Stories

III. An analogy with the world of Sports

1.    Should we love the game or the players? – Published 15.5.22
I am a fan of Formula 1 racing. I admire the actors in the game. It is a game with quite a cast. There is the FIA, who is responsible for the rules and regulations of the sport on behalf of the car industry. They have leased the rights to organise the events to Liberty Media who controls the Formula One Group. The cars are built by the entrants of the cars, a group of 10 constructors who all enter two racing cars. Not all of them produce their own engines though. Currently there are four engine manufacturers active that supply their own team and the so-called customer teams. 
The entrants of the cars employ people at the factory, in a variety of capacities to design, engineer, build and race the cars. Logistical people to transfer the teams from one race to the next, press people to liaise with the media and heaps of data analysts to check everything to find that extra edge, the extra tenth of a second or fraction thereof. They also have commercial organisations to realise the value of the racing activity to cater for the financial needs of the team and hopefully create value for the owners. Teams can employ around a thousand people and spend massive amounts of money.
Their success is measured in two concurrent championships: the constructor’s championship for the constructor that gained most points in a season with both their cars and the driver’s championship for the points earned by each individual driver. That last championship is the one that commands most attention. Many people favour a particular driver rather than a brand of car, although there are exceptions there. 
Still, at the end of the season one hero is crowned world champion and he invariably gets hero status. One man has to be good enough to carry the hopes of the organisation he works for. In fact, he may be good enough to change teams if he feels that give him a better shot at the championship. Such people get hero status and must be able to deal with that. So maybe around a thousand people must work to perfection to give that one guy a shot at being the hero amongst heroes. Without all those people working in prefect unison even the most talented driver doesn’t stand a chance to be a front runner let alone fight for the championship.
I follow F1 since 1961, when my father took me to the Grand Prix at Zandvoort. I can still visualise the shark nosed Ferraris of Wolfgang von Trips and Phil Hill coming around the Tarzan corner followed by various other brands of car as was the case at most of the races that year. As I grew older and read more about the racing and the cars. Most of development was pretty understandable. There is quite a difference in understanding the development in those early days from the developments today. 
Ways were found to make cars lighter and stiffer. Suspension was moved inboard to reduce the unsprung weight. Slick tyres made their appearance and wings were introduced. All things I would not have been able to conceive myself, but I could at least understand a lot of what was happening if it was explained in the magazines I devoured on the subject. 
Somewhere in the seventies the way the championships were run started to develop as well. It wasn’t obvious to all at the time, but someone saw that it was a business that could make a lot of money. In fact, he became a billionaire over the next decades. The circus grew bigger, and it kept me interested as the micro cosmos that mirrored the developments of our global society. It is obvious that the game is about a lot more than the heroes it creates.

2.    The hero spurs the team on, but the leader builds the team – Published 16.5.22
Of course, it motivates a team to know that their driver is fit and fast, and that he can extract every bit of performance from the car for every lap of the race. It is equally important that they can trust his feedback about the car’s behaviour. He also needs to be attractive for the sponsors of the car and be a recognisable personality in the media. He needs to be quite a formidable mix of things and dedicated to one thing only: his own success. That is what is expected of him by the team as well. They need such a star. 
That total commitment to success must come at a cost, more so as the stakes have gotten higher over the years. A 1958 occurrence would be impossible or even incomprehensible today. Sportsmanship was still considered natural in those dangerous days of motor racing. Stirling Moss, driving a Vanwall, displayed such sportsmanship in standing as a witness for Hawthorn, driving for Ferrari. Acting as a witness in an appeal against Hawthorn’s disqualification at Oporto, for an alleged driving offence, helped overturn the penalty. Hawthorn was reinstated. That ensured that Hawthorn took the title at Moss’s expense. “It would’ve been wrong,” insisted Moss to the question of whether he should’ve held his counsel.
In later years there have been plenty instances where great champions took other drivers out of the race to ensure their own championship success. Granted, the cars by now have become a lot safer than the firebombs of the first decades of F1 Grand Prix racing. The drivers would basically drive any car that gave them an advantage. Catastrophic events in 1994, claiming the lives of Ronald Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna and almost that of Rubens Barrichello, finally brought a dedicated safety drive. The sport’s regulator forced through safety improvements, reigning in the exclusive performance drive of the designer. Arguably this has not been beneficial to the sporting code between the drivers as the spoils of victory have become overwhelming. It elevates the champions to heroes of Homeric proportions.
Yet, such herculean status within the team will remain based on merit, but the fans worship the demigods who will always have a hard time to remain grounded. I do not understand hero-worship, full stop. It is a team success. A driver without a top performing car is like the emperor without clothes. Of course, to be in contention for a top seat you must be one of the best, granted, but at the end of the day drivers are human beings. Smart, dedicated and fortunate human beings, great at their chosen profession, but not necessarily great examples in other aspects of life. 
Within a team there are people with highly specialized skills in many different areas that must be guided towards a common product. Avoiding sub-optimisation for the best all-round compromise between various performance determining factors. A car may have the most powerful engine, but if it is too heavy it may compromise other design elements. Engine size and cooling requirements influence aero dynamics, and impact on weight distribution. Keeping track of all that and more, whilst still thinking about the mechanics who must be able to work on it, in a trade off with reliability and cost demands overview and leadership. I’ll leave it at that, but it is of baffling complexity. 
Having built the car, it now must be raced, finetuned for the weekend based on the driver’s input and the analysis of massive amounts of performance data, using artificial intelligence and algorithms. Choices about strategy must be made against a continuously moving target of track conditions, tyre wear, fuel loads and whatever else may decide to have an impact. All that comes under the responsibility of the team. If one element of the team slips up it may have the same catastrophic consequences as the driver slipping up. It is that complexity that makes racing interesting for me. Not just the Sunday afternoon, that may be the driver’s chance to shine, but the whole effort of bringing him in that position. A proper leader knows the importance of all his different challenges and allows them to flourish. The road to success is way more egalitarian than the hierarchy of drivers seems to suggest.

3.    And then the sport was sold as a business. - Published 17.5.22
If the people aspect of running a race team is crucial for its success, including the choice of drivers, the running of the race series, the World Championship, has seen very different drivers over the history of the championship. Forgive me for not being very well informed about the way the championship was run before the seventies. Basically, a few racetracks organised races that qualified as a Grand Prix where points could be earned that counted towards the championship. The standards of those events were very different. 
This changed when Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone organised the teams in the Formula One Constructors Organisation. An old-fashioned power struggle unfolded with the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile about who controlled the championship. Les Garagistes (as the then “Président de la FIA” called the specialised constructors) or the few “real” car companies like Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, and Renault. It very nearly came to a breakup, but in time sanity prevailed and an agreement was reached that saw the commercial aspects of the sport in the hands of basically Ecclestone. The regulatory aspects remained in the hands of FIA. 
The sport benefitted as the events became much more professional. They were run to a standard that was controlled by Ecclestone’s Formula One Management. The running of the races and the promotion around it was gradually transferred away from the local organisations at the various tracks. Standards were set for race management, medical facilities, circuit safety, television coverage, and the logistics of moving the F1 circus all over the planet. The race teams enjoyed the operational benefits of these changes but must have had mixed feelings as they saw how Ecclestone withdrew from Brabham to concentrate on F1 management to become fabulously wealthy. The sport had become a business. It proved to be a very valuable one.
Ecclestone wasn’t getting any younger and in 2016/17 he sold the business to Liberty Media for $8 billion. You read it right, people invested eight billion dollars to buy the rights to organise F1 races. From a nice money spinner for Ecclestone, it became a strategic investment opportunity for a media company. 
I obviously have no access to the board room of Liberty Media, but they must have seen opportunities to justify this kind of investment. Profit maximalisation certainly is one of them, but there are also fringe benefits of owning such a high-profile business. Just look at the people handing out the prizes at the events, and you will see to whom the business gives access. I will concentrate on the obvious impact of the profit maximisation. 

4.    Greed now dominates the sport. – Published 18.5.22
More races through more events and sprint races on Saturday, increased ticket prices, streaming taking over from terrestrial TV, dedicated racetracks in high profile places rather than accessible racetracks. It all affects the public. The public needs to be thrilled by the races. Cars are designed to allow closer racing and spending on development needs to be curbed to create a level playing field. New tracks are built with higher top speeds. We have come a long way since 1950. Certainly not all bad and, especially regarding the safety aspects of the sport, it has lost its gladiatorial character. 
But do we need more races? The number has steadily been growing over the years. In the fifties and the sixties on average there weren’t even 10 races per year. That gave the drivers a chance to race in all sorts of different categories. I remember seeing Jim Clark even race in a Ford Cortina around Zandvoort. They loved the sport and wanted to race every weekend if they could do so. 
In the seventies the average was getting close to 15 races per season. The sport got more popular appeal and TV coverage started to improve. For me at the time I was impatiently waiting for the next race to come on. It wasn’t enough. In the eighties and nineties it stabilised around 16 races per season. Each one still eagerly awaited. In the noughties it started to creep up and in the second decennium of the 21st century for the first time we had as many as 21 races per season. For contractual reasons drivers participating in other classes had already stopped a while ago, but now time pressures began to count as well. 
The calendar now aims for up to 23 races, but that is reaching the logistical limits of what can be achieved with one racing team. The burden on the mechanics is already at breaking point. So, if that is the limit, it will be a matter of time before double racing teams will be called for. More events, means more money. So, if we can’t have more venues because of logistics let’s have more races in a weekend. Let’s add the sprint race on Saturday instead of qualifying and move qualifying for that sprint race to Friday. Now we have a lot of content to sell at the venue as well as for television. 
That television has become a serious source of income as well. National TV stations used to broadcast the races free view on terrestrial TV. They are serving general interest, but have been outbid by streaming services targeting specific audiences. Typical prices vary but are at least in the region of €10 per month. Not everybody can afford this expenditure and the sport is bound to lose fans, but the owners do not care about the number of fans as they are paid per contract, not per viewer. Only their own F1 streaming service will be affected, but that cannot be reached in countries where they have a contracted supplier. 
Do we need more races? Do we need to spend three days of a single weekend behind our streaming device? I can only speak for myself, but whereas I very rarely ever missed a single qualifying and race in the past, I am now at a stage where I no longer allow my social life to be ruined by too much racing. Rather than hungry for the next Grand Prix it has become a trade-off with living my life.

5.    The entertainment industry has become dominant. – Published 19.5.22
Let me remind you that I am a fan of motor racing. That is because of a variety of reasons, but mainly, I guess, because I (used to) like driving cars fast. It is substitute pleasure. It is that pleasure where motor racing found its origins. People have always raced everything and anything. It probably started with running when there was nothing else. I don’t know what came next, people racing simple boats or riding horses. We’ll leave that to cultural historians. 
It was however no surprise that soon after the first cars were built people started racing them. People will race anything, as we enjoy competing. It was spectacular to see these cars being raced and people enjoyed watching it, as we like competition. It became a good possibility for car manufacturers to showcase their products. Dedicated events were organised, and racing cars developed into an organised sport. But it started because it was fun for people who could afford it, and it was watched by people who couldn’t. Money however always played an important part, and the heroes of the sport were embraced by the wealthy. Like sailing it was a sport for the high society and it was about winning. 
Money is no object when it comes to winning and if it is, don’t compete. The first idea of a levelling the playing field came from those who didn’t like to be beaten by the ever more powerful and expensive cars. Regulations about engine size, weight of cars, the duration of races and participation of national or international drivers brought more structure, reflected in national and international organisations. Racecourses moved from public roads to dedicated racetracks.  Commercial interest grew and a separation of professional and amateur events enabled a larger competitor base. Ambition for many amateurs was of course to progress to the professional sport where the drivers were rewarded. Paid handsomely and incorporated into the fast world.
Specialist race car constructors took on factory teams. Large corporations that were regularly upset as they were upstaged by more innovative and creative individuals. That continued in the first decades of the official F1 World Championship as it started in 1950. Many car companies realised that you had to win to do the brand any good and refused to compete as the cost could become astronomical and the skills required were hard to get by.
People work in a team because they earn and deserve to be part of it. People or corporations own such a team because they have got the money, they can afford it. Sometimes they want to be a part of running it. That gives them the final say and the resultant success or failure becomes a very enjoyable reality show, a soap opera at times; well covered in the dedicated Autosport press. It is, as stated before, a micro cosmos that mirrors the real world. 
You can go one step deeper and just look at the cars themselves and see how they have developed. Once they were mainly mechanical machines that could be taken to a track where they wanted to race. The cars developed into extremely complex cars that need a massive organisation to run them. All this to be part of a circus run by a media company that tells them where to race and how often. For a championship run within a strict rules package to once again level the playing field. I would love to be a fly on the wall at a Mercedes board meeting where they discuss whether it is all worth it. If they dominate the sport, like they should, the results become predictable, and people switch off. Liberty Media will be unhappy. If Mercedes don’t win it damages their reputation for engineering excellence, especially if beaten by a soft drinks company. 
Honda, as did Toyota before them, decided to quit. Renault decided to switch their involvement to Alpine, their specialty car builder. Alfa Romeo is only involved as a sponsor of an independent company that was almost, and still may be, sold to an American racing company. Companies like Ferrari, Aston Martin, McLaren are sportscar manufacturers. They need the competition and need to be seen to do well. Haas is closely aligned to Ferrari like Alpha Tauri as a junior team to Red Bull. Williams is probably the only unaligned racing team.
Having said all that, the Volkswagen Audi Group is claiming they will enter the sport from 2026 when new engine rules come into play. Maybe only through Porsche their sportscar builder, but possibly with their Audi brand. Liberty Media would love to see that happen, but… As I said, a soap opera. Lovely because ultimately it is without consequence. It is entertainment and not dangerous like the established order of global affairs that it mirrors. 

6.    Panem et Circenses, Bread and Circuses. Let’s not be fooled. – Published 20.5.22
The Romans already had it figured out. Keep the common people subdued and reasonably happy by giving them bread and circuses, bread and games. Keep them entertained, give them ‘folk-heroes’ and something to shout for and they will forget about themselves. Maybe that was good in the day, but we have gone beyond accepting being soothed as our existence as common people in freedom is being threatened. The civilisation the established order has created, its culture, is not sustainable.
We must get smarter, become a thinking audience and realised that just admiring the drivers during a race is a very superficial way of enjoying the sport. It ignores, as in real life, what is really happening in the background. The background that makes the sport, even if we just enjoy the entertainment side of it. I am surprised to see the emotional involvement some people award their heroes. Their success or lack of it may influence people’s sense of well-being. They may admire their driver because of his skill in a race car, or because he is a good-looking hero, or because of his nationality. You can always enjoy a driver for what he is, but never understand who he is. The public image that is portrayed of a driver will be politically correct, but judging his true character, shouldn’t even be attempted. He will always be a public figure first. 
Every F1 driver must be a winner, to make it that far. The sport today is a cutthroat business, that requires the personal characteristics, the morality, of a driven egotistical champion. Too many interests ride on his performance, as was described before. It will be virtually impossible to see who the person behind the driver is, and the fans should be aware of their substitute or even wishful thinking when idolising who their superstar is. But although the sport is interesting, there is a downside to a society of winners. Their function as an example is very limited. If we should all follow that example, we would end up with a lot of disappointed losers. There is limited room for winners but a great need for co-existence.
Judging character from a distance, without close personal contact and dialogue is impossible. Any one sided or unidirectional communication can and will be structured to portray and strengthen an image. The drivers in their public persona are actors, they receive extensive media training from an early stage in their career and know what they have to say to be seen as winners. They very rarely say surprising things that reflect an uncomfortable reality. Their teams always record what their drivers are saying to the press after a race just as much to protect the drivers against the media as to protect the team itself against the criticism of a disgruntled driver. 
The established order, creates a problem as it distributes very unevenly. It must do something to distract the disgruntled and, like with any problem the established order creates, it makes money out of solving it! The circus is a nice money spinner and a power tool on top of that. But it should be about the pleasure of the sport, not about the heroes it creates; the substitute happiness of admiration for some Homeric ideal. 
Our education should prepare us for proper appreciation of entertainment, for the proper admiration of culture. Whether it is in football, the Olympics, performing arts or museums, it is about chances for people to shine, to showcase their specific talents, and we should enjoy that, but never feel inferior because of it. Worshipping makes you inferior and throws away the chance of being egalitarian. 
It is daft to see how people like to be worshipped, and the lengths they will go to be seen. People paid fortunes for tickets for the Miami Grand Prix, an event that was more about the event than the motor racing. The editor of Motorsport News mirrored my thoughts: “… the motor racing fans were drowned out by the sound of cameras clicking on the high-profile celebrities cramming the grid.” Celebrities feeding of the showcase for other celebrities to be seen. With entry level tickets selling at a months’ salary of the common people we must be resigned to viewing the event through a streaming service. Motorsport News: “Money talks, and under the brave new leadership of Formula 1, it (the Miami GP) is here to stay. 

7.    Case studies from the World of Sport
Case studies can be used to do two things; to illustrate and to investigate. That is why I introduced the world of sport. It is an attractive world to investigate. Sports have developed over time for the athletes, the technology behind it, the organisation of the sport, the media coverage and its place in society. Examples from within the world of sport can also be used to highlight a thesis or a principle. 
Looking at Formula 1 clearly demonstrates that it is an extreme example of a team sport. Two times world champion Fernando Alonso calls for more appreciation of that fact: 
“This is a real team sport, more than anywhere else. We [the drivers] are prone to forget this easily, especially when we are successful. We are delighted with what we achieve and to see the headlines concentrate on the drivers, even when you try to share your success with the team. It happened with me when I beat (Michael) Schumacher. It was a massive achievement, but my car at the time was reliable and very fast. You cannot praise the combined effort enough, but the headlines will still go to the driver.”
Reading that once, as we usually do, it sounds logical but then we quickly return to our hero worship. Treating it as a starting point for an in-depth discussion, a case study, about F1 racing (based on TV-coverage of a full race weekend) with a class of young children, let’s say age 10-12, will almost certainly bring out surprising insights that will remain with those children for a long time. The same topic can be discussed again a couple of years later and it will be interesting to find out how that first debate has influenced the way the children follow and appreciate the sport. It will probably show a further deepening of the insight.
The art of such a case study is to keep it along the lines of common discovery, a discussion where the heroism of the driver probably will be brought down to the level of driving. The appreciation of other aspects of the sport will probably broaden and deepen at the same time. The discovery will bring in more understanding of the role the various people play in building a team. What will be considered more important? The performance of an individual or the contribution to the total, the social environment of the team? 
I think it will lead to an appreciation of the fact that a team needs more members than leaders. That leaders may have stimulating effect whilst bosses achieve the opposite. Why not concentrate on what it takes to function in a team? At least a person should be enjoyed for what he is, not who he is.
The various interviews during the race weekend will be filleted and seen for what they are, spreading disinformation, empty motivational showing of a straight back, creating doubt and suspicion. It is total theatre with an uncanny resemblance to the powerplay in the real world. The role that money plays will become painfully obvious. Maybe not the first time the exercise is done, but a few years later more than likely. 
It will lead to questions like why do people buy race teams? They must know that there can only be one winner every year and over the years it is a pretty constant circle from which the winners come. If the subject matter is interesting enough, the class may also dedicate its attention for instance to football where clubs, coaches and players are also being bought and sold for insane amounts of money. Why are we constantly being subjected to the importance of winning? Good Enough gets a different meaning for those teams that consider second place a loss and yet there can only be one winner. Being seen to cement the importance of being a winner, being on top of the pile, is seen as entertaining. Yet that pile is made up of common, good enough people. Supremacist entertainment for an egalitarian society? There is a serious question mark if sport highlights the right principle.