Just this past weekend, the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas held one of its biggest events on its annual calendar: the NASCAR Cup Series.
Featuring a handful of special guest drivers including F1 champions Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen and multiple IMSA champion and Daytona 24 Hours winner Jordan Taylor, it was one of several major international motorsport events being held at the now ten-year-old circuit in 2023 – including the United States Grand Prix, which will take place in October.
After a decade of the US Grand Prix at COTA – interrupted only by Covid – Formula 1 appears to have finally found a solid footing in America. Rather than fizzle out like so many other attempts to establish a US race over the decades, attendance at COTA has grown over recent years to the point where it now boasts the largest crowd of the season in terms of total attendance over the race weekend.
F1’s arrival at COTA in 2012 ended its five-year absence from the USA. Now it is one of three American rounds on the 2023 F1 calendar. The introduction of the Miami Grand Prix last year and the much-hyped addition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix near the end of this season means there is effectively a race in the east, west and centre of world’s wealthiest nation.
But COTA chairman Bobby Epstein is confident the popularity of the Texan race will not be diminished by the recent emergence of two rivals in the same country, as F1’s popularity enjoys a boom period in America.
Courting the casuals
Epstein admits that when he first got involved with the sport over 10 years ago: “I can’t say I was an avid, diehard F1 fan.”
“Because it was very hard to follow the sport in the US until more recently,” he told the Black Book Motorsport Forum. “Austin was a fast-growing city and I had this piece of property – my only real estate investment actually – and the idea came up about the possibility of bringing Formula 1 to Austin.
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“I really thought this was a great opportunity to do something for the communities where we live, as well as something that we could make a profit on and we’d have some fun with, and would make a big difference.”
It took “several years” for the event to become profitable, but Epstein was convinced Formula 1 was the perfect event around which to construct a major new racing facility.
“The more we talked about and thought about it, we really looked at this as an opportunity to build a world-class entertainment destination, and with F1 as the cornerstone gives us a wonderful brand to start with,” he says. “It brought crowds right away. Our goal for the campus is to make this a place where people want to come and have fun and build memories with friends and family. F1 is one part of that overall picture.”
The United States Grand Prix may have secured record attendances over the last two seasons, but Epstein is under no illusions that the sport is cresting a large ‘Drive to Survive’ wave, growing very popular with casual fans as well as hardcore motorsport fanatics. He says all major motorsport series – be it F1, IndyCar NASCAR or otherwise – need to find ways of trying to hold onto those more casual race-goers.
“In IndyCar, when we’re in Indianapolis, one week you have a quarter-of-a-million people,” he explains. “You take the exact same product, put it in a different but similar venue, but a different location, and you see that attendance is ten or 15% of what it might have been, or less, sometimes. That tells you that’s where the difference is between a ‘diehard fan’ and the ‘event fan’.
“It’s not that we don’t offer the best experience for the diehard motorsports fan. But as is the case in any sport, you’re going to have to appeal to what I call the ‘second tier’ below the diehard fan – it’s not their hobby, it’s not their passion.
“We’re absolutely living, breathing, diehard fans of motorsport. But those sports aren’t going to survive on our interest alone. It’s going to have to be a step down of interest to the casual fan, who is also a fan of an event, and want to be a part it.”
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He believes COTA has certain features which particularly appeal to dedicated fans who know what makes a good motor racing venue to spectate at. “If you’re a diehard motorsports fan, you’ll notice if you come to COTA and you’ll hopefully go away and say ‘that was the best sight line, that was the best view, I saw some action’.
“Because of the hills, you can see five or six turns from a general admission seat, and you can see seven or eight or nine from the reserved seats. That’s unusual, and the diehard fan will recognise that as unusual. The casual fan will just accept it, but they will notice.”
However Epstein is firm in his conviction that motorsport promoters cannot ignore the casual end of the market. “We have to recognise that the percentage of people that are the diehard fans is not enough to sustain the sport alone.
“For any of the motorsport events, the sport itself might survive on TV, but we have to talk about what’s the future, not just in motorsport. What’s the future of motorsport venues, and the sports themselves? I hope we’ve done a good job of utilising that.”
Enough room for three US races?
When it comes to the addition of two other American races on the calendar, Epstein believes there is room for Miami and Las Vegas to coexist with COTA, as the US Grand Prix offers a different kind of race experience to the other two.
“Sometimes competition is good,” he says. “So as long as there’s enough fans, we can have a lot more.
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“But I think our goal is to always be unique and stand out and give the focus on the fans and just do the best we can. I do think for the ticket-buying fan base, we have to be careful and make sure there’s enough fans in the US to buy tickets to sustain it as a venue.
“I think what you do have to focus on though is – and I think the fans are pretty smart – is the quality of the racing. We have a circuit that’s built for the competition.
“We have advantages over others, so I welcome the competition from that standpoint. I do think the fans that choose to be repeat visitors will choose to come to COTA because we have an advantage.
“We were built for racing. The strip in Vegas was not necessarily built for racing, but it’s a fun place. It’s an international world-class destination.
“It’s going to make great TV. I don’t know how long people go back and buy tickets for it.”
While Italy and Germany once regularly held two races per year, it’s rare to see as many as three in a single country. “They’re obviously competitors,” Epstein concedes, but “I think we have an advantage.”
“There’s a difference, all three events right now are so uniquely different that they [can] all survive.”
One striking difference between the new Las Vegas Grand Prix and the COTA round which will take place a month before it is on the undercard. While no support races will take place at Vegas, COTA featured Formula 4 and the W Series last year.
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Epstein admits Las Vegas may prove an interesting case study of how much other racing fans actually want on a grand prix weekend. “You have to look at the type of support races sometimes,” he explains, “But the fans are going to answer that question.
“We’re going to find that out because, yes, Vegas is much more like dinner and a great show, and then probably the casino or whatever you go to. You get a couple of hours of the on-track entertainment. And we’re going to find out if people want more than that, because I think they do.”
He admits some races failed to draw the attention of fans last year. “We saw W Series really struggle as a support race. The fans didn’t go to the seats, and they didn’t really watch it enough.
“So maybe that tells me that they’re not as important. I think we’ll find out. I hope they’re important, because it’s one of the factors that differentiates us with Las Vegas not going for.
“We think the fans want a lot of value for their investment and I think they want more content. We’ve got 30 hours of ‘programming’. If we find out that all people needed was two hours, we waste a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of money.
“I like to think that they want more content. Whether it’s support races they want or they want a music concert, we got both. But I’m not sure.”
‘Survivor’ shows F1’s potential longevity
The world championship has a long history in the United States from the early days when the Indianapolis 500 was a points-paying round to dedicated road courses, the rise of street races and temporary return to Indianapolis before Austin arrived. But while the race has drifted between being on and off the calendar over the decades, it seems that the race has finally found a permanent home.
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But as Liberty Media looks to expand in America where Bernie Ecclestone never succeeded, does Epstein believe Formula 1 can hold onto its popularity into the future?
“I think it’s sustainable,” he insists.
“Let’s say we do believe the Netflix effect is real, and that it’s been tremendous, and say what are the components of that? One is the danger and excitement. That’s not going to change. I think Survivor has been on TV 20-plus years – that has that thrill effect to it. And then I think The Bachelor – that has sort of the heartthrob, romance sex-appeal. That’s what you got in F1. So the outlook from the Netflix effect standpoint should be really strong, and it’ll continue for a long time.
“Then I’d ask ‘what about the events?’. Not just the sport, but what’s the sustainability of the events and why do people go? Because that’s what we focus on. Are we going to be here five, ten, 15 years from now? One of the hardest things to buy – what you can’t buy – is tradition.
“You look at some sporting events and ask why are they still around? Indianapolis 500. Why does it draw so many people, or the Kentucky Derby? Or some of these events that were around before TV? People had to go to experience them, and it became a tradition. It becomes a family tradition. And once you have tradition, that’s it.”
Epstein says COTA’s race has already become a traditional fixture for many who attend. “One thing COTA had, because it had a head start on the other events that are taking place in the US, is we have found now that there’s a tradition to families coming back. We see it in our repeat visitors.
“So I think we’ll sustain because we’ve created an atmosphere that people want to come back to. And then for the sports themselves, I think what they offer, and with the Netflix-type connection, the future should be good.”
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