Formula One is such a glamorous sport, with cutting-edge technologies, in the most beautiful and scenic venues like Monaco, Valencia, Singapore, etc.  So I beg the question, why does Formula One Management, the media distribution and promotion arm of F1, lag on providing the most advanced broadcasting technologies?

However, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FiA) and Formula One Management (FOM) seem to be forgetting something for their worldwide TV audience: an HD feed. The current word is that the final Grand Prix of the season at Abu Dhabi will feature a HD world feed, which will hopefully open the door for getting HD feeds for all venues soon. But why is Formula One so behind the times on this? Is it a money issue, broadcasting rights issue, or just a plain oversight?

An HD feed would be great, but I’d like to go further than this… why isn’t Formula One using cutting-edge distribution tools? Due to time zone differences for such a global sport, I would think any type of DVR partnership would be a great win.

How about new online distribution technologies, in this ever TV-to-Web media convergence? Most people in the industry want to bring the TV experience to the web, but I would tend to differ and see it the other way around. The Web experience can be so much more integrated in a rich-media experience, marrying video with any type of other information available online at a user’s request (anything, anytime, anywhere). It can also provide quite a bit of value bringing the history of the sport for newcomers, creating a deeper understanding and stronger connection between the sport and the fans.

For example, I can definitely foresee a DVR-like web broadcast in HD merging video feeds with the following:

• Video picker: pick your video feeds (main mixed race feed, iso camera for teams or cars, car cams, helmet cam, etc.)
• Radio conversations: toggling this feature on/off to hear conversations between pit-wall crew and drivers (with closed captioning)
• Time, track position viewer: allowing the audience to see lap times, sector times between user-defined drivers (similar to comparing items in a product search)
• Telemetry data: so you can see the real-time data of the car(s) you are following
• Contextual callouts: for records and histories for track, team, driver (how cool would it be to see a video regarding the track history of Monza during a paused race and seeing the 1950’s cars on the parabolica and evolution of the track?)
• Contextual ads: the web is a powerful force in tailoring ads for viewers and events. Why not leverage this to subsidize costs for a web event, or even better… generate revenue so FIA/FOM can lower ticket prices!! This would be a win-win situation for sponsors and viewers. Why? Ads rotating on a user’s system during the course of a race versus 30 seconds commercial spots, and viewers able to see the entire race without disruptive commercials breaking the F1 track action.