The United States was not a market that consumed Formula 1 in particular. Motorsports fans in that country turned to look at their own serial, Nascarwhich is referred to in series such as “Malcolm in the middle” the en “The Simpsons”. Until 2021, the United States concentrated one Formula 1 race a year, in Austin Texas, however, overnight it became the country with the most Grand Prix.
The United States now concentrates Grand Prix of the Americas (Texas), Miami and Las Vegas, which has represented a success for Liberty, the company that controls the Formula 1 threads and which had the objective of conquering the American market. The mission has been accomplished.
Miami, the beginning of the conquest of the American market for Formula 1
Before talking about the Las Vegas Grand Prix, we have to talk about the beginning of the conquest of the US market, which happened from 2019 and crystallized in 2021, with the miami grand prix.
Miami is considered as uOne of the US cities with the greatest Latin influence and it is usually the destination of millions of Cubans who left their country in search of better living conditions, but it also receives million Mexicans throughout the state of Florida.
Sports are part of this multicultural phenomenon in Miami and Florida, home of the Miami Dolphins in the NFL, as well as the Miami Heat in the NBA and baseball teams like the Tampa Bay Raysthe team of Mexican-Cuban Randy Arozarena.
How to compete against these monsters of the NBA, NFL and MLB? Formula 1 found spaces in large part to the world phenomenon of Formula 1 after the 2020 pandemic, and the success of Checo Pérez at Red Bull, as the only Latino representative on the grid and took advantage of these factors, among others.
How did the Miami Grand Prix come onto the Formula 1 calendar?
Miami, like any of the new Formula 1 venues in the last 10 years, came with a proposal based on a strong investment of dollars to whom you could not say no.
In April 2021 it was announced that Miami would be part of the Formula 1 calendar starting with the 2022 season. in exchange for $966 million, according to The Economist, for a 10-year contract, that is, 10 raceswhich are held around the Dolphins stadium with a street circuit, during the NFL off-season, so as not to interfere with the football team’s schedule.
Like the other venues, each year you must pay a fee. The agreement states that in 2022 the fee would be 31 million dollarsbut the number increases as the years go by until reaching almost 49 million in the tenth, which makes Miami one of the most expensive races second only to the rates of Qatar, China, Azerbaijan and Arabia, which exceed 50 million.
In addition to the annual fee, each venue must be responsible for operating expenses, such as transfers of the teams, the assembly of the paddocck. In the case of Miami, the annual expenditure is 57 million dollars. At the end of the 10-year contract, 575 million will have been paid.
And that’s business for Formula 1 venues
Well yes, and it is that the first year of Miami as part of the Formula 1 calendar left an economic spill of almost 350 millionso that with three Grand Prix the contract would be covered for 10 years, the other seven years could be considered as part of the venue’s profits.
And this is also business for Formula 1, and it is that with the investment guaranteed for the following years, a greater amount of money can be delivered to the teams, which is one of Liberty’s promises and objectives, Well, it should be remembered that several teams were on the verge of bankruptcy during the administration of Bernie Ecclestone.
In 2014, for example, heThe Marussia and Caterham teams had to give up the last Grand Prix due to lack of money. Marussia missed the US, Brazil and Abu Dhabi races and Caterham missed the US and Brazil races.
For the following year, Caterham was unable to finance the Jerez tests and auctioned off its assets, so it flat out disappeared, as has Marussia since 2017. Without Liberty’s input, many teams, such as Force India (later Racing Point and now Aston Martin) or Sauber (now Sauber) would have followed the same path.
