Apple Moves Into the Fast Lane in F1 Streaming Bid
Credit: Formula1.com
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Last week, we shared a report from the Financial Times about how Apple was planning to parlay its blockbuster success with F1: The Movie into a complete Formula One sports streaming package. Now, it looks like the deal may be Apple’s to lose.
The US broadcast rights to the Formula 1 franchise, which have been held by Disney’s ESPN since 2018, will be back on the auction block next year, and Apple is expected to be one of the bidders at the table. However, a new report from Business Insider indicates that Apple has pulled into the lead with a bid that ESPN has decided is too rich for its blood.
Apple has submitted a bid worth at least $150 million a year to stream the races starting in 2026. And ESPN isn’t going to try to match or beat that, according to a source familiar with negotiations.
Peter Kafka, Business Insider
“Barring a last-minute change, it looks like Apple […] will have a third sports streaming offering next year,” Business Insider’s Peter Kafka concludes.
The $150 million amount was first reported last week by Puck’s Dylan Byers, who also noted that it was “far above the $85 million to $90 million that ESPN is currently paying per annum, and far beyond what ESPN offered to counter.”
“I’m also reliably told that Apple and ESPN are the only suitors at the table,” Byers added. That last part is a bit surprising, as Amazon and Netflix are commonly in the fray for such deals, and Netflix has helped to raise the profile of Formula 1 racing among US audiences through its Drive to Survive documentary series.
That docuseries and Apple’s big-budget F1 film have attracted younger American audiences to the sport, which has in turn pushed up the value of broadcast and streaming rights. Still, Apple’s $150 million bid put it at nearly double what ESPN had been paying. That’s per year, although it’s not clear just yet how long the deal will run for.
It would be hard for Liberty Media, which owns the Formula 1 franchise in the US, to turn down an offer like that, but as Byers points out, it’s not as simple as that. Apple may be able to offer more money, but can it provide the same reach?
Do you take more money from a new streamer like Apple TV+ and risk alienating casual fans who don’t want to pay for the subscription, or take less money but maintain the reach and marketing power of ESPN across linear and digital?
Dylan Byers, Puck
While Major League Soccer (MLS) inked an even bigger exclusive deal with Apple two years ago — $2.5 billion over ten years — to create MLS Season Pass, Byers calls it “an imperfect comparison,” as that involved worldwide rights to the North American League “that lives in the shadow of its European counterparts.” By comparison, this Formula 1 deal would see Apple picking up “a small slice of a major global sport.”
To put it another way, MLS Season Pass is a make-or-break deal for Major League Soccer, as the only way to watch the sport is through Apple’s platform. This Formula 1 deal would involve only the streaming rights in the US, and wouldn’t touch the league’s subscription streaming platform, F1 TV, or the plethora of European broadcasters.
However, the US is where Formula 1 is hoping to grow its fan base, as Liberty Media CEO Derek Chang shared at a JP Morgan conference in May. Liberty is hoping Apple is the company that can help it accomplish that. Brad Pitt and F1: The Movie have been a big step in that direction — enough to make us wonder if this was Apple’s plan from the start. That would be quite the long game, considering it signed the deal with Pitt over three years ago, but it also feels like interesting timing that this came the same year ESPN’s four-season deal was extended into 2025.
