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Apple Now Wants to Buy Streaming Rights for Formula 1 Racing

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Following the success of "F1: The Movie," Apple now wants to buy the streaming rights to the Formula One World Championship itself, according to The Financial Times.

Apple-TV-F1.jpeg

The company is now apparently in active talks to acquire the rights to stream Formula 1 in the United States. The move comes amid the success of "F1: The Movie," which is Apple's first major box office hit, earning over $300 million globally already.

The move puts Apple in competition with Disney, which is Formula 1's current American broadcaster, via its subsidiary ESPN. ESPN had exclusivity to negotiate a renewal deal without competition from other bidders until last year, and the process is now open to rivals.

Disney pays $85 million per year for the rights, and Formula 1 also charges fans directly for its own streaming service. Liberty Media, Formula 1's U.S. owners, hope that the Apple Original Film and Netflix's "Drive to Survive" documentary has increased the value of Formula 1.

Formula 1 viewership doubled from 554,000 to around 1.1 million in 2024, rising further to 1.3 million in the first 10 events tis year. The next U.S. Formula 1 streaming deal could now be worth in excess of $121 million a year—a considerable increase.

Apple moved into live sports streaming in 2022, and now streams Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer on Apple TV+, so adding Formula 1 to its portfolio is highly plausible. Following its run in theaters, "F1: the Movie" is expected to become available on Apple TV+ later in 2025.

Article Link: Apple Now Wants to Buy Streaming Rights for Formula 1 Racing
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/09/apple-wants-to-buy-f1-streaming-rights/
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breenmask said:
I don't see the appeal in F1 at all. Weird pick.
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And I don’t see the appeal in soccer (or futbal, whatever you want to call it). But different strokes for different folks.

At least for me, I have grown up around automobiles my entire life. I’m enamored with them, drive them everyday. Going fast is an inherent thrill, especially with sports cars. F1 is all of that amped up to 1,000.
 
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Think this is a marvelous idea. F1 seems like it’s doing a movement where they’re trying to broaden their fan base. And also bringing another woman F1 driver, which they’re in the process of developing at the moment so there is indeed some potential major growth in the sport
 
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LawJolla said:
They can't do much worse than rebroadcasting the Sky News feed.
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Not sure I understand this comment. Sky F1 does a great job with Martin Brundle’s commentary. So much more entertaining than the official F1TV commentary.

I would, however, want more than the 720p picture they offer with Sky ESPN in the US.

Btw- Are you a fellow San Diegan?
 
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CarlJ said:
They also probably feel like they've worked out the tech for filming it well and presenting it in an interesting manner.
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They wouldn’t have any part in filming the races. All broadcasters world wide use the same global feed. The channels can’t even pick which angles/cameras they want to broadcast. The commentators all just talk over the live feed footage & home the race director switches to the relevant driver as needed. They couldn’t even change the information overlays during the race, as these are designed & dictated by the f1 media management & are baked into the global feed.

Personally I would like to see Apple replace the SKY F1 exclusive rights in the UK. The current cost in the uk is astronomical, as f1 is hidden behind the entire Sky sports package. If they were able to take some of the sky presenters such as Martin Brundle and Nico Rosberg, it could be an excellent product. But they would essentially just be providing a wrapper around the global feed.
 
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CarlJ said:
When I first read the title, for a moment, I thought they were talking about bidding for the streaming rights for the movie they just made, and I was very confused.
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Same. For a second or two I was astounded that they only had the rights to show it in the cinemas, hadn’t locked up the streaming rights from the beginning, and were only now discussing acquiring these 😂
 
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With the success of the F1 film, Apple might be thinking that a couple of years exclusive streaming rights to Formula 1 might help the streaming service to increase its subscriber count. Not sure how successful it will be.
 
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Dear Apple, please make sure you buy the Australian streaming rights too, so that we can all ditch the current provider.
 
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JapanApple said:
Think this is a marvelous idea. F1 seems like it’s doing a movement where they’re trying to broaden their fan base. And also bringing another woman F1 driver, which they’re in the process of developing at the moment so there is indeed some potential major growth in the sport
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There is literally 0 chance there will be a permanent female driver on the grid in at least the next decade. I'd argue the one that will take part isn't born yet. The current development is in F4 level cars and none of them would be able to compete with a male counterpart in the same series. Additionally current F1 cars literally take too much strength to drive competitively by anyone except for the most fit males.
 
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