Episode 200 of Wheelhouse

Before we get into it, this is episode 200 of Wheelhouse.

Yay! Thank you very much for watching. This is an insane privilege, and I've no one to thank but you guys, and of course, Joe and Eddie, and everyone else at Donut who lets me do this. It's just a privilege. And thanks a lot.

Now, before I start showing any emotion, let's get into it (insistent drum music).

What do Formula One and the Kardashian family have in common? Reality television brought their names into the collective American consciousness and made unlikely pop culture stars of their subject. Weird as it sounds, Formula One's Netflix docu-series

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Before we get into it,this is episode 200 of Wheelhouse.- Yay!- Thank you very muchfor watching.This is an insane privilege,and I've no one to thank but you guys,and of course, Joe and Eddieand everyone else at Donutwho lets me do this.It's just a privilege. And thanks a lot.Now, before I start showingany emotion, let's get into it.(insistent drum music)- What do Formula Oneand the Kardashian familyhave in common?Reality television brought their namesinto the collective American consciousnessand made unlikely pop culturestars of their subject.Weird as it sounds,Formula One's Netflixdocu-series "Drive to Survive"takes all the trappingsof a reality TV show,like compelling but scripted storylines,fleshed-out personalities,an episode-per-storyline format,and a younger, more female audienceto transform a stuffy sportinto the kind of show people obsess over.And that's actually the biggest thingsaving F1 from obscurity right now.How did F1 go from a sportthat banned social media in its paddockto the series that gives Netflix crewsunfettered access to the garages?What makes "Drive toSurvive" so damn popularwith younger viewers,Americans, and women?And why the hell didn'tF1 think of this sooner?(bouncy music)- Thanks to Keeps forsponsoring today's video.Oh, hey there, watch your step.We're fixing the old birdseed silobefore the big storm collapses it.(lightning thunders faintly)You know what?This is how Benjamin Franklin died.Not too many people know that.The whole kite and key thing? Total lie!(Bird caws)(lightning thunders loudly)No!Mayday!Help! Grab me by my hair!(Bird caws)Jeezum crow!If only I wasn't oneof the 2 out of 3 guysthat experience male patternbaldness by that time I was 35.(Bird caws)I'm sorry, Dave.I should have used Keeps.(a sigh of air whooshes softly)(Bird emits high-pitched call)Keeps makes hair loss prevention easyby shipping your hair loss medicationdirectly to your door every three months.Plus you'll get accessto real doctors online.So don't let your folliclesfall to their death.Start your hair loss prevention todayby going to keeps.com/wheelhouse50or click the link in the descriptionto receive 50% off your first order.Oh my God, this fall is taking forever.Why did I buy such a big bird silo?(Jerry lands with a loud thud)(Bird caws)(seeds shift)(electronic chiming music)- Formula One's longtimerelationship with televisionhas been pretty complex,but the Netflix dealhasn't been the first big transformationthe series has seen regarding TV.In fact, the ability for fans at hometo actually watch racesis a big reason why F1 has becomean untouchable Goliath ofinternational motor sport.(bass music)From F1's first race in 1950 until 1980,fans could never guaranteethey'd actually get to watch a race on TV.If they got anything,it was usually a highlight reel.Think "Wide World of Sports" on ABC.It wasn't until the BBC over in Englandnabbed the exclusive rightsto broadcast full F1 racesthat F1 management suddenly realizedhow important that whole TV concept is.After that point, Bernie Ecclestone,who was in charge of F1promotions at the time,started cutting a ton ofmassive multi-million dollar(cash register dings)TV deals around the world.(cash register dings)He kept most of the money for those deals,but F1, its teams, and theFIA, F1's managing body,also got a cut.That encouraged biggersponsorship deals for teams,since brands would begetting international airtimemultiple weekends a year.Money made more money,and soon F1 had transformedfrom a popular but kindaDIY open-wheel seriesinto the astoundinglyprofitable and dominant businessit's become today.(crowd cheering)TV coverage also broughtother changes to F1,usually involving safety.At the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix,F1 forced the race to go aheadin the middle of a dangerous deluge,because otherwise it wouldleave its profitable TV window.(crash sound)And when Ayrton Senna died in 1994,his millions of fansdemanded safety changesthat would prevent anotherdriver's death airing live on TV.Because TV deals were F1'sbig moneymaker, though,Ecclestone and Co. wereextremely protectiveof any and all F1 contentthat was being distributedliterally anywhere.Those big money TV dealswere all well and gooduntil the social media age hit,and fans who wanted to sharetheir love of F1 with othersstarted getting punishedfor even thinking aboutthe phrase "Formula One."Use a clip from a race in a YouTube video,or share a GIF on social media,and you'd be facinga copyright claim that(shrill alarm chimes)got your video taken down.(blue bolts zap)Fans were even getting cease and desistsfor having "F1" in their Twitter handle.(blue bolt zaps)It wasn't good.But luckily a change was in the winds,and that change was designedfor the social media era.Enter Liberty Media,the weird American-basedmedia conglomeratethat owns everything from theAtlanta Braves to SiriusXM.The company's owner, JohnMalone, had been buying upeverything from businesses toreal estate since the 1960s,and a lot of hisinternational acquisitions,companies like Virgin Media or ITV,have had ties with F1 atsome point or another.It was never really clearwhy Liberty would want F1,other than for the factthat it looked like itcould make a lot of money.Even though Chase Carey, whowas appointed F1's chairman,claimed Liberty bought F1in a noble effort to save F1 from itself.So Liberty sealed the deal in 2016for a massive 4.6 billion(cash register dings)and took full control ofF1 in January of 2017.And Liberty set to workimmediately revamping F1's image.Just before Liberty arrived on the scene,F1 had gone full technophobe.It had a Twitter account,but used it very sparingly,and only for straight-upreporting of facts.Ecclestone punisheddrivers like Lewis Hamiltonfor filming Snapchats in the paddock,going so far as to banall unauthorized distribution of mediataken in the paddock behind the scenes.Seriously, think about that for a second.Even the drivers couldn't filmsocial media video on their phoneswithout getting in trouble.And that's coming from Ecclestone,the guy who thought moderndrivers were too boring.Then again, he also thoughtyoung fans were irrelevant.So we can probably assumehe didn't know what he was talking about.Liberty Media set towork changing all that.The F1 Twitter account became livelyand actually interesting.Fans weren't hunted downwith the exclusive purposeof shutting down their YouTube pagefor the mere mention of F1.And for the first time in ages,it felt like the serieswas actually kind of tryingto appeal to literally anyonewho didn't grow up watchingF1 in the 1970s and '80s.But even though F1 might'vegotten some new fansby relaxing its social media presence,it would be Liberty's next movethat would send them into the mainstream.(upbeat music)It would've made sense for F1to introduce a reality-style TV showat any point of its history,but the popularity of Netflix mini-seriesgave the series a perfect wayto rethink its marketing strategy.So Liberty Media and Netflixteamed up to create "Driveto Survive" back in 2018.The whole goal was to send crews outto certain race weekendsand capture behind-the-scenesfootage of drivers.Once the year was ended,editors would take that footageand sum up an entireseason in just 10 episodes.Now, hardcore fans will saythat producers tooksome creative libertieswith things like timelines or quotesused during specific events.But most viewers probablyaren't gonna care.I mean, does it matter if the seriesadds its own crash sound effects,(mild crash sound effect resounds)or if it put a radio messagefrom Lando Norris atthe Austrian Grand Prixover some testing footage?Not really, not if the restof the story is compelling.That doesn't mean the series is perfectright from the start though.Big-name teams like Mercedes and Ferrarideclined to participate,(wrong-answer buzzer noise)which left a gaping hole to fillsince the producers couldn'tstring together narrativesabout who would win thedrivers' championship,which is normally the firststory people want to tell.It forced the producers to get creative.Instead of hearing about Lewis Hamiltonhunting yet another title,it focuses on the little guyswho are fighting toothand nail to stay afloatin a sport that demandsmore than they can spend.Like Daniel Ricciardo leaving Red Bullbecause the team tended tofavor his younger teammate,Max Verstappen.And at the end of the day,aren't those moreinteresting stories anyway?Eddie's nodding.It's those personalstories that are so keyto "Drive to Survive's" success.What takes it from astodgy factual documentaryand turns it into a piece of art.- Are you okay, Nico?- Holy (beep). I'mhanging here like a cow.In that moment, I thought like, (beep),you know, that's it, I'm out.- When it first debuted,hardcore F1 fans werepretty lukewarm on DTS.One motor sport journalist claimedthe series didn't knowwhat it wanted to be,while another argued that DTSturned away longtime fans,because it wasn't true tothe nature of the series.It piped in artificialsounds and fake commentators.It forced narratives and rivalriesthat didn't really exist.It didn't even make linear sense.(imitates a critic) Give me a break!But for the people who don'tnormally spend their Sundayswatching fast cars drive in circles,DTS exploded.Chris Sacca,an American tech investorwith 1.6 million followerstweeted that "The F1 thing is sneaky.I previously had no (beep) to give.Then that Netflix series happensand now I have multiple fantasy teamsand set my alarm to watchit all live with the kids."Sacca isn't the only one.Publications like The Atlantic, Vox,The Wall Street Journal and Forbesall started publishing think pieces,about how "Drive to Survive"hooked their writers.One of those writers, Paul Tassi,claimed that he was"painfully uninterested in F1"until DTS.So the fact that there's an influx of fansin all these new placesmeans F1 is probably doing something rightwith "Drive to Survive."It's not hyperbole to saythat "Drive to Survive"managed to save F1 from itself.The series was dead-set ondriving away potential fansby cutting off just about everysingle way to engage with F1outside of watching it live on TV.But who wants to bothertuning into a sporton Sunday morning whenyou could be sleeping in?Am I right?All you Europeans that are like,(imitates European fan) oh my,I have to wait until 8:00 pmto watch the US Grand Prix.It's like, that's, I wishevery race was like that.Quit complaining.We have to wake up at literally like,I've woken up at 3:30 to watch a race.And then I went back to bed,cause it was kinda boring.But like, you have it so easy.Putting the show on Netflixwas honestly a genius move.People could literallystumble across DTS on their front pageand put zero effortinto consuming a season'sworth of storylinesin one sitting.They didn't have to pay anythingbeyond their Netflix subscription costs.And they didn't have to knowanything about F1 going in.Compare that with traditionalracing publicationsthat require you to alreadyknow what's going on,or even the F1 broadcaststhat assume you're tuning inbecause you're already a fan,and you can see why DTS thrived.It takes all those barriersand throws them away,giving you a primerthat pares the series down to its basics.At the end of the day,it's bringing in a whole new host of fans,which is something thatthose so-called "true fans"should care about morethan whether or not theseries is totally accurate.The US Grand Prix weekend had400,000 people in attendance.I think DTS deserves a lot ofcredit for that insane number.- Did you spend all weekendsleeping off turkey(turkey gobbles)and miss the Black Friday deals?Well, don't worrybecause we invented an all-newholiday called Cyber Mondayto keep the deals rolling.What kind of deals?How about 25% off site-wide?Not good enough? Okay.How about some money-saving bundles?Get you everything youneed for one low price.I'm talking HRSpowa bundle,Hi/Low Team bundles, a Beans bundle,and even the OG Donut starter pack bundle.It's all 25% off, and it'sonly for Cyber Monday,trademark pending.So stock up now at DonutMedia.combefore it all ends.- Thank you very much for watching.This is episode 200 of Wheelhouse.If this is your first episode,hopefully you'll be here for 200 more,if we can think of that many.I didn't think that we'd be ableto come up with 200 episodes.I thought after likefive, that we were done.I want to thank everyonewho's been involved with this show,which is a lot of people.We got Joe, that helped getthe show back on its feet,Zach Redpath, Alex Rodriguez,Phil, Felipe, for makinga ton of thumbnailsin those early days.Making him stay late on aFriday to make thumbnails.Sorry, buddy.Eddie, of course,for being there with me atDonut since I first started.James for all of hismentorship and just help.Jesse and Matt, of course,for letting us keep making this show.Bart, for all your mentorship as well.And our current team, Graham and S.R.You guys put in so much work,and the show's just really taken off.So thank you very much.Thank you Malcolm as well.Thanks for watching. Bekind, see you next time.Remember to like, comment,subscribe and share.Hope you guys liked the show.We're gonna be doing it every week.This show answers the questionsyou never thought to ask.Whatever happened to Pontiac?Where'd racing stripes come from?What are some questionsI can't even think of?What makes you go, "Hmm,yeah that's kinda weird."We'll figure it out together.