Conference krakar::f1

I dearly wish all countries would do the same. 

Tobacco companies have openly admitted that much of their advertising is
explicitly TARGETTED at persuading CHILDREN to take up smoking before they 
have sufficient experience of life to make an informed rational choice.

Eliminate the tobacco funding and other sponsors will be found. 
Remember, the tobacco companies only sponsor those sporting activities that 
get lots of publicity, they are desperate to counter the bad press they have 
justifiably earned elsewhere.

	John Travell. 

John,

Since you're in this notes file, I'm assuming you like auto-racing.
So do I.  I'm an non-smoker and totally despise even the slightest
smell of smoke.

That being said, what would you do if someone told you today that from
now on you can't see anymore races on television, regardless of where
they're held in the world.

Still a fan of the bill?

I agree with some aspects of it, but this goes too far.  Let's at least
have some exceptions to it.

/Mario

    My big worry with all this is when will it stop.  Next step is alcohol!   
    God gave us a brain to use I think we can decide for ourselves what we
    do and do not do.  I grew up with smoking parents, yet I don't smoke, I
    have been to more races than my next store neighbors and I still don't
    smoke.  Smoking has not gone up %wise any more than the birth rate.  My
    guess is that by enacting this law there will be no lowering of
    smokers,  however several cities and 100's of thousands of fans will be
    deprived of sporting, cultural and other events that the companies
    sponsor.  Who wins?  No one!

    
    And of course, if they do succeed in reducing the number of smokers,
    they'll have to increase taxes elsewhere to make up for the
    shortfall...
    
    g.

From a practical standpoint, this sort of thing (fanatical 
anti-tobacco crusading) is only going to continue and get worse as 
time goes on.  Motor sport had better wean itself of its present 
dependence on tobacco sponsorship or it is doomed.

--PSW

This is the F1 notes file. No debate about smoking allowed except as it 
impacts F1. 

Thanks,
Dave (Co-Mod).

re .6, wholly concur.

re .5, totally agree, the current dependance on sponsorship from such a 
       narrow base (perceived to be most money coming from tobacco industry) 
       is bad for the future of the sport. 

If the tobacco companies all withdrew their funding would the sport survive? 
The answer is probably yes, but not as we know it.

I see the problem as a lack of diversity in funding, tobacco money is easy to
get, so there is a strong temptation to look no further.

re .2, while I recognise your position, I also believe that the sport will 
       not migrate to a broader funding base without some pain being suffered
       I regret that you may be among the first to suffer, but that does not
       affect my support in principle for what the bill sets out to achieve.
       And yes, if the UK government were to introduce such a bill, I would
       support it to the hilt, even though doing so would cause me some pain,
       because I believe that the long term gain is worth it.

	JT:

Dave,

Anti-tobacco laws in various countries such as U.K., Germany,
France, and now Canada directly affect F1.  Hence the justification
for this discussion in this notes file.

Does the CART note in this conference have anything to do with F1?

/Mario

re.8:

I don't have a problem with it being discussed in the F1 context - re-read my 
reply!

Dave.

    Here in France we've gone through this a number of years ago and the
    same arguments were raised: stopping the tobacco firms funding auto
    racing will kill the sport. I have 2 arguments with that:
    
    - what link can be established between tobacco and motor racing ? I
      understand that F1 is certainly a very visible sport, but there are
      many other (better) ways to advertise
    
    - contrary to tobacco there are lots of firms which are directly
      connected to cars and motor racing: Elf, Total, Motul, Shell, Agip, etc
      ... then Fiat, Renault, Mercedes, Peugeot, Nissan, ... then all sub
      contractors of the above, then ... all sorts of things such as
      perfumes, investment companies, and computer vendors and ... zillions
      of others.
    
    It has been a normal thing to go knock at the tobacco companies'doors
    for many years. That certainly does noty mean that other sponsors
    cannot be found. Of course this means to go and find them.
    
    So yes, lets ban all tobacco and alcohol advertising. It can't harm.
                                                                        

>    So yes, lets ban all tobacco and alcohol advertising. It can't harm.

Taking the ashtrays out of those McLarens seems to have done no harm :-)

Antonio

Didn't France used to have as many as 7 drivers in F1 circuit,
and now they're down to 2?

Here in Quebec on a sports call-in radio show last week, they
interviewed someone from an automobile association and they
directly attributed this decrease to France's anti-tobacco law.
I don't remember the full details.

On a side note, Canada's problems were solved Friday at the very
last minute.  The owner of the Canadian TV rights to all the 
GP's this season had to frantically negociate with FOCA, all
12 F1 teams, Canadian GP organisers, and the Canadian Minister
of Justice just to work out a last minute deal in order for us
to be guaranteed broadcasting of the races this season.

The anti-tobacco law passed Thursday.  It goes into effect on Oct 98
so Canadian event organisers have 2 years to find ways to *change*.

/Mario

    The fact that France used to have 7 drivers and is now down to
    2(assuming the meaning of the word 'driver' can be extended to Alesi..)
    does not have much to do with advertising of anything.It MAY have
    something to do with other drivers from other countries being markedly
    better though.It could also have something to do with the silly French
    fetish (sorry Patrick but I DO live here after all ;-)_) of trying to
    field a French-everything team such that by the time you get the right
    combination of money/driver/chassis/engine/sponsor/politics/ashtrays
    etc  the choice is just a trifle limited..
    :-)

    If you look back to those years where there were 7 (and even 9) french
    drivers in the F1 circus, some of them were sponsored by Marlboro but
    that did not work too well. Most were sponsored by non tobacco industry
    like Elf, Motul (oil), Hugo Boss (fashion), Segafredo (coffee), Z
    (shoes), etc ... Only Ligier, because of personal support from Pres
    Mitterrand, got mony from Gauloises (french tobacco). Again Marlboro is
    still there and Ligier, aka Prost GP, is also alive and well.
    
    French drivers have found extremely difficult to find financial backing
    from the local industry who 1. might not want to be associated with F1
    or 2. might not want to spend the ridiculous amounts now custom in F1.
    
    Of course it's difficult to recover from a Prost era, but the young
    french drivers are as good as the others (Manu Collard, .. etc) and I
    wish they finally find a good drive. Soheil Ayari is the rising star
    and we'll see how is does in F3000 this year.
    
    On the other hand, we all now that Italy went through a period of dirty
    money laundering and the 7 (or whatever) drivers became 7 Italian
    drivers. This time is now over. 
    
    Schumacher has woken up the German industry/finance. We'll surely see
    more German drivers in the coming years.

Now I see that UK's new Prime Minister is proposing anti-tobacco
advertising in the UK.

Does this scare anyone who's a fan of F1 there?  I know we had 
quite a scare in Canada before this year's F1 season started and
no-one can tell us what will happen in 2 years when the law takes 
effect.

Can anyone comment on the UK government proposals?

/Mario

    
    It has been decided, there will be no more Tobacco advertising for all
    sports, after the present sponsorship expires. This affects not only
    Motorsport but Golf, Cricket, Darts, Snooker, Horse Racing, Rugby.
    
    So a lot of Sports are going to be going for a small percentage of
    other potential sponsors.
    
    Neal.
    

    I keep hearing in the news (and I read in my paper) that this means
    that we won't see tobacco advertising on the cars at the British GP.
    However, we haven't seen this at the Nritish GP (on TV at least) since
    1981. The only visible difference will be that this would apply to all
    practice sessions and not just the televised ones. Of course the
    tobacco companies get round this by building up their brand image in
    terms of an instantly recognisable colour scheme and simple omitting
    the lettering in the countries with ad bans - I'll bet most viewers
    don't notice that the McLarens were often badged as "McLaren" rather
    than "Marlboro", and I remember "WEST" being badged as "EAST" in the
    past. It might be difficult to legislate against that.
    
    The bigger question is whether sponsorship of the British teams would
    be disallowed, regardless of whether adverts were actually shown on the
    cars. However, even this can be circumvented because the tobacco
    companies are diversifying for just this reason, so that "Marlboro
    funeral homes" could do the actual sponsors, for example.