F1 CEO says reach on Apple TV ‘bigger’ than ESPN

Formula One is preparing to begin its season next month in Australia, and its CEO is bullish on the circuit’s new deal with Apple.

F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali praised the glitzy open-wheel racing circuit’s recent broadcast pact with Apple TV in the United States, which will see every event stream exclusively on the platform. It’s the first time since the 2018 season that F1 will not be broadcast by ESPN.

Domenicali doesn’t believe that will be an issue. In fact, he believes that Apple TV will offer F1 more exposure than ESPN ever did.

“I don’t want to, for a single second, talk badly about the ESPN relationship because they were the first to believe in us,” the CEO prefaced, “but I do believe that the reach that we’re going to have through the streaming platform, through Apple, will be even bigger in the future and it is what we want to test in a market that is more mature than the others. It will allow us to enter in the houses of other people in a different way, in great quality that is very important for us. So, that is what I believe the Apple relationship will bring to us in the American market,” Domenicali told motorsports website Racer.

It’s a bet on the future, as Domenicali mentions. But right now, it’s hard to say that Apple TV offers more reach than ESPN. Recently, Apple executive Eddy Cue said that Apple TV has “significantly more” than 45 million worldwide subscribers, as one analyst had estimated. Even still, the number of U.S. subscribers the service has likely pales in comparison to the more than 60 million households that have ESPN.

One look at Nielsen’s The Gauge data would seem to suggest Apple TV is more of a niche streamer than a wide-reaching platform. The service accounts for less than 0.5% of all television viewing in the United States, closer to streamers like AMC+ than services like Peacock, Tubi, or Paramount+.

MLS has learned the hard way that airing matches exclusively on Apple TV hasn’t been a great way to get the league in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

However, there’s reason to believe that F1 might be different. For one, every race will be available to Apple TV subscribers without any additional payment (a move that MLS is also making this year after three seasons stuck behind a separate paywall). And, of course, Apple has the power of being in the palm of everyone’s hands.

“Apple will be very pushy to use all their tools that they have, with all the different applications and platforms that they have,” Domenicali said. If Apple starts using its hardware to promote Formula One, that’s something a network like ESPN simply can’t compete with.

Though Nielsen likely won’t be measuring viewership for Apple’s F1 broadcasts, it’s safe to say that fewer viewers will probably tune in to races this season as compared to prior years on ESPN. In its final season, ESPN set a season-long viewership record, averaging an audience of 1.3 million viewers per race.

The hope for F1 is that within the five-year term of its Apple TV agreement, the circuit will be able to recapture that audience with a more digitally native crowd. It remains to be seen whether fans that fell in love with the sport while it aired on ESPN will follow the circuit to Apple, however.