Formula 1: Maurizio Arrivabene believes video games threatening F1’s popularity
By Asher Fair
Scuderia Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene recently stated that he believes video games are threatening the popularity of Formula 1.
Scuderia Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene recently made comments regarding the rise of video games and how he feels that PlayStations (and pretty much any form of gaming machines) are becoming direct competitors to the sport of Formula 1 itself.
He made these comments as a result of the major rules and structure overhaul that is set to come to Formula 1 ahead of the 2021 season.
This major rules and structure overhaul is expected to bridge the gap between the sport’s top three teams, which are Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, and the other seven teams in the field.
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This gap is set to be bridged between the sport’s top three teams and the seven other teams in the field from both a financial standpoint and from a competitive standpoint.
Of the other seven teams in the field, none have won any races since the 2012 season. Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull Racing have combined to win each of the last 115 races.
Lotus, a team that no longer compete in Formula 1, are responsible for the most recent victory by a team other than the sport’s current three teams. Kimi Raikkonen won the 2013 season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, driving for the team.
Arrivabene, however, believes that improving competition will not garner the attention of fans that many people expect it to, as he believes that video games, not the disparity between Formula 1’s top three teams and the rest of the field, could potentially be an even bigger threat to the popularity of the sport.
Here is what Arrivabene had to say about the matter, according to Autosport.com.
"“Our competitors today, and this is my personal opinion, they are the PlayStations. Most probably we need to switch our mind and focus attention on our competitors. Today we have a broad offer of entertainment and we need to look at everything, not only certain sports or trying to equalise everything.“Is the PlayStation our competitor? In my opinion, yes. What do you have to do to beat the PlayStations? You have to do something that is more interesting, most probably. Today the offer is bigger than many years ago.“We need to be honest with ourselves [and ask] ‘How is the level of interest in F1 vs yesterday?’ What we need to do is not the budget cap – it is one of the solutions but is not the [only] solution. We need to relaunch the sport [and] relaunching the sport, it is kind of a complicated and complex equation.“If at a certain point the audience is becoming older, older, older and you work to maintain what you have and your attention is less focused on acquiring the younger generation, that means you have a problem. And you have to find a solution.”"
Do you agree with Maurizio Arrivabene that video games are becoming serious competitors to Formula 1 and thus decreasing its popularity since a far smaller number of the individuals in the younger generations are becoming fans of the sport compared to the number of individuals in the older generations who have become fans of it over the years?