Kerry Packer and his Channel Nine changed the way the game of cricket was played — changed it to the extent that cricket would never be the same again. He was the purist's nightmare, introducing night cricket, coloured clothing, multiple cameras, instant replays and Daddles the duck.
A1 is poised to attempt in motorsport what Packer did to cricket: challenge the convention and change the sport based on what the organisers think the viewing public truly wants. Do they have the pulse of the people, and the wherewithal to take on the might of Bernie Ecclestone and the F1 machine?
Before we get to that, a recap of the Kerry Packer saga.
In the late 70s, Kerry Packer, miffed at the loss of telecast rights to a cricket tournament despite being the highest bidder; contracted arguably the best players of the day to stop playing for their respective countries and play exclusively for a tournament created by his channel, in what was quickly dubbed "The Packer Circus".
The establishment scoffed at the machinations of an Australian media magnate gone mad, dismissing his efforts as "pyjama cricket". They created obstacle after obstacle, determined to crush the upstart who dared to take on the might of the International Cricket Council. Kerry Packer had to play cricket matches on rugby and soccer grounds; grounds, which had no pitches. So he created the pitches, and had them transported from ground to ground by trailer — and had them "dropped" into holes that were dug in these playing areas. This was the least of his troubles; the establishment used their considerable PR muscle to brand those cricketers who joined Packer as traitors. Defying the odds, Packer's lieutenant Tony Greig successfully created world class teams — reducing the official Australian team to recall a 42-year old Bobby Simpson to captain the side against the visiting full strength Indian team (India was the only country wherein Greig failed in his attempts).
He carried on, determined that he was right. Till the establishment had to eat humble pie and get to the negotiation table to work out a truce with Packer.
Cricket has never been the same again.
Packer succeeded because of his instinctive grasp of what the viewer wanted. His commercial sense told him that if he delivered what the cricket fan wanted, there was a fortune to be made.
Packer also relied on his own sense of the sport, introducing cameras at both ends of the pitch (it might shock you to learn that this, too, was a Packer innovation), as he was sick at looking "at batsmen's bums".
Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum, Founder, President and Chairman of A1 Grand Prix, was not fed up of seeing anyone's bums. Still, he senses that the way Formula One is run by Bernie Ecclestone provides an opportunity that he couldn't resist.
The single biggest differentiator — and there are many — is that the A1 Grand Prix is not a championship that recognises the best car in the world unlike Formula 1. It is a World Championship of Motorsport, with country pitted against country. Al Maktoum clearly sees a viewership and spectator opportunity here, with F1, as with club football, forcing aficionados to switch allegiance as drivers or players switch loyalties. So if a Michael Owen left Liverpool to join the Galacticos, the Liverpool and Owen fan was caught between a rock and a hard place. Who does he root for?
The same exists with the existing F1 set up. When Barrichello moves from Ferrari, what happens to the Ferrari-Barrichello fan? With the marketing machine that is the F1, the fan has to switch loyalties, T-shirts, caps, other keepsakes — and possibly even friends.
This is where A1 hopes to score. Your loyalties are to your country — and that will never be put to the test. That guarantees an interest base that goes well beyond the motorsport fan, as Sania Mirza and Narain Karthikeyan have proved. You don't have to be a tennis freak to want to follow Mirza or an F1 fanatic to keep track of Karthikeyan. You, as a fan, want your country to win, and, to a large degree, forgive your team failures and transgressions.
A1 is proposed to be a World Championship of teams from 25 countries, representing 80 per cent of the population of the world. This concept opens up interesting possibilities. The interest in the sport in countries, which do not currently have a F1 driver, such as say, China, could well shoot up in the A1 inter-nation system — and the theoretical universe of viewers is mind boggling. In India, we have seen what the entry of Karthikeyan did to ESPN-Star's numbers; now imagine what the introduction of a Chinese team or an Indonesian team could do.
The second differentiator is the choice of venues, with A1 being significantly more Asia friendly than F1. A1 will see the advent of motorsport in Singapore and Dubai, two venues which were low down on the F1 waiting list. Opting for popular tourist destinations is surely an interesting gambit, and with Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, the Asian count is already four.
The F1 race at Sepang, Malaysia, saw more than F1 packages sold in India. A1, considering the proximity and attraction of Dubai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur can expect all the motorsport starved Indians to make a beeline on racedays.
To read the entire article, buy a copy of Impact Advertising and Marketing magazine dated August 29-September 4
