German Grand Prix Problems Highlight Importance of Traditional F1 Markets

Since 2008, the venue of the German Grand Prix has alternated between Hockenheim and the Nurburgring. Both tracks are a shadow of their former selves, yet they never had trouble drawing fans during the Michael Schumacher years.

In fact, in 1995, 1996 and from 1999 to 2006, there were two German races each season. Hockenheim hosted the German Grand Prix, while the Nurburgring held the European Grand Prix.

Now, the European Grand Prix is long gone—on its way to Azerbaijan—and the lone remaining German race is in trouble. With the recent focus on expanding Formula One into new markets, some of its traditional ones are being forgotten and ignored.

This year, it is the Nurburgring's turn to host the German race, but F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone recently told Reuters' Alan Baldwin that it would return to Hockenheim instead because he could not reach a deal with organisers at the Nurburgring. 

As race hosting fees continue to increase, circuits that cannot make enough money from ticket sales and are not the beneficiaries of huge government subsidies will not be able to afford their races.

Last year, just 52,000 fans showed up at Hockenheim to watch Mercedes win their home race. Capacity, according to the circuit's website (in German), is 120,000. That attendance figure represented a 38 percent drop from Hockenheim's last race, in 2012, per Reuters' Baldwin, but it was still better than the 45,000 that showed up at the Nurburgring in 2013 to watch Sebastian Vettel's home victory.

"It’s not satisfying," Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff said at last year's race, per NBC's Luke Smith. "If you compare Hockenheim Friday to Friday at Silverstone and Friday in Austria, it’s a different world and we have to understand why that is."

One reason could be that fans in traditional markets feel abandoned. France lost its race after 2008, there are ongoing rumblings about problems with the British Grand Prix (see this Forbes piece by Christian Sylt, for example) and Germany has gone from two races to one.

Still, according to F1's 2013 Global Media Report (via Autosport's Jonathan Noble), nearly one-third of the 450 million people that watched F1 on television that year were from just five countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain. 

Mark Thompson/Getty Images

But if F1 continues to make it harder for those traditional markets to watch the races on TV and to attend live—by moving the races to pay TV and to places like Abu Dhabi and Azerbaijan—can there be any surprise when the fans revolt?

This is not a call for a return to some non-existent golden years when the sport was supposedly perfect; it is a plea for sanity.

No business can afford to ignore and antagonize its customers, but that is exactly what F1 has done.

Ecclestone, for example, recently told Campaign Asia-Pacific's Atifa Silk that he doesn't care about attracting young fans and that his target market is, "the 70-year-old guy who's got plenty of cash."

Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Instead, the sport should embrace its fans, particularly those in its largest markets, by making it easy for them to watch the races and by making them feel valued and engaged.

If those in charge of F1 cannot do that, they should expect a continued decline in attendance and in TV ratings, just as a shopkeeper who keeps irregular hours, moves his store from one location to another constantly and insults his customers should not expect to be in business for long.

Except, maybe, for Seinfeld's Soup Nazi...and I doubt Bernie Ecclestone's jambalaya is that good.

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