David Brown

If Formula One wants to grow its audience, viewers first have to understand what they're watching.

Within hours of the underwhelming screening, Hill begins sketching out a plan to revolutionize the way Formula One is broadcast in time for the 2018 season.

He increases the number of cameras covering each race, but instead of leaving them fixed around the circuit, he sends many of them into the pit lane and garages, capturing the tension behind the scenes.

The focus begins to shift from cars to characters.

Drivers, team principals, and pit crews are no longer background figures.

They're part of the story.

Hill also adds more on-screen graphics to explain who's leading, who's chasing, and what strategies the teams are using, helping new viewers follow the complex tactics unfolding at 200 miles per hour.

And he turns up the in-car microphones during the opening laps, so audiences get drawn in by the roar of the engines and the crackle of team radios.

But before any of that can reach viewers, there's one last problem to overcome.

In the market that Formula One most wants to crack, no one can watch it.

For the past four years, NBC has broadcast F1 in the US, but the network decides not to renew the deal beyond the end of 2017, and few other networks are interested.

That leaves Formula One without a home in the US.

So, the new leadership approaches ESPN and proposes an unusual deal.

The sports network can broadcast every Formula One Grand Prix live in the United States for free.

Yep, you heard me right.

The world's most prestigious motorsport is giving itself away in the world's most lucrative media market.

At first glance, it looks like a terrible business decision.

Broadcasters in other countries pay millions to show Formula One, but Formula One has been here before.

Back in the early 80s, Bernie Eccleston sold European TV rights for a pittance because exposure mattered more than revenue.

Liberty Media?