Apple’s Eddy Cue explains why it paid out for coverage of “tiny” F1

With the news that Apple has won the battle for the United States live television rights for Formula 1, it might be easy to link the estimated $140million deal with the success of F1: The Movie.  

The highest-grossing sports movie of all time, the Apple Original film was a worldwide blockbuster success and was clearly a jumping on point for the company in its relationship with F1.  

However, for Apple’s senior vice president of services Eddy Cue, the new five-year agreement is the culmination of his lifelong F1 fandom and a love of cars, which has already led to him becoming a non-executive director at Ferrari.  

“I think it started when I was about 10 years old, I grew up in Miami, and when you're as old as I am, Formula 1 races were not on television here in the US,” he told Autosport Business Exchange: New York.  

“But I went to the library and discovered this magazine and there was a page in there about F1. And so that's how I discovered this sport. I grew up always loving cars. And Ferrari was really good at that time, so I was a big Ferrari fan because it was red.  

“That's how it all started. And over time, I was very lucky to be a part of, I'm on the board of Ferrari, been there for a long time. And I got that insider view of Formula 1 from that point of view, then we had the opportunity to build a movie.”  

Race start, as drivers race into the first corner

Apple previously dipped its toe into the live sports rights market with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer streaming on Apple TV, but having the full F1 calendar on the platform takes its commitment to the sector to a new level.  

The groundswell on interest in F1 among American fans has seen Apple take that step, given ESPN paid no traditional fee for rights when it signed an agreement in 2018, with Liberty Media keen to push the sport into as many homes in the US as possible.  

Even the next deal, running from 2019-2022, was worth just $5million a year before a leap to $90million annually for the next three-year cycle.  

Now Apple has stepped in, but Cue feels it is wrong to believe F1 now has a massive presence in the American market.  

“I think in the US, everyone talks about how big Formula 1 is now. And the reality is it's because it was nowhere. And so, if you're nowhere, it's gotten huge,” he added during his panel at ABX:NYC.  

“But the truth is, it's not huge. It's only about a million people or so that watch a given race and so when you compare it from a sports point of view, that's pretty tiny.”  

So, if that is the case, why did Apple fork out as much as it has to land the new rights deal? 

From left, Gary Fegel, Toto Wolff, Eddy Cue, and Werner Brell pose for a photo during Autosport Business Exchange New York

"There's a huge potential for the sport,” explains Cue. “When you look at it, it's a sport that's global, where actual events take place everywhere in the world, not in a single place. The athletes, they're incredible athletes. There's what they can do very few other athletes can do.  

“So that's another piece of it. You have those incredible brands, and I love Cadillac coming on board. So, you have all these brands of cars that are involved in it – it's much more than just driving now.”  

Apple has pushed the envelope with its early sports coverage, streaming in full 4K without compression and even utilising an iPhone to film new angles of MLB games.  

Cue feels the opportunities to build on those ideas will dovetail with F1’s own technologically savvy coverage.  

“I think one of the things that we love about motorsports is the amount of technology involved in it,” he said.  

“And obviously, Formula 1 is the epitome of that. So that's a fun thing that ties to us, which is the combination – it is not just technology; there's a human involved in this. We're in this AI space and all of that stuff. But the human part is the key to the whole thing.  

“Max Verstappen is the one who wins the race. Or Lando, or Oscar. But at the same time, there's a level of technology that's off the charts. So that's near and dear to our hearts, who we are and what we try to do – and I love that part of Formula 1.” 

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