‘Looking for the Red Flags in Apple’s Formula 1 TV Deal’

Jason Snell, at Six Colors:

The entire point of a streaming-only product is that once you’re off traditional TV, you can go beyond the single stream and provide interactive options. The whole point of streaming TV, especially sports, should be that you can leave the flat video stream behind and build something cool using software.

That is, by the way, what F1 TV Pro is: A sophisticated bit of software that merges track data with multiple cameras to let viewers choose how they want to watch races. It’s absolutely the product that Apple should aspire to build, or co-opt, in this deal.

I understand that Formula 1 owner Liberty Media is reluctant to lose a profit center, but if Apple’s paying them an extra $50 million, isn’t that the proper trade-off? Also, working with Apple in the U.S. could be part of a longer-term tech partnership between F1 and Apple that could extend worldwide.

I don’t really care about Apple obtaining sports streaming rights if all they’re going to do is stream a traditional linear broadcast of the games/events/races. I want to see Apple do the Apple thing and think deeply about what a software-based broadcast can be and offer — and then create it. So, to me, Apple’s Friday Night Baseball has been a wash. It’s a good broadcast (that, rumors suggest, may be coming to an end), but it’s just a good traditional baseball broadcast. It could be on any streaming service. The only Apple-y aspects are the designs and typography of the on-screen graphics and scorebug. I want something like F1 TV Pro, but for baseball — and eventually, for all sports.

Tuesday, 14 October 2025