Fangirls ref: https://airmail.news/issues/2023-5-27/girls-just-want-to-f1 [subscriber only]
Fangirls ref: https://airmail.news/issues/2023-5-27/girls-just-want-to-f1 [subscriber only]
DTS was a big part of the F1 rise in the states, but it is but one part of the story. Things really started to change when Liberty Media acquired F1 and brought in new management. F1 needed to make the sport more accessible by opening up on social media, giving away broadcast rights to ESPN, adding more race weekends both in the States and abroad, and of course (re)introducing the sport to many via Netflix. Which is all to say that there was a full on effort and strategy by the sport to change with the times.
Italy is as good as dead when it comes to pro-Cycling, the same goes for Spain, and France... France is always on the edge of the precipice and of “we’ll never ever going to win La Grande Boucle again! Long live Hinault and Virenque!”, so I’m not so sure about them.
Long story short, the big cycling money is in the Anglo countries, I’m sure California-based clients alone purchase more professional bikes in a year compared to the whole of Europe. And that’s good for Californians.
At some point they'll embrace the 21st century and have real contenders again
It's true that a race from the TdF won't be in the US, but I don't believe there's anything other than a lack of interest stopping UCI from having a 3 week race inside the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Least_Expected_Day:_Inside...
For me, constantly seeing /r/formula1 in my feed was an inciting factor for me. F1 also did well to adjust race durations to make them short and sweet.
Lastly, the variety of locations is extremely interesting to me. F1 is one of the few global sports.