Sprinting to success?: F1 fans’ excitement towards change in sport competition formats

Driven by an increasing digitalised consumption of leisure, and consumer preferences evolving to favour speed and immediate gratification during consumption, new shorter formats of sport competitions are being introduced. Since 2021 Formula One have been discussing complementing their traditional race format, with alternative shorter formats to re-ignite the excitement of their fans. In this study, we explore the proclaimed excitement of fans towards the three different proposed formats of F1 races through a large-scale survey (N=2,107), showing the in fact negative effects that proposed format changes have on F1 fans’ anticipated excitement. What emerges instead is the importance of the length of fandom in influencing fans’ receptivity to format changes, rather than the generation in which they belong, stressing thus the significance of intra rather than inter-generational exploration of fandom.