This week brought a clutch of new stories quoting Formula 1’s powers-that-be (or should that be singular) rubbishing the notion that the “sport” could survive behind a Murdoch paywall.
We have not been presented with any details of what an alternative rights regime might look like but there appears no pressing reason to believe that any new media owner would immediately capsize the sport’s existing relationships, so the issue seems irrelevant. But describing a potential buyout as “suicide” for the sport is simply daft.
As I write, News International is reportedly rethinking their plans for a paywall for the website of their powerful tabloid, The Sun. This has made headlines because it appears to contradict Rupert Murdoch’s very public and personal investment in his corporation’s paywall strategy. It would be surprising, therefore, if it were to turn out that News International were prepared to be more dogmatic about F1, a toy which already works so well.
The “Paywall Doctrine”
Yet the view which has dominated our media has been the Paywall Doctrine — a notion that sports fans should be concerned because any takeover by a media company will likely signal the end of free access for fans.
It is just the sort of distracted stenography to be expected from a gallery of sporting scribes who must live on in the pitlane regardless. But it would be helpful if we could be provided also with at least some substantive and informed comment examining dispassionately all the factors at play.
It was that old misanthrope Robert Lipsyte who wrote [ SportsWorld, 1975 ] that sports writing can be a “dangerous and grotesque web of ethics and attitudes, an amorphous infrastructure that acts to contain our energies, divert our passions, and socialize us for work or war or depression” … It is a “pacifier, safety valve … a concentration camp for adolescents and an emotional Disneyland for their parents … a buffer, a DMZ, between people and the economic and political systems that direct their lives”.
No. “Red Her-ring” is not a teutonic-sounding name for a new race track …
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Nowhere does this feel more true than it the highly compromising and lucrative hot-house at the pinnacle where motorsports meets capital. If asked to come up with a sporting paragon for an off-shore haven — where everything is shipshape sparkling and nothing transparent — I imagine most journalists, even sports writers, would suspect I was thinking of Formula 1.
“A sportswriter learns early that his readers are primarily interested in the affirmation of their faiths and prejudices, which are invariably based on previous erroneous reports,” wrote Lipsyte.
Which brings us to how, in the absence of informed analysis by our “mediators”, a red herring like the Paywall Doctrine can take a distorted shape in the hearts and minds of fans, particularly in countries like Britain where Formula 1 has a deeper tradition and a tribal dimension.
The Sport vs Ferrari: F1’s Godwin’s Law …
In fact, every British discussion on the subject of the governance of Formula 1 already seems under the spell of its own version of Godwin’s Law — which means that any conversation, as if fixed on tracks, will inexorably lead headlong into a wall of acrimony that pits the “romance and purity of British sporting heritage” against the corrupting pragmatism of “Ferrari and its Machiavellian soul”.
The actors change year-to-year but the fuel for this duel is never exhausted. One year, Schumacher’s brilliance is tainted by a victory too many on the breaking tarmac of Indianapolis. The next, a too-ambitious Ferrari chairman is testing the patience of a patrician FIA president. Regardless of the ingredients, la luta continua.
Which is why the latest red herring — the Paywall Doctrine — represents such a potentially perfect storm of disinformation: a would-be conspiracy involving not just one traditional bad guy, Ferrari, but the only other name most likely to inflame the suspicions of the British media consumer, Murdoch. This leaves a river of innuendo to run barely disguised under the surface of the reporting: “Ferrari is trying to steal the sport and guarantee its own permanent dominance by buying the deeds to the Big House in cahoots with the Dirty Digger.”
“Calling Fleet Street …”
“The one about F1 and the paywall” could turn out to be the reddest herring I have read since we were told the boogeyman’s had buried his toys in the desert. In the end it might not end up providing anyone at all with a dodgy premise for regime change, but I suspect it could be just as effective as the other “lie” and last as long.
So how about it then, Mr & Mrs Fleet Street? How about an in-depth interview with James Murdoch and John Elkann about all this? Too much? Then what about just a shallow one … OK. Just a press release you can rewrite …
* Previously: F1: Sports, business & virtual fantasy
* An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir, Robert Lipsyte
