapon it needs with a hot new Brad Pitt movie, F1, which opens this weekend.

Can the sport maneuver around a host of U.S. traffic — no top-tier American driver, an abundance of NASCAR competition and a European-race television schedule that’s more breakfast-time than primetime —  to finally get out of the pack?

“It’s going to be fascinating,” says Patrick Rishe, who runs the Sports Business Program at Washington University’s Olin Business school. “You’re taking something that has a very niche clientele and trying to see if you can really make inroads.”

The day after the Canadian Grand Prix, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali traded in the beating Quebec sun for a cloudy view of New York’s Central Park to argue why it can.

“F1 has been always on and off in the U.S. for decades,” Domenicali said, alluding to defunct races from Dallas to Detroit as he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in a wood-paneled conference room at the JWMarriott Essex House. “We were not able to hook the American market because at the end of the day, we were a little bit arrogant in believing that the American fans would understand us without being continuously speaking with the American fans and American audience. We were coming here for three days for the weekend and then going back.

“The strategy,” he added, “has completely changed.”

An expansion Stateside is coveted by F1’s U.S.-based owner Liberty Media, the John Malone-run firm that paid $4.6 billion for the circuit in 2017. Even as both F1 revenue and operating income were up last year (6 percent and 9 percent respectively, the latter to $790 million) the company wants a bigger U.S. footprint. (Liberty also closed on its acquisition of the motorcycle circuit MotoGP this week, giving it another tool in its arsenal as it pursues motorsport domination.) Coming off seven seasons of Netflix’s Drive to Survive — a pandemic-era hit that has increased the sport’s American fan base — and an Apple/Warner Bros. film tracking to open domestically to as much as $50 million, F1, Domenicali believes, is finally ready to make good on an American conquest.

As the 60-year-old former Lamborghini executive spoke, he sounded like a proud father in describing the interplay between his stars and his fans.

“We are the only sport that gives so much visibility and opportunity to meet with the drivers,” he says. “They are our loudspeaker. They are our voices.” The Albon moment proved the point: people will indeed pay a pile of money (resale tickets to the Canadian Grand Prix started at $300) and walk a long way (seats were 30-45 minutes from the nearest metro stop) just to get a glimpse of their heroes.

But Domenicali acknowledges that some handholding is required to get Americans there. “We need to educate in the right way, the American fans, to understand what the sport is,” he said.

Several blocks away, F1, Apple and Warner Bros. had sought to do that, turning Times Square into a paddock in honor of the film’s premiere. Cars from all ten teams were lined up on a grey carpet under LED billboards and visitors crowded onto bleachers to watch gawk at the stars, the takeover of an iconic American location (albeit one filled with European tourists) a metaphor for the sport’s hopes. Pitt and fellow producer (and F1 champion) Lewis Hamilton walked the carpet along with Tim Cook and Domenicali.

“We need to speak differently,” Domenicali continued as he described the company’s efforts, “because we need to simplify the selling of this product for new fans that are not really into it to understand who we are. What is the competition around? What are the vibes that we are creating around it?”

The structure of F1 is intuitive in some way to Americans, who have long seen a similar dynamic with golf or tennis: tournaments around the world every few weekends that add up to an end-of-year No. 1.

But some of the nuances are unique. Teams are made up of drivers and large support staff led by a “principal,” essentially a coach. Each of the ten teams, named for their corporate sponsor like Red Bull or Mercedes that finance the building of their bespoke vehicles, get to enter two cars, or seats, which means a total of 20 competitors in a given race, in a system that shares some but not full similarities with NASCAR.

There are also many layers of champions that can be disorienting to an American sports fan trained on binaries. Every race brings three individual drivers on the podium, much like an Olympics’ gold-silver-bronze medals. Total points are accrued by an individual for an end-of-year drivers championship but separately by a team for a “constructors” championship. Last year Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the drivers’ crown but rival Mercedes took the constructors championship.

It’s a complicated system for the uninitiated, one that the movie largely forgoes in favor of personal drama.

And even that was never a sure thing. In February of 2022, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Joe Kosinski and Apple services chief Eddie Cue met with Domenicali in his London office to present what the F1 CEO recalls as, at the time, a “crazy idea.” 

The filmmakers wanted access to give the project the authenticity they thought it needed, and Domenicali left the meeting impressed by their commitment and pitch. 

“I said this could be a very big opportunity for us, but the only way to be a real opportunity is to make sure that it is a project that has to represent our brand, we need to explain who we really are,” he recalls of the film, which stars Pitt as an older driver who comes out of retirement to mentor a young talent. The finished movie, he believes brings “a lot of energy” that even a non-fan will pick up on.

The film isn’t the only big flag in the ground for F1. In the past three years F1 has added Grand Prix races in Miami and Vegas, the latest tentacle of a globalization of sport that has seen the Blackhawks in Prague and the Dodgers in Seoul. The appeal for F1, as Wash U’s Rishe notes, is to tap into a well-heeled end of the U.S. market for its largely European sponsors.

But adding events comes with risk, as every race done here is one that can’t be done in more reliable Europe; the Miami Grand Prix in 2022 came about after the scrapping of the French Grand Prix while the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin entered the calendar after the Spain-hosted European Grand Prix was ended in 2012. While both European races were embattled, F1 rolls the dice whenever it loads its cars onto a pair of jumbo jets, as it does, and drops them outside its Continental proving grounds.

F1 also added a Vegas race to the calendar in 2023. It has been a success by some metrics, helping to boost the city’s traditionally slow tourist November, but poses challenges for locals (who note traffic and business disruptions) and drivers (who have to deal with the tire and braking challenges of a colder track since the race has to be held at night). The 2024 race also brought in fewer dollars than expected according to Liberty executives, contributing to a 5 percent drop in F1 revenue in the fourth quarter.

The investment in staging a race is significant thanks to construction and safety costs; they are largely shouldered by local promoters, who can be hard to find. (On the tension between new and historic venues, Domenicali acknowledged that “there’s not a right answer. Try to be balanced.”)

The absence of American drivers will also continue to hinder F1’s goal of domestic popularity. The most recent Yank behind an F1 steering wheel, Logan Sargeant, faded after a series of high-profile crashes for Williams last season resulted in him losing his seat. Before that, the last full-time American F1 driver came in 2007.

F1 does have some young stars, including the charismatic Italian 18-year old Kimi Antonelli, who finished third in Montreal, and a pair of photogenic young Brits in George Russell and Lando Norris. The veteran Brit Lewis Hamilton and the Dutch dominator Max Verstappen, the latter often cast as the villain by F1 fans along with his Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, complete the character list. And sentimental types everywhere embrace Esteban Ocon, the working-class Frenchman who’s been shafted by bigger egos and now races for American-owned team Haas.

But European stars in a sport not followed by many Americans (how many of those rattled-off names do you know?) — let alone those often hidden behind a dark helmet — can be hard to break out to a new audience. “Can you really mint stars when you only see athletes’ faces on the podium and not during the race?” says Neal Pilson, a longtime CBS Sports executive who’s now a consultant.

In this regard Pitt may be the biggest star of all, and while there’s not much precedent for movie A-listers making athletes more recognizable, the film could nonetheless stoke general interest in the sport, like Rocky once did for the Larry Holmes-Sugar Ray Leonard era of boxing or even, in its way, Bull Durham did for minor league baseball.

A new television deal could also help. F1 is currently in the middle of rights negotiations, trying to secure a fresh TV or streaming home for its two dozen annual races. 

“The negotiation is progressing very well, and we have more than one possible partner involved in the discussion,” Domenicali says.  When asked whether the film’s box office performance can help F1 secure a new deal, Domenicali says, “Definitely.” 

F1 has been partnered with ESPN in the U.S. for the past seven years, signing its most recent deal in 2022, valued at about $90 million per year. The most recent deal expanded the accessibility of F1, with more races airing on the ABC broadcast network, as well as streaming on ESPN+.

But ESPN’s own approach to rights has shifted (even as it prepares to launch its upcoming streaming service), focusing on what executives call “must have” sports rights, led by the NFL, college football and NBA at the higher end or bargain deals like last. The company also wants emerging sports that are willing to cut a deal with the company, or other rights bargains.

ESPN has helped raise F1’s profile, and sources say there’s a chance it could still secure a new deal. But the hope from F1’s point of view is that the new deal, either with ESPN or a new partner, could level it up further. 

“They were the one who bet on us in a moment where there was not really a good confidence that we can grow as we are doing as a sport,” Domenicali says, noting that F1 also recently signed a deal with ESPN’s parent company Disney covering “experiences, content, and merchandise around the globe” combining F1 and the classic Mickey Mouse characters. But ultimately he’s hopeful that bigger deals and growth await: “We know that we are very small, if you compare us to the figures that we’re talking about with the NFL, NBA, but as always, you need to start small and get growing,” Domenicali says.

Companies like NBCUniversal and Paramount would provide broadcast reach and streaming exposure, but with NBCU’s recent NBA deal, and Paramount focused on completing its Skydance sale, it is not obvious that they would be bidders. 

F1’s partner in the film Apple is an obvious choice, striking a deal with MLB for Friday night games (Apple is also among the bidders for ESPN’s former MLB package), and cutting a unique global deal with another smallish but growing league, Major League Soccer. 

But many MLS executives are unhappy with the Apple deal, owing to the tech giant’s relatively small reach with Apple TV+. The company doesn’t break out how many subs it has, but reports have pegged it at between 25-50 million. ESPN is in some 70 million American homes while Netflix boasts 81 million U.S. subscribers. 

In many ways Netflix is the ideal partner. It has scale in streaming, and a growing interest in live sports. F1 and Netflix also know each other well, thanks to Drive to Survive, which helped boost female fandom to what the organization says is now 40 percent of its overall base. Streaming’s on-demand culture also makes for a better fit than cable for all the European races given that many Americans would need to time-shift their viewing, though the appeal of sports in the modern era has been that it’s watched live.

Netflix has focused its sports strategy on “events,” but how it defines those events varies, ranging from one-offs and annual games (like the NFL on Christmas Day), to a deal for the Women’s World Cup in 2027. It also has WWE Raw, which streams new episodes every Monday night, suggesting a willingness to pursue more frequent live events.

A veteran sports media executive notes that, “if you have one more bidder than you have packages, then you have a robust market.” (Domenicali says that he does not plan to split the F1 rights into multiple packages.) But F1 has been seeking to double its current U.S. rights fee, an aggressive push that may encounter a more challenging economic reality. 

“The question will be, how are we going to balance the reach versus the monetization,” Domenicali says, essentially asking how much of a price reduction a robust American partner is worth. That, in many ways, is the fundamental question facing F1 in the talks, and the decision they make could alter the future of the sport in the U.S. 

Any rights-holder would also need to face the fact that 19 of the 24 Grand Prix races take place at least five time zones from the continental U.S., and some sports-television veterans who’ve bought those rights in the past say it’s a major stumbling block to growth. “Formula 1 has a good niche here but there’s no evidence it can get taken to the next level,” says Pilson, who in his time at CBS acquired TV rights for the erstwhile Detroit and Watkins Glenn, NY, Grands Prix. “Who’s tuning in at 9 a.m. every Sunday to watch? Just because the race in Miami gets an audience doesn’t mean it’s on the verge of a dramatic new expansion,” he added. 

The most encouraging analogue for a would-be broadcaster might be golf, also an international tournament-based sport that once blew up — though the American stars, easy face-recognition and the fact that many more of us head to the putting green than drive an F1 car gives that sport an edge. Soccer is another comp, since in recent years it has seen its own European stars and events break through on TV and streaming after decades of trying. But it too is aided by the U.S. team’s international success and the fact that it’s played by millions of kids.

Then again, none of those sports has team principals cinematically going at each other as Mercedes’ Toto Wolff and Red Bull’s Horner have recently done, a spectacle akin to Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan airing dirty laundry right after the Rams and Niners played a big game.

And ongoing fan-engagement efforts might keep awareness high outside of television. F1 has built a year-round experience at the Vegas paddock, with go-karting, racing simulators and official cars and equipment to attract the F1-curious.

Bernstein analyst Ian Moore says pushes like this along with the movie could be useful in the sport’s bid to achieve its American dreams.

“We agree that the setup is attractive if both [the Vegas push and Pitt film] play out as expected, but we are a bit more cautious on both fronts,” Moore says. “It’s worth remembering that Drive to Survive benefitted from unusually favorable timing within sports content during the pandemic, an emerging OTT binge culture, and a real-time title fight [Hamilton vs. Verstappen] that created narrative tension.”

At the Montreal Grand Prix, Albon’s exit wasn’t the only drama as the race wound down. Norris and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri crashed on one of the final laps; Mercedes’ Russell won after some last-second gamesmanship with Red Bull’s Verstappen; and Red Bull’s Horner filed a protest that Mercedes’ Wolff called “petty and small.”

The fans, first at the track and then online, ate it up, arguing lustily over who was right. Domenicali says it’s exactly this kind of off-course drama that will make the sport compelling to a whole new class of fans in the United States.

“It’s like going to a theater,” he said. “Together with the teams, [the drivers] are our protagonists.”

He added, “In this sport, this business, you need to understand that it is not only driving. Because if you want to drive, Uber can offer you the potential to do a lot of miles.”