Formula 1 racing is getting a new home in the United States, and it’s going to cost you an Apple TV subscription. In a move that will reshape how Americans watch one of the world’s fastest-growing sports, Apple secured exclusive US broadcast rights to F1 starting in 2026 through a five-year agreement with Liberty Media that reportedly cost between $120-150 million annually—crushing ESPN’s $90 million counteroffer.
This isn’t just about watching cars go fast. Apple is transforming F1 into a comprehensive ecosystem experience that weaves through Apple TV, Apple Sports, Apple News, Apple Music, Apple Maps, and even Apple Fitness+. If you own an iPhone and love racing, your device is about to become F1 mission control.
Every Race, Every Session, All Behind the Paywall (Mostly)
Starting with the Australian Grand Prix in March 2026, Apple TV subscribers will get access to everything: every Grand Prix, practice session, qualifying round, and sprint race. The newly rebranded Apple TV service becomes the only legitimate way to watch F1 in America if you don’t want to miss a single lap.
But here’s where it gets interesting—Apple is throwing a bone to casual fans. Non-subscribers can watch “select races” for free in the Apple TV app, and practice sessions remain free for everyone. It’s a smart play: let people taste the speed, the drama, the wheel-to-wheel racing, and then hook them when they desperately need to know what happens at Monaco or Monza.
For the hardcore fans who need every camera angle and every radio transmission, there’s excellent news. F1 TV Premium—the sport’s dedicated streaming service that currently costs $130 per year—becomes a free perk for Apple TV subscribers. Just link your F1 TV account to your Apple subscription, and suddenly you’ve got multiview, driver cams, team radio chatter, live telemetry, tire usage data, and coverage of F2, F3, F1 Academy, and Porsche Supercup.
That’s a genuinely generous offer. Apple could have gatekept F1 TV Premium as an add-on, but instead they’re bundling it to make the value proposition undeniable. If you’re an F1 fan who was already paying for F1 TV Premium, switching to Apple TV essentially gets you the entire Apple streaming catalog for free compared to your current spending.
Your iPhone Becomes an F1 Command Center
Apple isn’t content with just streaming races. The Apple Sports app is getting deep F1 integration with live updates on qualifying, sprints, and race results. Real-time leaderboards for both driver and constructor championships will sit right on your phone, alongside an iPhone home screen widget and Live Activities on your lock screen.
Imagine glancing at your locked iPhone during a race to see current positions, fastest laps, and pit stop strategies updating in real-time without opening an app. That’s the kind of ambient information access that makes Live Activities genuinely useful rather than just a notification gimmick.
Apple Maps will presumably guide you to Grand Prix locations if you’re lucky enough to attend races in person. Apple Music will likely curate F1-themed playlists and podcasts. Apple News will aggregate F1 coverage from around the world. And somehow—somehow—Apple Fitness+ will incorporate F1 content, though whether that means McLaren-branded workouts or Lando Norris teaching you his training routine remains mysterious.
Apple promises to reveal “production details, product enhancements and all the ways fans will be able to enjoy F1 content across Apple products and services” as 2026 approaches. Translation: they’re going to make F1 so deeply integrated into Apple’s ecosystem that switching to Android starts feeling like abandoning the sport entirely.
Apple’s Sports Strategy Takes Shape
This deal clarifies Apple’s sports ambitions. The company already locked down Major League Soccer through a long-term exclusive agreement with MLS, and now F1 joins that portfolio. But Apple’s sports strategy appears selective rather than comprehensive—reports suggest Apple is cutting ties with Major League Baseball after its Apple TV Friday Night Baseball experiment apparently didn’t justify the cost.
The pattern emerges: Apple wants sports properties with growth potential and global appeal rather than established American leagues with stagnant viewership. MLS has been expanding and gaining relevance through high-profile signings like Lionel Messi. F1 has exploded in US popularity over the past five years, driven partly by Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” documentary series that transformed racing from a niche interest into water-cooler conversation.
Baseball, meanwhile, is losing younger viewers and struggling with pace-of-play issues that make it less compatible with modern streaming consumption patterns. Apple apparently decided that MLB’s audience demographics and engagement metrics didn’t align with where it wants to invest sports programming dollars.
The F1 Movie Connection
There’s delicious synergy here with Apple’s “F1” movie starring Brad Pitt, which released to positive reviews including Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar calling it “an excellent racing film, a flashy summer blockbuster and an ostentatious commercial for Apple.” That last part wasn’t criticism—it was observation about how seamlessly the film integrated Apple products into racing culture.
Now Apple gets to capitalize on that marketing investment by offering viewers the real version of what they watched in theaters. People who discovered F1 through the movie have a clear path to becoming subscribers who watch actual races. The film essentially functioned as a two-hour advertisement for the sport that Apple now exclusively controls in America.
This represents sophisticated vertical integration: produce entertainment that generates interest in a sport, then monetize that interest by being the only way to watch the sport. It’s the kind of synergy that traditional broadcasters never achieved because they didn’t make movies.
What This Means for F1 Fans
If you’re already an Apple TV subscriber, this is fantastic news. You’re getting a major sports property added to your subscription at no additional cost, plus F1 TV Premium features that used to require separate payment. The value proposition of Apple TV just improved dramatically if you have any interest in motorsports.
If you’re an F1 fan who doesn’t currently subscribe to Apple TV, you’re being backed into a corner starting in 2026. Want to watch races? You need Apple TV. Want the full experience with all the camera angles and data? You still need Apple TV, but at least F1 TV Premium is included rather than being a separate purchase on top of your subscription.
The free select races for non-subscribers provide an escape valve for the most casual fans, but anyone who wants comprehensive coverage—and let’s be honest, F1’s race calendar creates FOMO like few other sports—will need to subscribe. Apple knows this. Liberty Media knows this. That’s why the deal makes financial sense for both parties.
ESPN Gets Lapped in the Bidding
For ESPN, losing F1 represents a significant blow to its motorsports programming. The network had built credibility as F1’s US home, investing in coverage quality and commentary teams that earned respect from racing purists. But when Apple showed up offering $30-60 million more per year than ESPN’s $90 million bid, the outcome was inevitable.
Traditional broadcasters increasingly can’t compete with tech companies on raw bidding power for premium sports rights. Apple has subscription revenue that dwarfs advertising-dependent networks, plus strategic reasons to acquire content that enhance platform value beyond just the sports themselves. ESPN has to justify rights costs purely through advertising revenue and carriage fees from cable and satellite providers.
This dynamic explains why Apple is cherry-picking sports properties rather than trying to become a comprehensive sports network. The company doesn’t need every sport—it needs the right sports that enhance ecosystem value and justify subscriptions. F1 apparently passed that test while MLB didn’t.
The 2026 Season Can’t Come Soon Enough
March 2026 feels simultaneously close and impossibly far away for American F1 fans. The 2025 season will proceed on ESPN as the lame-duck final year of the old broadcast agreement. Everyone knows the change is coming. Everyone knows where the sport’s future lies. But we have to watch one more season on traditional television before Apple’s F1 era begins.
That transition period creates interesting dynamics. Will ESPN invest in coverage quality for its final season, or coast on autopilot knowing the relationship is ending? Will Apple start promoting F1 heavily throughout 2025 to build anticipation, or wait until it actually controls the rights? Will F1 TV Premium subscribers in the US stick with their current subscriptions for 2025, or cancel knowing they’ll get it free with Apple TV starting in 2026?
One thing is certain: when Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, and whoever else is competing for championships in 2026 line up on the grid in Melbourne, they’ll be racing not just for glory and points, but as exclusive content for Apple’s streaming platform. The pinnacle of motorsport is becoming an iPhone notification, a widget, a Live Activity, and a reason to never consider switching to Android.
Formula 1 is going Apple. Whether that’s evolution or revolution depends on whether you already own an iPhone and subscribe to Apple TV. For everyone else, it’s just expensive.