Identifying the Most Successful Formula 1 Drivers in the Turbo Era

Background: Formula 1 is the world’s fastest auto racing circuit and one that is among the most-watched of all televised sports. With its international flair and glamor and the glitz it brings to viewers and spectators, it is no surprise that fans, commentators, and media covering the races enjoy ranking the most successful teams and especially the most successful drivers of all time. Yet, there are few empirical studies that have developed and/or applied rigorous methodological techniques to examine which drivers are the most successful within the recent turbo-hybrid era. Objective: This study uses novel group-based trajectory methods to rank the most successful drivers within the turbo area, 2014-2019. Methods: Group-based trajectory methods are used to identify distinct groups of drivers according to accumulated points. Results: Using total points accumulated during each respective season as our measure of success, results showed that the 45 drivers who competed during this time period could be classified into three groups, with the top-performing group of drivers being Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. A second better-performing group of six drivers followed and included Bottas, LeClerc, Räikkönen, Ricciardo, Verstappen, and Vettel. The remaining 37 drivers were classified into a third low-performing group, a great number of which scored zero points during the time period. Conclusion: The most successful Formula 1 drivers during the turbo era were able to be identified using group-based trajectory modeling, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg identified as the best drivers based on accumulated points.

Analysis of the Effectiveness of Toro Rosso Team as a Supporting Team of Red Bull Concern in Formula 1

Background. The main goal of this research was to study the activities of Formula 1 team Toro Rosso in order to understand the peculiarities of its functioning and its role in realization of the performance program of Red Bull concern in this auto racing championship. This study provided an in-depth look at one of the most unusual examples of partnership in professional sports – Red Bull and Toro Rosso alliance. Methods. The main research method was the collection and interpretation of statistical data concerning various characteristics of the performance of Toro Rosso team and its pilots in Formula 1, primarily sports performance. Also, additional facts were collected, which made it possible to give a more detailed description of the role of the Toro Rosso team in realizing the goals of Red Bull concern in Formula 1. Results. During the study various characteristics were identified that reflect the peculiarities of managing Toro Rosso team. Among them we want to admit the next ones: A) Toro Rosso confirms the status of the team that prepares pilots for the performance in the main team Red Bull; B) TR, with some features, matches the status of “junior” team; C)–among the personnel decisions, connected with the Toro Rosso team in Formula 1, there were both successful and ineffective ones; D) the team brings sufficient benefits to both the main team of Red Bull and the entire Austrian concern. Conclusions. Toro Rosso team proves the effectiveness of its existence and its value for Red Bull concern, and in order to increase the efficiency of its activity the leaders of Austrian company should continue to realize the strengths of the team, taking into account the interests of the RB main team, and, at the same time, improve the principles of personnel policy, carefully think out the positioning of team and correct the character of work of Red Bull Junior Team program. Keywords: sports partnership, management, motorsport, team-satellite.

Rebooting Content: Broadcasting Sport and Esports to Homes During COVID-19

Beginning in early March 2020, sport in the United States entered an unprecedented period of hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The postponement, suspension, and cancellation of live sporting events impacted every professional and amateur sport organization, from the National Basketball Association to the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, high school sports to college football, and even esports leagues. Although the abrupt cancellation of live sporting events was disruptive, it did create opportunities for the production of new media and consumption opportunities for sport leagues, teams, and their fans through different types of sport media broadcasts. This commentary examines how the U.S. sport industry developed media content strategies using new, mixed, and rebroadcasted content, across multiple broadcast and streaming platforms, to provide sport consumption opportunities to fans who were largely quarantined at home. This research contributes to the existing scholarship on live and rebroadcasted mediated content, while providing guidance to content owners and rights holders facing uncertainty in the marketplace.

The severity of a sports-related accident and sponsorship effects: focusing on the fear appeal theory

PurposeThis study aims to examine the influence of a sports-related accident and its severity on sponsorship effects, including brand recognition, attitude toward the sponsoring brand and purchase intention.Design/methodology/approachThe fear appeal theory and sensation-seeking are applied as a theoretical framework. The research is carried out via an experiment using auto racing video footage and print material that manipulates the severity of accidents at three levels – no accident, an accident with a minor injury and an accident resulting in a fatality.FindingsThe analyses demonstrate that the severity of the accident elicits varying sponsorship effects. Sponsorship effects are maximized in a minor injury condition, while smaller sponsorship effects are garnered in the absence of an accident or during fatal injury conditions, as expected via the fear appeal theory. These results suggest that sports fans are excited by auto racing crashes, but are averse to witnessing a fatal accident.Research limitations/implicationsThe participants of the experiment were all students. Consequently, the participants did not represent all sports fans. Only auto racing was examined as experiment stimuli. Different demographic characteristics (e.g. age, race, nationality) and sports could differently influence the relationships among the research variables.Practical implicationsPotential sponsors do not need to take a negative view of the dangers of sports accidents. Rather, it is recommended that such companies actively plan their sponsorship activities with the appropriate strategy.Originality/valueThe relationship between the severity of a sports-related accident and sponsorship effects has received little attention regarding its potential impact on brand recognition, attitude toward the sponsoring brand and purchase intention. The current study is the first known empirical research using the fear appeal theory in sports sponsorship. It investigates the severity of a sports-related accident and determines how that severity influences sponsorship effects in auto racing. This study provides a better understanding of the effects of an accident and its severity on sponsorship effects.

A Dream Becomes a Company

Chapter 6 describes Headen’s successful application of Wood’s “coalition economics” to the automotive industry. Focusing on the Headen Motor Company, which Headen founded in Chicago in 1921, the chapter describes his amassing of a diverse coalition to finance the effort. Attracting investors, black and white, male and female, Northern and Southern, his coalition included business owners, ministers, political figures, journalists, fraternal and civic leaders, club women, and auto racing enthusiasts. Prominent members included national figures Robert S. Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, former Carolina Congressman George Washington Murray, and Florida educator Blanche Armwood Beatty. The chapter also addresses Headen’s emergence as a leading proponent of transportation technologies in the black press; his technological vision; his growing interest in dirt-track racing; and his establishment in 1924 of the Afro-American Automobile Association, a motorist’s support organization.

Dreams Collide

Chapter 7 describes Headen’s difficulties expanding his coalition strategy as he moved from auto manufacturing to auto racing in the mid-1920s. Documented are his reconfiguration of the Afro-American Automobile Association to focus on dirt-track racing; his career as an auto racer and race promoter; and internal rifts within his coalition based on gender, professional competition, and religious and political differences. The chapter explores defections from the coalition by women and religious figures, upset over the switch from a business model dedicated to racial advancement to a track culture steeped in profanity, alcohol, and danger; departures by political conservatives upset over the selection of a prominent black nationalist as the Association’s publicist; and Headen’s rejection by fellow race organizers competing directly with him for audiences. These internal conflicts, which eventually splintered both the Association and Headen’s marriage, ultimately revealed the limits of the “coalition economics” model.

Lucean Arthur Headen

Born in Carthage, North Carolina, Lucean Arthur Headen (1879-1957) grew up amid former slave artisans. Inspired by his grandfather, a wheelwright, and great-uncle, a toolmaker, he dreamed as a child of becoming an inventor. His ambitions suffered the menace of Jim Crow and the reality of a new inventive landscape in which investment was shifting from lone inventors to the new “industrial scientists.” But determined and ambitious, Headen left the South, and after toiling for a decade as a Pullman porter, risked everything to pursue his dream. He eventually earned eleven patents, most for innovative engine designs and anti-icing methods for aircraft. An equally capable entrepreneur and sportsman, Headen learned to fly in 1911, manufactured his own “Pace Setter” and “Headen Special” cars in the early 1920s, and founded the first national black auto racing association in 1924, all establishing him as an important authority on transportation technologies among African Americans. Emigrating to England in 1931, Headen also proved a successful manufacturer, operating engineering firms in Surrey that distributed his motor and other products worldwide for twenty-five years. Though Headen left few personal records, Jill D. Snider recreates the life of this extraordinary man through historical detective work in newspapers, business and trade publications, genealogical databases, and scholarly works. Mapping the social networks his family built within the Presbyterian church and other organizations (networks on which Headen often relied), she also reveals the legacy of Carthage's, and the South's, black artisans. Their story shows us that, despite our worship of personal triumph, success is often a communal as well as an individual achievement.