The Relationship Between Apple and F1TV
Apple TV will deliver comprehensive coverage of Formula 1, with all practice, qualifying, Sprint sessions, and Grands Prix available to Apple TV subscribers. Select races and all practice sessions will also be available for free in the Apple TV app throughout the course of the season.
F1 TV Premium, F1’s own premier content offering, will continue to be available in the U.S. via an Apple TV subscription only and will be free for those who subscribe.
The continuity of the F1TV service in the US, albeit through a different account system, was presumably a key point of negotiation. For the league, it means retaining some rights over the direct customer relationship. If Apple exits at the end of the five-year term, the league can simply send out emails to all the active F1TV users and direct them to associate their own payment methods again.
It’s not just a matter of leverage. The arrangement is also beneficial to Apple, because it reduces the burden on them to get this thing off the ground. As the F1TV service houses so much bespoke functionality and content, there was no world in which Apple would be able to incorporate all of that in an Apple TV app offering by March 2026. It would have to prioritise the essentials first. Yet, anything missing would anger the diehard, dedicated, F1TV subscriber base who rely on it.
By keeping F1TV alive, they don’t face this problem. Any current users can just keep using the F1TV app and/or website, as long as they are willing to pay for an Apple TV subscription. The majority of casual fans will be placated by simply watching the race streams through the Apple TV app.
However, even then, the Apple TV app is mediocre at best, and unreliable and buggy at worst, especially on non-Apple platforms. I know for instance, the Apple TV Windows app consistently logs out its users, has a reputation for laggy streaming, choppy video playback, and is plagued by DRM incompatibility issues with various configurations of PC monitors and graphics cards.
As much as I’d like it to, Apple has not shown a willingness to dedicate engineering resources to properly support the TV app on third-party platforms. If F1TV was out of the picture, this would be an immediate problem. The amount of backlash come the 2026 season launch would be immense. But with the deal constructed as it is, the F1TV service serves as the pressure release valve. Apple doesn’t have to do anything urgently here, because it can always just direct users to install the F1 TV app for their device, or use the F1TV website instead.
When designing its own F1 channel experience for Apple TV, Apple also doesn’t have to worry too much about the needs of diehard fans, allowing the TV app to target the mass market audience. For the March 2026 launch, I expect the TV app will offer high-bitrate 4K streams of F1 weekend coverage, and not much else. Fancier ‘product enhancement’ features will arrive gradually over time. Meanwhile, the F1TV app is the backstop for anyone aggrieved by how Apple chooses to go about things.