Social Rocket
The move of Formula 1 to Apple TV in the US 2026 is sending mixed signals: external measurements from Samba TV show considerably less household reach for individual races than 2025, while Formula 1 itself reports rising viewer numbers and 13 percent more total hours watched in the US market.
For brands, exactly this discrepancy matters. For a sport like F1, sponsorship impact can increasingly no longer be read from a single live TV figure.
Samba sees declines in Miami and Monaco
Digiday, citing Samba TV, reports that the measured household reach of the Miami Grand Prix fell by 68 percent compared with 2025, and that of Monaco by 66 percent.
However, these figures are not official Apple or F1 ratings. Formula 1 points out that Samba is not a measurement partner of F1 or Apple TV.
The more recent data look better: for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Samba estimates household reach 15 percent higher than in the previous year. At the same time, average viewing time rose by 78 percent.
F1 reports more watch time and a younger audience
Formula 1 already stated in its half-year review that viewer numbers in the US with Apple had risen year on year and that total hours watched had grown by 13 percent.
The US market remains strategically important. F1 most recently put its US fan base at 52 million people. Even before the switch, the series had described a particularly young new audience: according to the Global F1 Fan Survey 2025, 47 percent of new US fans were aged 18 to 24, and more than half were female.
Apple also distributes F1 via its own ecosystem. Alongside Apple TV, Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple Sports and Apple Fitness+ play a role. F1 TV Premium is now integrated into the Apple TV offering in the US.
For sponsors, more counts than live reach
The central question for advertisers is therefore not only how many households watch a race live. F1 fandom is spread across:
- Live broadcasts,
- Social clips and highlights,
- Driver and team accounts,
- Creator content,
- Events and hospitality,
- Streaming series and other entertainment formats.
Digiday therefore cites sports marketing experts advising against automatically interpreting short-term reach fluctuations as a drop in F1 demand. Paid social, creator marketing and experiential activations in particular can reach fans who do not watch every race behind a streaming paywall.
This fits a broader trend in sports marketing. CarMax combines its WNBA sponsorship with creator and personal-brand training, while Graza uses NASCAR as a platform spanning TV, social content and activations. Athletes are also building their own creator reach via social media.
The sponsorship market remains expensive
Despite the debate over measurement and distribution, demand remains high. Digiday refers to an Ampere Analysis estimate according to which F1 sponsorship revenues could exceed the 3 billion US dollar mark 2026.
This does not mean, however, that every sponsorship is automatically efficient. The higher the rights fees, the more important it becomes for brands to determine which additional rights they can actually use for social, creator, content and activation.
What marketers should take away
The Apple TV switch mainly shows how difficult reach comparisons become when a sport moves from a classic TV bundle to a streaming ecosystem.
For sponsors, evaluation should therefore combine several signals: live reach, watch time, social engagement, event demand, audience demographics and their own activation data.
A single figure can look weak in the short term even though overall fandom is stable or even growing. Conversely, high social reach does not replace clean sponsorship measurement. It is precisely this mix that determines whether the F1 boom is actually economically worthwhile for a brand.