{"id":13421,"date":"2025-10-19T12:20:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T10:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/apples-f1-broadcast-deal-was-years-in-the-making\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:26:23","slug":"apples-f1-broadcast-deal-was-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/apples-f1-broadcast-deal-was-years-in-the-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple&#8217;s F1 broadcast deal was years in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The explanation reflected his particular sense of humour and secretive way of working, rather than any disparagement of Apple Inc. Friday&#8217;s announcement of Apple&#8217;s five-year deal for Formula One&#8217;s United States broadcast rights, replacing Walt Disney&#8217;s ESPN, was seen as a logical follow-on from the box office success of Apple&#8217;s F1 movie, starring Brad Pitt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The California-based company&#8217;s interest in the sport, at a senior level, goes back much further than the last couple of years, however.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of services with 36 years at Apple, is a long-time board member of Ferrari, where Stefano Domenicali, now Chief Executive of Liberty Media-owned Formula One, was team boss from 2008-14, and a lifelong F1 fan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;I already knew Stefano very well, but knowing and having our team and their team working that closely together for a long period of time (with the movie), I think gave both sides confidence in the kinds of things that we could do together,&#8221; he told reporters after the deal was announced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;But yes, I&#8217;ve personally thought about this for a long time.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Tommy Baker, a friend and associate of Ecclestone since the 1981 Long Beach Grand Prix, told <\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Reuters<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> he had a meeting in London in August 2016 with Cue and the now 94-year-old.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The American said they discussed a 12-part &#8216;From The Grid&#8217; show Baker had pitched after a failed previous attempt to produce an F1 lifestyle series in the 1990s, with Ecclestone supportive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;Apple was ready to go with it in 2017, they were going to buy the NBC rights for the Formula One broadcast in the States and have this as a tag-on show for a few years as they built towards their streaming,&#8221; he told <\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Reuters<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13422,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-13421","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"\nWhen Bernie Ecclestone was asked about a group of guests receiving VIP treatment at a Formula One race nine years ago, the commercial supremo said they were representatives of \"a fruit company\".||\nWhen Bernie Ecclestone was asked about a group of guests receiving VIP treatment at a Formula One race nine years ago, the commercial supremo said they were representatives of \"a fruit company\".","published_date":null,"news_description":" When Bernie Ecclestone was asked about a group of guests receiving VIP treatment at a Formula One race nine years ago, the commercial supremo said they were representatives of \"a fruit company\".|| When Bernie Ecclestone was asked about a group of guests receiving VIP treatment at a Formula One race nine years ago, the commercial supremo said they were representatives of \"a fruit company\".","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18550,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13421\/revisions\/18550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}