There actually was a significant sporting event that happened in South Florida yesterday–though with all due respect to the Marlins, until you can at least get to .500 we’re not talking about y’all. Rather, we mean what YAHOO! SPORTS’ Nick Bromberg crowed about yesterday:
Kimi Antonelli scored his third straight Formula 1 win in the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday. The 19-year-old got ahead of Lando Norris after each driver had pitted on lap 28. Antonelli, who pitted just before Norris, used his warmer tires to his advantage and snuck past Norris after the 2025 champion had exited the pits. Antonelli then cleared Max Verstappen — who had pitted much earlier because of a lap 1 spin — and was able to build a comfortable gap to Norris over the second half of the race.
Antonelli became the third driver behind Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher to win the first three pole positions of his career in successive fashion during qualifying Saturday. And he’s now the only one of those three to convert each of the consecutive poles into wins.
But unless you’re a tried-and-true F1 afficiando, it’s understandable that you might have missed all of this. That’s partially because thanks to global events this is the first time in five weeks that an F1 event anywhere was being held, as the presumptive humans at ESPN explained on Friday:
F1 fans, teams and drivers (had) to wait five weeks until the next race after events in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were cancelled due to the war in Iran…The decision was driven by safety concerns, with the situation in the region deemed too unstable for the races to go ahead.
In reality, there was little scope to plug the gap. F1’s calendar is built months in advance, with complex logistics underpinning every race. Staging a replacement race at short notice would require a venue ready to host immediately — along with all the necessary operational and organisational support — while having little to no time to sell tickets. That was not achievable within the timeframe, leaving F1 with no viable alternative events to insert into the calendar.
Another yuge reason was the sport making the leap from ESPN to Apple TV, where it now fills a similar strategic vision to its warehousing of MLS soccer. One can’t necessarily blame the powers that be given the fiscal carrot that Eddy Cue and company dangled in front of them, which THE DAILY MAIL’s Ben Nagle detailed last fall:
Formula 1 has a new home in America, after Apple announced it has agreed a new $140million-a-year deal to broadcast the increasingly-popular sport. The landmark five-year deal…will see Apple pay significantly more than ESPN’s previous $90m-a-year contract.
In recent months, races have averaged around 1.4 million viewers on the Disney-owned channel, and in a statement, an ESPN spokesperson said: ‘We’re incredibly proud of what we and Formula 1 accomplished together in the United States and look forward to a strong finish in this final season. We wish F1 well in the future.’
And as if on cue (pun intended), Apple TV’s spinmeisters immediately seized upon the opportunity to humble-brag about how prescient a move it was when they found a way to offer up what 9TO5MAC’s Zac Hall obligingly regurgitated in March:
Apple TV just landed its first F1 victory over ESPN. Eddy Cue says that last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix race saw more viewership on Apple TV than the same race received on ESPN a year ago.
Alex Weprin at The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop.
“The 2026 Formula 1 season on Apple TV is off to a strong start, with fans responding positively and viewership up year over year for the first weekend, exceeding both F1 and Apple expectations,” Cue says.
Weprin reports that Apple declined to provide viewing data, but ESPN’s ratings a year ago provide some insight:
As is typical for Apple, the company declined to give any specific numbers, though last year’s Australian GP averaged 1.1 million viewers for ESPN. The Australian GP is something of an unusual race, given its late-night timeslot, but any ratings improvement is nonetheless an encouraging sign.
And while Weprin was his usual savvy self in being able to call Apple out on their selective ambiguity, even he wasn’t able to extrapolate exactly how Apple was able to make that claim. Was it global viewers? Views? Time spent? What exactly were those respective expectations, givem not only the enhanced price tag but also all the bells and whistles that Cue’s writers tossed into the hyperbole that Hall willfully parroted:
“Fans are loving the enhanced viewing experience, including Multiview, Podium View, driver cams, and the ability to watch Formula 1 in stunning 4K with Dolby Vision for the first time,” Cue says. “The AUS GP also coincided with the biggest week ever for the Apple Sports app since its launch”
Again, Eddy, how do you know that? Did you simply just tally up the likes? Did you do sentiment analysis on the comments? What was the benchmark that the Apple Sports app set that you were able to outperform? Was it set by an episode of TED LASSO? I know you may indeed have the facts at your disposal, but maybe you might want to be a tad more forthcoming? After all, you’ve got a new boss you’ve gotta impress. Numbers don’t lie, ya know.
And when there’s an unanticipated spring break of more than a month, and your best promotional platform is a new season of YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, one can’t help but be just a tad concerned that Antonelli’s run is perhaps more in the ether than prior year’s standardbearers like Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton and before that the likes of Helio Castroneves and Jensen Button. The latter two each won seasons of DANCING WITH THE STARS in the US and UK respectively. Anyone know if Antonelli can bust a move?
Here’s about all we can be sure of. If we happen to see anything emerge from Apple later this week it will undoubtedly be positive. Lacking that, be sure it wasn’t. And then start asking those very questions in the Apple Sports app so that they can at least reap some tangible benefit from this past weekend. You may not get a response, but at least Cue will know someone actually cares.
Courage…