Drive to Survive's reach goes beyond F1 fans. Now, other sports want to copy show's success

As a kid, Mike Janik could be found spending his days crashing Hot Wheels cars together and playing racing games. 

Now, two decades later, he's "giddy" knowing he's attending this weekend's 2022 Formula One Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal — and can check watching "the pinnacle of motorsports" off his bucket list.

Growing up, Janik had always followed more of the rally scene. Until one day, he stumbled upon F1 highlights on YouTube and his interest went "from zero to 100."

"I went from having no knowledge of it to … at the drop of a hat, at the snap of a finger, I tune in for every race weekend," Janik said. "I don't miss a beat."

Since the Netflix series Drive to Survive — featuring behind-the-scenes footage of the usually secretive racing teams — debuted in 2019, the audience for F1 has skyrocketed. In May, the show was confirmed for fifth and sixth seasons. And Apple Studios confirmed it's producing a racing film starring Brad Pitt co-produced by champion driver Lewis Hamilton.

But it's more than other studios trying to cash in on the new audience for F1. Other sports, like the PGA Tour, want to see if they can too.

While F1 focuses on high-octane racing, the show lifts the curtain on the drama and complexity about what goes into making a livelihood as a Formula One driver.

"I think the most revealing part of that series ... was just sort of understanding the real team effort behind it," Janik said. "Seeing these teams put everything they can to eke out thousandths of a second and just perform at this superhuman level, I think that's really what sold me."

The humanity of the show is part of its winning formula, says Adam Seaborn, a sports media analyst and head of partnerships at Playmakers Capital.

It takes audiences beyond the track, giving people the chance to connect with the drivers and teams — and it breaks down the complexity of racing for people who might otherwise not watch sports, he said.

"You can get a storyline," he said. "You can know their back stories, you know the rivalries, where they grew up … So it's easy to understand who versus whom every single week."

The popularity of the sport and its Netflix show has driven the streaming platform into a bidding war for the broadcast rights to F1 series racing — hoping to unseat ESPN, whose TV rights end next season.

People are also watching the show outside of primetime hours, with an average of 200,000 to 400,000 viewers per race between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., Seaborn said. In Canada alone, the show's ratings doubled from the previous year, he said.

"Netflix is in millions and millions of homes in Canada," Seaborn said. "I think [Formula One] hit an intersection of digital media, of social media and of sport all at the perfect time."