Quote Originally Posted by AndyRAC View Post
And the big issue, the lack of decent free to air coverage; being behind a paywall is a problem they have to sort out, as it's one of many reasons why more manufacturers aren't showing up.
This is the fundament of the problem indeed. How can we expect people to even start getting interested into rallying if everything is blocked - I would say even "hidden" - behind a paywall? We have whole motorsport championships, even of great importance, on live stream for free. Absurd that they can't afford to broadcast at least a couple of stages per event for free on YouTube, to attract interest. Nobody is going to say "wow, these 2 minutes video of WRC highlights is great! Let me purchase WRC+!".
As for personalities, I don't care for F1 high drama media pushed personalities. I think that for something like that to come, we'd need bigger, invested fanbase... I don't think that all F1 drivers are these incredibly interesting "superstars" while rally drivers are boring people. It's just that F1 has way more fans, so it's useless to try and manufacture "rally superstars" without solving the base issues.