F1 From Sport to Storyworld:

How Formula 1 Became an Entertainment IP.

Formula 1 has been constantly undergoing changes since its first race in 1950 in Silverstone. Most noticeable of them are certainly the regulations, cars, drivers and teams. However, right now it is experiencing possibly one of the most significant shifts in its history. Formula 1 is not just about racing and competing anymore – it has gone way beyond being solely a sport. Right now it functions as a media property, a cultural brand, and an emotional product consumed across many platforms. It has always been an attractive global sporting event, but in recent years its visibility has expanded past traditional motorsport audiences. That growth is linked not only to races, teams and drivers, but also to the way F1 is packaged, narrated and distributed.

This article argues that Formula 1’s recent commercial success is rooted in its transformation from a sporting competition into an entertainment IP, where emotion, storytelling, and audience engagement have become key drivers of value.

Formula 1 before the transformation: a powerful sport with a high entry barrier.

Before this transformation, Formula 1 was already one of the most prestigious and commercially successful sports in the world. It had a long history, a global calendar, powerful sponsors, and a strong international image built on elite competition, innovation, exclusivity, and legacy.

However, that did not necessarily make it easy to access for wider audiences. For people outside traditional motorsport circles, Formula 1 could seem highly technical, complex, and sometimes emotionally distant. To fully follow the sport, viewers often needed to understand regulations, strategies, qualifying formats, and team dynamics, which made it more approachable for dedicated fans than for casual newcomers.

This is why Liberty Media’s acquisition in 2017 is an important point of reference. It marked the beginning of a new phase in Formula 1’s commercial and media strategy, with greater attention placed on digital growth, audience expansion, and cultural relevance.

Drive to Survive and the serialisation of sport.

One of the clearest expressions of this transformation was the release of Netflix’s Drive to Survive. The series did not change Formula 1 as a sporting competition, but it changed the way audiences engaged with it. Instead of focusing mainly on race outcomes and technical complexity, it highlighted personalities, rivalries, pressure, and behind-the-scenes dynamics.

By doing so, Drive to Survive helped turn Formula 1 into a more narrative-driven product. Drivers and team principals became not only participants in a championship, but also recurring characters in an unfolding story. The season itself began to resemble episodic content, structured around tension, ambition, conflict, and emotional payoff. This made Formula 1 easier to follow for viewers with little previous knowledge of the sport. Although it is sometimes criticised for its dramatization and selective storytelling, it effectively fulfils its purpose of attracting new audiences.

Its significance lies not only in the visibility it brought, but in the format of access it created. Audiences could first connect to Formula 1 through emotion and narrative, and only later through sporting knowledge. This is also supported by Nielsen’s (2022) findings, which showed that Drive to Survive brought new viewers into Formula 1 and helped some audiences better understand and engage with the sport. In this sense, Drive to Survive played a major role in making Formula 1 more accessible, more culturally relevant, and more effective as a modern media product.

Formula 1 as entertainment IP.

This evolution also changes the way Formula 1 itself can be understood. It is no longer just a sport that people watch during race weekends, but a broader commercial and cultural product that exists continuously between races as well. In that sense, Formula 1 increasingly functions as an entertainment IP: a property whose value is created not only through competition, but through the wider world built around it.

That world includes much more than the championship itself. It is shaped by recurring personalities, documentary series, digital content, behind-the-scenes access, fan events, merchandise, and crossover collaborations with brands from outside traditional motorsport. Together, these elements allow Formula 1 to remain visible and relevant even when no race is taking place.

This is important because it changes the logic of monetisation. Traditionally, Formula 1 generated value mainly through broadcasting rights, sponsorship, and ticket sales. Today, its commercial strength is also tied to continuous engagement — the ability to hold attention, create cultural presence, and maintain audience interest across multiple platforms over time. Formula 1, therefore, increasingly operates less like a sport that is only consumed live and more like an entertainment franchise whose value extends into a wider media ecosystem.

Recent findings from Formula 1’s Global Fan Survey (2025) reflect this shift as well, pointing to changing fan behaviour and the growing importance of younger and more diverse audience segments. This suggests that Formula 1 is no longer consumed only through the logic of traditional sports fandom, but also through the habits of modern media and entertainment consumption.

The changing fan: Gen Z, casual audiences, and entry points.

Becoming an entertainment IP has enabled Formula 1 to reach new audience segments. What is particularly notable is that these fans often enter the sport through new entry points that emerged as Formula 1 became more media-oriented and culturally visible. Platforms such as Netflix, TikTok, Instagram, as well as creators and celebrities, now play a key role in attracting younger and often more casual audiences. At the same time, entry points are no longer limited to digital platforms, but also emerge through collaborations with brands such as LEGO, EA Sports, and PUMA, which position Formula 1 within areas like toys, gaming, and fashion, and make the sport more accessible as a cultural product.

A significant part of them do not necessarily begin as “pure” racing fans, yet they still hold major commercial value. New generations of fans are more digital and culturally driven in their consumption habits, which makes them especially important for the sport’s long-term growth. They engage across multiple platforms and formats, making them both easier to reach and more responsive to different types of content.

This shift would not have been possible without Formula 1 expanding beyond its traditional environment and becoming embedded in a broader media and cultural landscape.

Emotion as a commercial asset: what sponsors are really buying in Formula 1.

This transformation has also changed the commercial logic of sponsorship in Formula 1. In a more traditional model, sponsorship value was often linked mainly to visibility: how often a logo appeared, how large the audience was, and how much exposure a brand could generate. In today’s media environment, however, visibility alone is no longer enough. As Formula 1 has become a more emotional and narrative-driven product, audience engagement has become a much more valuable asset.

This is because brands benefit more when audiences feel personally connected to the sport. Emotional investment in drivers, teams, rivalries, and storylines increases attention, strengthens memory, and makes fans more receptive to commercial messages. In that sense, emotion is no longer simply a by-product of sport; it has become part of the commercial model itself. In contemporary sports marketing, emotional depth often generates more value than passive exposure. This is also reflected in Formula 1’s 2025 Global Fan Survey, which found that 76% of respondents believe sponsors improve the fan experience, while around one in three said they would be more likely to consider or purchase a sponsor’s product.

As a result, sponsors in modern Formula 1 are not simply buying access to a large audience. They are buying attention, emotional proximity, cultural relevance, and participation in a wider narrative universe. This can take the form of digital activations, content partnerships, hospitality, lifestyle positioning, and deeper integration into the fan experience. In modern Formula 1, sponsors do not simply appear beside the story; they increasingly seek to become part of it.

Brand world expansion: LEGO and the logic of cultural collaboration.

A clear example of this broader strategy is Formula 1’s partnership with LEGO. Announced as a multi-year collaboration starting in 2025, it goes beyond traditional merchandising and reflects a deliberate move into new cultural and demographic spaces. The partnership introduces Formula 1 to younger audiences and families, creating early entry points into the sport and contributing to long-term fan development.

This is significant because it positions Formula 1 as a multi-generational brand rather than a product aimed only at existing motorsport audiences. By expanding into categories such as toys and play, Formula 1 becomes more accessible and familiar, especially for those who might not initially engage with it through racing itself.

The LEGO partnership therefore matters not because it sells products, but because it extends Formula 1 as a branded universe with new cultural entry points. It illustrates how the championship is building a world around racing, rather than relying solely on the races themselves.

Conclusion.

Formula 1 has not stopped being a sport, but its recent rise shows that it now functions as much more than that. Its growth has been shaped not only by competition on the track, but also by its ability to generate emotion, build narratives, attract new audiences, and create value across a wider cultural ecosystem.

In this sense, Formula 1’s commercial rise is best understood not simply as the success of racing, but as the success of a sport that transformed itself into a storyworld.

References.

Formula 1. (2025). Formula 1 and Motorsport Network unveil 2025 Global Fan Survey. https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/formula-1-and-motorsport-network-unveil-2025- global-fan-survey.4YqMebNy8BLaapyJfjzDXO

Nielsen. (2022). Driven to watch: How a sports docuseries drove U.S. fans to Formula 1. https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2022/driven-to-watch-how-a-sports-docuseries-drove-u-sfans-to-formula-1/