Keywords

Introduction

The most important tradition in four-wheeled motorsport is easy to summarize: get in the car, drive as fast as you can with all you have got, and then evaluate the race when crossing the finishing line. The responsibility for performance is in the hands of the driver, the team and the car (and sometimes the weather). This principle, which in many circles is as sacred as any religious ceremony, was breached with Formula E’s introduction of FanBoost, an e-voting service providing your favourite driver with extra power in the race. Although this blend of social media, racing tactics and favouritism for non-racing reasons may be difficult to accept for old school motorsport fans, the reason for introducing this feature is simple: it fits with the marketing profile of Formula E, which is not the same as in any traditional racing championship. Rather, from the very beginning Formula E was a commercial enterprise with a desire to recast ‘the sport consumer’.

Research points to some general reasons as to why people become sport consumers. From casual joe’s to die-hard fans, they have all been socialized into cheering for a particular team, admiring a special athlete or supporting a particular sport due to their personal interests, social environment and backgrounds, religion or geographical roots in combination with the dominant culture of the sport itself (Asada & Ko, 2018; Earnhardt et al., 2012; Magrath, 2017; Mewett & Toffoletti, 2011; Pfister et al., 2018; Pope, 2013; Yoshida et al., 2015). Formula E, in contrast, is an eclectic venture in terms of sport consumption. One of the reasons is that unlike in other motorsports, the typical Formula E fan does not really exist, but must be created by invitation, facilitation and persuasion. So, although some desired follower parameters were identified beforehand—young, environmentally progressive, tech-interested and social media-savvy—the very shaping of the sporting experience in Formula E has ‘challenged the notions of how motorsports are experienced, performed, and defined’ (Jarvenpaa & Standaert, 2017, p. 4744).

In this chapter we examine Formula E’s ideas about how to be commercially innovative in sports centring on shaping the consumer experience in line with the greater purpose of the championship. In what follows, we outline commercial innovation as a theoretical concept. Additionally, we delineate our understanding of the ‘co-creation’ term and of co-creation as crucial to the mediatization of Formula E. Then, to explain why this framework is central to our theoretical model and understanding the commercial efforts of Formula E, we proceed by discussing mediatization processes in sport. Based on this framework, we then examine a number of efforts made to create the Formula E sport consumer through the website and ‘FanBoost’. Finally, we consider the role of eSports, which Formula E—somewhat surprisingly—has been slow to embrace as a co-creative space between product and consumers.

Co-creation and Co-innovation

Just as the ‘innovation’ term is not new (Schumpeter, 1983; Fagerberg, 2005), the term ‘commercial innovation’ is not novel. From our knowledge of the innovation field, commercial innovation has been used in academic papers as far back as 1981, when Roberts and Peters (1981) adopted the term in their study of scientists and engineers with commercially oriented ideas at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Of course, it could be argued that adding the word ‘commercial’ to the innovation term, as Roberts and Peters (1981) did, is redundant. At least we should adhere to Schumpeter’s pioneering work on entrepreneurship and innovation, as that denotes an understanding of commercial success as the very end goal of any innovation. So why do we insist on dedicating a chapter to commercial innovation in Formula E in this book? While ‘commercial innovation’ might not have been a necessary term in Schumpeter’s time, the growth of the innovation field has made it indispensable today, because the end goal of innovation is no longer exclusively about financial gain or commercial success (see for instance, Chap. 5 for examples of social innovation). In many ways, the terms commercial innovation and social innovation represent opposite ends of the innovation spectrum, and it is partly due to the emergence of the theoretical concepts of social innovation and social entrepreneurship that we need the commercial innovation term today.

With regard to the innovation terms we utilize in this book (organizational innovation, technological innovation, commercial innovation, social innovation and community-based innovation), commercial innovation is when individual entrepreneurs, businesses or organizations develop a new idea with an end goal of introducing it to a market and profiting financially from it. Hence, commercial innovations (both in general and in sport) are often product innovations (Fuller et al., 2007). The sports equipment- and athletic wear industries are filled with examples of commercial innovations. The highly debated compression sports clothing is one such example. NIKE’s sports hijab is another, and a third example is Parris et al.’s (2014) study of female professional wakeboarders’ management of sponsorship and branding to gain competitive advantages and increase revenue. However, as Hyysalo’s early study (2009) of micro-innovation in sports industry development shows, commercial innovation in sport can also be process-based. Commercial innovations by large international sports corporations often relate to the ways in which sport products and processes are marketed (Fredberg & Piller, 2011). In professional sport, commercial innovation occurs through risk-filled activities involving market capitalization, competition, credibility and business activities (Ratten, 2011).

The above-mentioned examples however describe the innovation process rather step-wise. In contrast, several authors point to the unexploited potential of viewing commercial innovations as a co-created product or experience developed through iterative processes. Called co-innovation it denotes new ideas and approaches from various internal (the sport organization) and external sources (e.g. fans) being integrated in a platform to generate new organizational and shared values (Lee et al., 2012). The backdrop for this argument is that since the 1980s sport event management studies in particular have shifted from a goods-dominant logic (GDL) based on the deliverance of competitions to fans, to a service-dominant logic (SDL) providing experiences to consumers. Rather than assuming a relationship between provider and consumer, SDL therefore ‘advocates a network-with-network model of value creation that enables the central provider and beneficiary to integrate resources from actors connected with them’ (Woratschek et al., 2014, p. 12). By combining SDL with sport fan studies, Uhrich (2014) argues that customer-to-customer relations—or socializing with other fans both on and off the event site—contribute to people’s value perception.

But, to follow up on the claim that sport management research needs to go ‘beyond the inadequate perspective of many traditional theories and models’ (Woratschek et al., 2014, p. 20), any analysis of motorsport events needs to rethink the circuit of event value creation. Most motorsport studies define event value as financial output (see, e.g. Couto et al., 2017; Mackellar & Reis, 2014; Tranter & O’Keefee, 2004). Approaching the topic from a different perspective that is related to the SDL framework, it can also be argued that the fundamental economic offering of motorsport events is not services or goods, but experiences, here understood as the physical impression of amusement, education, escapism and sense-based encounters with the sport (Pine & Gilmore, 1998, pp. 30–35). A crucial concept for achieving this is ‘co-creation’, which despite numerous definitions can be understood as ‘a process that provides an opportunity for on-going interaction, where the organization is willing to share its world with external stakeholders and can generate in return the insight that can be derived from their engagement’ (Ind & Coates, 2013, p. 92).

Using co-creation as an instrument for commercial innovation directed at fan engagement requires insights into the particular consumption contexts (Horbel et al., 2016). Drawing on consumer culture theory, Horbel et al. (2016) emphasize that ‘the value consumers derive from an experience is something different than the interaction between service customer/customers and the service provider as it ‘includes existing and imaginary customer practices shaped by consumers’ social contexts (“lifeworlds”)’ (p. 513). In this context, Formula E has focused on co-creation in the form of entrepreneurial probing, which according to Jarvenpaa and Standaert (2017, p. 4744) ‘constitutes of [sic] deliberate provocation and open-ended dialog and conversation about need-solution pairs’. Moreover, entrepreneurial probing is considered an engagement strategy:

Just as probes in general, entrepreneurial probes do not aim to seek general or average characteristics, to validate expectations, or to “solve” a particular problem, but rather to discover what previously was invisible or hidden. (Jarvenpaa & Standaert, 2017, p. 4744)

In the case of Formula E, which is Jarvenpaa and Standaert’s key example, this probing is primarily related to mediatization processes. This term should be understood as an overall effect of the media on all parts of society, and a transformative force when it comes to the character and function of sectors such as politics, business and sport (Pallas et al., 2014). Ever since the commercialization of the internet and the ‘X-gamification’ of sporting events joined forces in the latter half of the 1990s, the mediatization of sport has steered consumer preferences towards a festivalization of events, 24/7 access to sporting content through social media, and a naturalized blend of entertainment, education, eustress and escapism (Pons et al., 2006; Skey et al., 2018). More recently, Frandsen (2016) has explored various examples of sport mediatization, from the Tour de France to fitness apps and the work of Danish sports federations, in order to assess the magnitude of this phenomenon. Frandsen’s claim is that sports organizations find themselves submerged in a new wave of mediatization, which is far from uniform. However, it is concluded that:

it may result in further diversity in the institution of sport as well as making it more difficult to decide the exact influence of media and their ability to form social inter-action. But they are a powerful and essential part of change—because they are embedded in all the other institutional agents surrounding the world of sport. (Frandsen, 2016, p. 398)

This process has been a blessing to Formula E, in that it has allowed it to experiment with a wide range of co-creating features that match its core concept, and for that reason has enabled it to create its own sport consumer profile. As mentioned in the introduction, though, some parameters were laid out beforehand. Tom Halls, Head of Digital at Formula E, said in 2016: ‘Digital natives are time-poor, cash-rich, and tech savvy. If you don’t offer them what they want, when, and how they want it, they just won’t be there’ (cited in Jarvenpaa & Standaert, 2016, p. 1). Instead of competing for the attention of the 35-year plus white male sport consumer that typifies a Formula 1 fan (Bradley, 2017), Formula E has targeted ‘young people, families, and groups interested in sustainability to increase the popularity of this new brand of motorsport’ (Wilbaut, 2015, p. 26). This strategy has resulted in an increase of 347 per cent among 13–17-year-old fans engaging with online content in 2018 compared with 2017. Moreover, the number of followers aged 18–24 has increased by 54 per cent since the 2017/2018 season.Footnote 1

The Controversy of FanBoost

In light of what is discussed above it is little wonder that Formula E’s sport consumer activities focus on a digital universe in which the elements that are new to motorsport are especially highlighted. When creating Formula E’s consumer universe Dept Agency, the website developer integrated typical features that were tailor-made for the millennial generation (e.g. dedicated driver pages which pull statistics from Forix API data, enabling a variety of comparisons) with ‘social television’ (providing multiple ways to access content). These features were then integrated with other interaction platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Yet, co-creation does not generate by default a positively emotional connection, which according to many studies on sport fandom is a necessary ingredient for establishing a lasting relation between sport and fan (see, e.g. Meng, Meng et al., 2015; Yoshida et al., 2015). Of all the website features in Formula E, FanBoost is by far the most debated. Although the feature has changed over the years, it works as follows. Anyone can cast a vote for their favourite driver in each of the season’s races, and the winner receives ‘a significant burst of power, which they can deploy in a 5 second window during the second half of the race’. The voting window opens 10 days before the race and closes 15 minutes into it. The vote is one vote per method, that is, via Twitter, the Formula E app or on the website, and an independent voting agency manages the process. Tom Halls, Head of Digital at Formula E, said that:

FanBoost is our unique selling proposition. It’s like the speed boost in the Mario Kart video game; it really ‘gamifies’ the sport! Fans either love it or hate it; traditional motorsports fans do sometimes have a challenge with it. But the brilliance of FanBoost is that drivers and teams are reaching out to fans on social media so they can win the extra power. (cited in Jarvenpaa & Standaert, 2016, p. 8)

Fuming about this mockery of tradition, however, veteran motorsport journalist Keith Collantine wrote in 2014:

It’s hard to say what is worst about it: the gross unfairness of giving more power to the most popular driver, the mealy-mouthed PR guff used to justify it as a means of engaging with fans via social media, or the way it’s reduced top racing drivers to begging for votes on Twitter so they can have the extra boost. (Collantine, 2014)

Others, like Stef Schrader at the automotive site Jalopnik, ironically claimed in 2017 that the system could be twisted to support the slowest drivers, given that the real incentive behind the device was to increase the uncertainty of outcome ratio, a long-standing motive behind sport rule changes to increase excitement (Pawlowski, 2013).Footnote 2 The possibility for sport consumers to potentially impact the race by adding power for drivers to use when overtaking or defending their positions, or voting for those without a hope of winning, also received other types of criticism. Formula E racing driver Daniel Abt was the most outspoken critic. Despite being awarded the FanBoost several times, and as one of the most social media-savvy Formula E drivers out there (he once promised on Twitter that ‘If I win it [the FanBoost votes] I’ll go naked on the grid singing Taylor Swift songs’), in 2018 he had some serious issues with the system. Shortly after the 2018 Santiago ePrix in Chile, Abt stated on his vlog:

I know you work your asses off to vote for me, and I’m working my ass off to get you involved. But then there are some drivers who manage to cheat a bit (…) We were in front the whole time, but suddenly some drivers get a lot of votes overnight. Strangely, all the votes are from 12 cities in China. They must have an awesome fanbase there. Formula E knows about it, but they can’t do anything because they cannot prove it properly. This is a catastrophe.Footnote 3

Abt was assured that the system was immune to manipulation. Elsewhere, Formula E media delegate Luca Colajanni emphasized that criticism towards FanBoost in general was wrongfully addressed, as the championship was about the future, not the past:

The future will be about making sports fans part of the show, in the venue and at home. Even if a fan is sitting on the sofa, they still want to feel they can have an impact, to become part of the process. This is where FanBoost came from. The idea is controversial and difficult to accept, but we need to learn from the success of the reality talent shows and make fans the protagonists. (Performance Communication, n.d., p. 30)

Equally unfettered was Formula E co-founder Albert Longo, who supported his people by introducing a larger canvas: ‘The motorsport purist may say that we are distorting the sport, but the reality is that you either adapt to the times or you die. The average age of most motor sports fans is already 65. If that is your audience, it is a sport doomed to death.’Footnote 4

This development led Finn (2020) to see FanBoost as one of the purest symbols of mediatization in sport, where the media no longer replicates the experience of sport but also changes its very nature. Although the actual impact on the race standings is still under debate, there is no doubt that FanBoost has generated interest in the co-creation of sports and fortified the idea of Formula E as different than other motorsports. For drivers and fans, the interaction between the two became more important than before. Although the nature of fan-athlete engagement through social media has been explored multiple times, and is most notably described as a ‘parasocial relationship’ (Hartmann et al., 2008; Sanderson & Kassing, 2014), its implementation in motorsport has traditionally been more direct—without social media. In the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), for example, which is run on public roads (that are closed during the competition), it was not unusual to fraternize with the locals and the fans along the route. As was once described by former world champion Ari Vatanen (see Næss, 2014), due to the remote service arrangement when teams drove into the forest, the jungle, the pampas, or wherever the event took place, it was not uncommon for drivers to work on their cars ‘in people’s backyards’ between the competitive stages. However, with the advent of social media, the generally introvert motorsport drivers had to get to grips with a new reality (Næss & Tickell, 2019; Spinda et al., 2009), which in the case of Formula E was part of their ‘survival’ as paid employees of a racing team. To examine the relevance of this claim in the light of a different part of the co-creation process, we now turn to eSports .

The Influence of eSports on Formula E Management

In our view, eSports has an even greater potential for co-innovation than FanBoost. eSports became popular when large game producers began to collaborate with major sports organizations like FIFA, NBA and so on, and other major sports organizations started to get involved in the eSports scene (Finch et al., 2019). In academia, Skinner et al. (2018) claimed that eSports and Formula E and the connection between them were particularly relevant for future studies in sport management, in that eSports and the digital profile of the Formula E event converged. There are three reasons for this attraction to eSports: (1) it generates a lot of money, (2) gives new meaning to sport consumers and (3) is profitable for sponsors. Estimates say that, globally, eSports currently has 454 million viewers. This is expected to rise to 645 million in 2022 and increase at about 15 per cent annually. In other words, ‘the eSports and games market combined will generate more global revenues in 2019 than the traditional sports market or the film industry’ (Mangeloja, 2019, p. 35). With the acknowledgement of major sport governing organizations, and the growing market opportunities, eSports has become increasingly relevant for sponsors—notably those with an interest in the offline version of the competition, such as NFL or motorsports.

On the sociological side, the fan base of eSports is growing and, offering increasingly complex simulations of the real thing. Sturm (2019, p. 156), drawing upon Crawford et al. (2019), claims that ‘video games offer a translation of the meaning of sport, affording sport-themed experiences rather than simulations, with only selective themed meanings and structures on offer.’ Thus, to engage players and to embody the experience of play, themed sport video games give the sense of ‘the experience of an experience’ (Crawford et al., 2019, p. 7). In theory, this experience of experience is moreover open to all groups in society (García & Murillo, 2020, p. 182). However, the ongoing implementation of eSports by sports organizations is still controversial (Parry, 2019; Tjønndal, 2020), and the findings of Garcia and Murillo referred to above are disputed by other studies of gender and sport gaming. The gender dimension still tears a rift in the alleged perfect meritocracy of gaming, as research suggests that ‘women continue to face stigmatisation, discrimination, and entry barriers into new virtual sporting paradigms and gaming networks’ (Hayday & Collison, 2020, p. 198). Furthermore, the introduction of eSports has produced some unintended consequences. A recent study of the launch of AC Monaco football club’s eSports section found that while introducing eSports into an already established football club attracted new fans, it also developed two co-existing fan communities. That is, football fans largely ignored the new eSports launch and new eSports fans ignored the club’s traditional football fan community (Bertschy et al., 2020). At the same time, there seems to be a growing perception of eSports as professional competitions. Rather than a hobby, eSport is to an increasing degree being considered ‘a real sport’ by the likes of IOC (IOC, 2018) and as a real tool for developing driver skills.

All these trends are discoverable in the case of Formula 1’s approach to eSports. Sturm (2019) argues that Formula 1 games ‘replicate a televisual rendering of “experience” in relation to the driver/team/car and the Formula One “Grand Prix” race itself (…) players are arguably interpellated into the visual and visceral Formula One driving experience via a series of illusory, sensory and haptic affordances’ (p. 156). Formula 1, for its part, continues to invest a substantial sum of money and resources into simulations as part of their development strategy for team and car. But, as we will return to below, Formula E has been a lot less convincing in their eSport efforts than in their remaining sport consumer features, despite its marketing emphasis on millennials and that BMW, for example, has invested considerably in simulator training for its motorsport teams—including the Formula E outfit.Footnote 5 Even more serious about eSports is Porsche, a company that joined Formula E in 2020 and organizes its own virtual racing series on the iRacing platform, with the Porsche eSports Supercup offering a US$100,000 in prize money. Claudia Feiner, project manager for the eSports community at Porsche, claims that with eSports racing:

everyone can participate and find a personal favorite race. No matter what their gender or age, or if they face personal restrictions: only the lap time counts on the virtual race track. Virtual racing is an inexpensive way to get into racing without barriers. It allows people to live out their passion for speed, no matter when or where in the world—and under completely safe conditions.Footnote 6

When the COVID-19 pandemic put physical racing on hold in 2020, Formula E’s attitude seemed to change. Soon after the physical races were cancelled, Formula E established an eSport series as a point-awarding alternative to on-track races for the actual participants. Video game company Motorsport Games partnered with Formula E to deliver an eight-race eSports competition with the first points-scoring race on Saturday, 25 April. Staging live events with participants and commentators in multiple geographies kept Motorsport Games busy, in what they described as ‘liaising with the drivers and teams, managing race control and producing the broadcast for both digital and analogue distribution complete with commentary. All of this was managed with our remote operations skills and technology.’Footnote 7 Despite expectations of blending official Formula E racers and online qualifiers so that both could use the same Factor 2 simulator racing game, the championships were kept separate. Instead, the winner of the gamers’ competition won a test drive in a real Formula E car during a race weekend.Footnote 8 To add some newness to the ‘Race at Home Challenge’, Formula E announced that it would use the occasion to raise funds for UNICEF to combat the pandemic, as well as invite guest drivers—including British racer Charlie Martin, the first transgender driver to be affiliated with FIA Formula E.

While the press releases made it seem like an impressive effort, it was bleak compared with other simulated (‘sim’) racing championships. First, the technical sophistication did not match the expectations of professional racing gamers. Formula E games have been leisure-oriented, while other simulation games have managed to create a compromise between accessibility and realism. In comparison, since 2017 Formula 1 has used the official F1 game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One or PC,Footnote 9 and in 2018 FIA partnered with Gran Turismo , the racing franchise developed by Japanese company Polyphony Digital, which is arguably the most popular car game in the world, to set up an FIA-governed championships duo. By using the Gran Turismo Sport game, anybody can try to qualify for the FIA GT Championships Nations Cup (“Nations Cup”) or the FIA GT Championships Manufacturer Series (“Manufacturer Series”). Streamed live on YouTube, and arranged like any other major sporting event, the championships attracted real racers and simulated racers. Second, as the Gran Turismo is available to anyone with a PlayStation console, the potential for immersion—confirmed by the one of the authors who is an avid yet amateur Gran Turismo driver—is instant. The success of the series made Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi reflect to the Top Gear media house on the ‘return’ of motorsport to popular culture:

I grew up in that era where the doors were open to everyone and I discovered the fun of motorsport in that way. I have this fear that unless we do something about it now, motorsports won’t be able to exist in popular culture anymore and that’s something that concerns the automotive industry as well.Footnote 10

What is more, Gran Turismo is realistic enough to vouch for some serious eSports. The multiple Formula 1 Grand Prix winner Charles Leclerc won several eSport races in the spring of 2020, underlining that anything he did with a Ferrari brand on his sleeve had to be done seriously: ‘The official virtual F1 races are actually quite serious—and we all want to win. This is good way to stay sharp and practise with pressure.’Footnote 11

In contrast, Formula E still seems to suffer from its former ‘losses’ in eSport initiatives, especially the 2017 Las Vegas eSport race that coincided with the Consumer Electronics Expo, which failed to deliver technologically and competitively. In 2019, it was expected from a game called ‘Virtually Live Ghost Racing, in which Formula E allowed players to race against its drivers in real time. Despite the aim to replicate the success of Fortnite and the League of Legends’ eSports properties by game developers, the games could only be used on mobile devices. Despite promises of a console version in 2020, real gamers remain unimpressed.Footnote 12 Overall, it would seem that the attempt to rejuvenate the eSport dimension of Formula E, both with Ghost Racing and the Race at Home Challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, revealed the lack of strategic planning for an eSport extension of the championship. For one, the use of external or non-exclusive gaming partners also prevented Formula E from capitalizing on its gamification features. According to one commentator, when the showdown came, Formula E’s eSport flaws became visible:

The broadcasting was hairy at times—understandably given the situation forcing the presenters to appear from different locations—but was generally held together well by the regular Formula E team of Nicki Shields, Dario Franchitti and Jack Nicholls. This was done in often fraught circumstances with full-on feedback hell and the obligatory delayed conversation that transported you back to a 1980s Eurovision link-up between the studio and some random Maltese jury.Footnote 13

The same commentator also noticed a divergent crowd of drivers. Some approached this task with utmost professionalism, whereas others seemingly could not care less about the race.Footnote 14 Edward Hunter at the Formula E Zone website expressed similar sentiments, and remembered the first attempts during the E-Village e-races as unimpressive and the event as a ‘demolition derby’.Footnote 15 Hunter, who also acted as commentator during the above-mentioned Las Vegas event and experienced the technical glitches at close quarters, claimed that it boiled down to the choice of game platforms and mobile applications moving them towards arcade racing rather than hardcore simulator (as preferred by racing eSporters, judging by the popularity of Formula 1 eSports). This, in turn, produced some multiplier errors, although as Hunter says, recent Formula E games include ‘faithful recreations of all the Formula E circuits on the calendar, and the developers do take a lot of feedback from the game’s community, although unfortunately, the player-base has dwindled significantly since the game’s initial launch last year’. He also argues that: ‘these games are fun to play if you’ve got a couple of minutes to kill, but make no mistake; they’re not esports games. Fans are simply crying out for something more in-depth and demanding on a console/PC title.’Footnote 16

Although ‘Accelerate’, a new eSports initiative based on rFactor2 with a 100,000 euros prize pot was in earnest in early 2021, Formula E’s eSports strategy so far is odd for several reasons. First, because Formula E is innovative in other co-creating value areas of the championship, and second because eSports seem like a perfect match with Formula E (see, e.g. Skinner et al., 2018). Although the debate about whether eSports is serious and real sport is still vibrant, a sign of the future importance of eSports to Formula E teams—apart from the above-mentioned Porsche—came when some of the Formula E drivers became suspicious of fellow Formula E driver (for the Audi team) Daniel Abt at the eSport race in Berlin for not driving himself. After technical and tactical investigations, Formula E discovered that Abt had given the wheel to professional Austrian sim racer Lorenz ‘Lozbert’ Hörzing. Abt was therefore disqualified and ordered to pay 10,000 euros to charity.Footnote 17 But his employer, Audi, was not satisfied, and fired him from the team. It is important to note that Abt was no backbencher. One of the three drivers who started in all 62 races of the Formula E series since its inaugural race in Beijing in 2014 and twice winner of Formula E, Abt started his Formula E career as a driver for the Abt Sportsline team, which is owned by his family and entered into a partnership with Audi in July 2017 to become an official factory team. Abt is followed on social media, YouTube and Twitch and takes his fans behind the scenes, mostly through vlogs. Abt’s explanation, released on his YouTube channel, was that it was all a prank:

This is a game, a simulation, but it has nothing to do with motor racing, with what I usually do (…) To be honest, I believe from an outside perspective it was not what constitutes a real Formula E race, the essence of professional racing. Our intention going into the races was primarily to entertain the fans at home rather than racing for results.Footnote 18

Despite Formula E drivers being criticized for not taking it seriously on several occasions, Abt instead criticized the media for portraying him as a cheat, ‘without giving me the chance to personally address the issue and explain what really happened’. Nonetheless, Abt seemed oblivious of the context here. Eloquently addressed by other Formula E and F1 drivers, even though they saw it as a game they understood that they were representing a major team or car manufacturer, and hence behaved in a way that was expected of them as a (well-paid) employee. Due to the fact that Audi is a serious corporation, and involved in Formula E, it terminated Abt’s contract as:

integrity, transparency, and consistent compliance with applicable rules, especially with regards to the past, are top priorities for us at Audi. We stand by our culture of tolerating mistakes. However, the incidents that took place during the ‘Race at Home Challenge’ sim racing series were not a mistake, but a conscious decision to go against the rules (…) That is what makes the big difference for us.Footnote 19

Although a competing Formula E team picked up Abt as a driver for the six real-world races in Berlin to cap off the 2019/2020 season, the drama illustrates the power of eSports in contemporary motorsport. The relation between physical and digital racing is not just about marketing reciprocity, but about changing the intersections of the sporting landscape. For example, a study found that there were motivational differences between different eSports, which led the authors to conclude that ‘future studies should continue to treat games individually or at least continue to examine whether there is a need to treat them individually’ (Rogers et al., 2020, p. 20). This may be one of the reasons why Formula E, which has had an ambition to recreate sport consumers in its image, struggles to capitalize on the eSport industry. As the sport consumer camps do not differ very much from each other, it would seem that a precondition for success in eSports is a close and relevant connection to the physical event, rather than approaching it as a digital add-on.

Conclusion

Recent research on mediatization processes in sport, co-creation and co-innovation has shown them both to be part and parcel of commercial innovations in sport. Based on the explorations in this chapter, Formula E appears to have exploited them both but still lacks a ‘victory’ in its relationship with eSports. Thus, in order to use co-creation in sport to stimulate co-innovation, Formula E needs to take what is expected from an eSport event into account, because these expectations are based on consumers’ previous knowledge of eSport and motorsport. In particular, the problems associated with the eSports project have prevented Formula E from exploiting the potential of the younger generation’s sport consumption desires. This is surprising, because while the popularity of features like FanBoost and others are still debated, the innovativeness of approaching fan engagement through direct participation and unconventional means is undisputed.

This situation leads us to address the quality of commercial innovation in Formula E. As discussed earlier in this chapter, commercial innovation in sport is rich in controversial examples and for the most part touches on a recurrent theme in sport management studies: the balance between tradition and innovation. For sports organizations, respect for traditions and values is pivotal to legitimacy amongst its stakeholders (Legg et al., 2016; Saeki, 1994). At the same time, sports organizations need to renew themselves to avoid being pushed into oblivion, where there are no traditions left to protect. For Formula E, as a rather new sporting organization, this balance is perhaps more difficult to uphold than in other organizations, because most of its ‘traditions’ are inherited from other motorsports. Adding the culture of gaming to the mix is problematic. Whereas FanBoost was considered by racing fan critics to be too far removed from what is considered the essence of motorsport, eSports ventures are considered by gamers to be too close to the Mario Kart generation.

To create a community of followers and even fans, we argue that proximity to sporting traditions and a gaming culture—even if that may challenge Formula E’s commercial outlook—is more important than showcasing newness. For example, related to the importance of gaming culture, one study of American sports fans found that they sought out the media for eSports and traditional sports for similar reasons, yet the magnitude of motives set eSports fans apart, ‘showing far more dedication and desire to engage with eSport content than in any other realm of the traditional sporting arena’ (Brown et al., 2018, p. 431). It can thus be argued that the most innovative approach to linking Formula E with eSport is that which pays homage to the racing traditions and gaming factors that define the physical event.