Formula One provides a good example of what can be done if a sport tries to appeal to a younger audience and embraces the popularity of social media
T
he world’s fastest man is being trash-talked by a YouTuber. “Are you ready man?” asks Darren Watkins, AKA IShowSpeed, on a live stream broadcast around the world. “You know my name’s Speed, right? And you know I am going to win.” Noah Lyles, the Olympic and world 100m champion, smiles at the teenage upstart. Then he bites back. “You gave yourself that name? That’s so cute.”
The pair agree to race over 50m for $100,000. Speed confesses that he has never worn a pair of spikes before, but keeps telling his 43.8m followers that he can beat Lyles. As the pair line up, Speed does a backflip. Then the YouTube megastar, Mr Beast, who has 431m followers, fires the starter’s gun.
This isn’t track and field as we know it. But thousands of people are watching, commenting, waiting to see what happens. The result isn’t a surprise. But that hardly matters. The 39-minute video of the encounter last November has now had 3.5m views on YouTube – making it by far the most watched athletics race on the platform since the 2024 Olympics.
