Exclusive:
Formula E are battling with MotoGP for the place as the world’s second-biggest motorsport and in an exclusive interview, Jeff Dodds tells us how the sport has such a high ceiling
To say Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds lives and breathes sport would be an understatement… if you asked his wife.
“My wife once complained to me because I was screaming in bed at 3 o’clock,” he jokes. “I’d woken up to watch the dressage during the Olympics. So that’ll give you a feel for it!”
Dodds is the eccentric man at the helm of the world’s most progressive motorsport. Formula E cars don’t make much noise on track, but as a brand, they like to make noise off it.
Last year, Dodds wagered £250,000 that Max Verstappen would win the F1 world title, owing to the sport’s predictability. He would eventually be proven right, but still honoured the bet, offering £125,000 to FE’s women in motorsport initiatives and the other half to a charity of Verstappen’s choice.
The headline-grabbing bet speaks to what Dodds knows best: creating a stir. For a number of years, Dodds was one of Richard Branson’s right-hand men at Virgin – a company who know a thing or two about opportunistic stunts.
More of the same is on the cards, but Dodds knows for Formula E to grow, it not only needs its renowned excitement on the track and green-fingered technological wizardry in the garages, but also a narrative off it – and his fanatical love of sport is helping drive that.
“If you look at sports like darts – and to some degree boxing – this creation of heroes and villains and personality out of their sporting stars, I think they do amazingly well,” Dodds says.
“The entertainment feels almost WWE-ish in terms of how they present those protagonists to the crowd.
“I think we can do more of that. I think our drivers are some of the best racing drivers in the world and they deserve to have that profile, so I think we can do more of those things.
“I look at every sport and I see things all the time in them. Delivering them all is more difficult sometimes, but I think what I do is I recognise quality in the sports that I see, and if we can replicate it and it makes sense, then we look to see how we could do it.”
Dodds is right. Ask almost any racing driver and they will tell you Formula E’s grid is considered the most roundly talented in the world. Drivers are paid to be there, rather than paying for their seat, as is the case elsewhere.
But showcasing them as people – rather than faceless reincarnations of Top Gear’s The Stig – is the hurdle they need to get over.
“First things first, in my view, you should never ask them (drivers) to be anything but authentic, because if you ask them to try and play a role or play a character, we start to enter the realms of wrestling and sports entertainment, which is not what this is. So they can only be themselves.
“What we have to give them is a platform to show themselves. Some of that they do on the racetrack, and you see some of that unfold on the racetrack and over the race radio, but we have to also find platforms for them to showcase to a different audience who they are.
“It is quite difficult for racing drivers because they wear helmets, so you don’t recognise their face instantly because they’re rarely seen without a helmet on.”
Dodds has now passed 18 months in charge of Formula E and the signs are good. Internationally, Formula E’s research suggests their fan base grew by 25% last year, while TV audiences increased by 35%.
Next Saturday, at the Mexico City E-Prix, the famous Foro Sol section of the F1’s iconic Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez will again be sold out for Formula E, when just five years ago the crowds would barely half fill it.
“We’re at 375million fans, roughly, today,” Dodds says. “Formula 1 is the biggest at around 800million. MotoGP has just over 500million in second.
“No question in my mind, by 2030, we need to be the second biggest motorsport in the world, bigger than MotoGP, and we need to be closing in very quickly on Formula 1.
“My son’s just doing his GCSEs. If the score of 9 is the equivalent of getting an A*, then I might give myself a 6 or a 7. There’s more we can do, there’s more we need to do, but I think we’ve got some good wins on the board.”
Watch the Formula E Mexico City E-Prix live on ITVX and TNT Sports on Saturday 11 January. Race starts 8pm.