Weekend debate: Why doesn't Formula 1 value its classic venues as highly as its teams?

This week's story about ongoing challenges for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to stay on the F1 calendar has again raised an important question - why does F1 pay big premiums to its long serving star teams, but not cherish its most charismatic venues?

The funding for Monza is a challenge with money coming from the local region, the local promoter and the Italian government via road tax rebates channeled through the national motorsport federation.

At the same time, the current commercial deal between F1 and it's leading six teams sees them getting paid a premium based on their longevity in the sport and their success in the last 10 years.

This initiative came about as F1 and its holding company CVC Capital Partners, looked to tie in the big names ahead of a planned floatation in Autumn 2012 that never materialised.

But even without the generous payments, the sport has always shared the commercial spoils with the teams, while at the same time squeezing the venues that host the events. The event hosting fees are one of the three main commercial revenue streams alongside TV and media rights and sponsorships.

Event hosting fees account for roughly a third of F1's income, but since CVC's acquisition of the sport they have targeted that and global sponsor partnerships as the big areas for growth.

So when assessing what elements are truly valuable to F1 as a package, the sport values Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Williams, Mercedes and its star drivers, who make the history, but doesn't make any allowance for the venues where all the history was made.

The exception is Monaco, the one venue that unarguably does more for F1 than F1 does for the venue. Their hosting fee is negligible, because it's hard to imagine F1 without Monaco, in the same way as it is hard to imagine F1 without Ferrari.

Clearly it's not hard for CVC and F1's CEO Bernie Ecclestone to imagine F1 without Monza, nor Silverstone which the F1 media seems to portray as always 'under threat'.

In fact CVC did have a moment when things were getting difficult, when they told Ecclestone that a deal needed to be done to retain Silverstone as the teams had put pressure on and they considered that the negative fallout from no British Grand Prix would be a problem. The current deal was duly done. It's an example of the 'consensus power' that sometimes is brought to bear within F1.

Another example is the teams telling Ecclestone, when the BBC decided to quit its TV contract two years early, that it was very important to maintain a free-to-air TV platform for the sport in the UK, rather than go exclusively behind a SKY paywall. That led to the Channel 4 deal, although ITV thought they had got it.

So what is the consensus within the sport on Monza?

If Ferrari is so important to the sport that it merits a $100m bonus as the longest standing team, then how do you value its home race, where much of the glory of Ferrari's history was written and where the Tifosi create a unique spectacle unrivalled in world sport?

Certainly a few drivers made their feelings clear at last year's race there about how important Monza is to F1. Sebastian Vettel, having experienced the Monza podium for the first time as a Ferrari driver, said it would 'rip our hearts out' to lose the event. Clearly he was somewhat biased given the love he was feeling from the crowd for the first time in his career.

Others chose more guarded language, but expressed similar support for the venue, which generates special passion and provides a unique backdrop.

There is no survey or evidence yet pulled together to show whether the expansion of the F1 calendar and the move away from famous venues to new ones with no motorsport history like Korea, Abu Dhabi, and Azerbaijan is having a negative impact on the following for the sport. Certainly one meets many F1 fans these days who say that once they started to skip a few races as there are too many of them, they have lost the thread of following the sport and their interest has waned, the comments section of this site frequently confirms this view.

Live TV viewing data I've seen in recent years has shown that the Japanese Grand Prix tends to get one of the lowest live audiences, which is strange because it is a great track and usually exciting things happen there. So maybe not all classic venues are cherished by fans?

The time of day here is a factor; over 60% of the global TV audience for F1 is in Europe and in fact viewer numbers in Asia have slipped a bit in the last couple of years.

Perhaps the sport should consider what are its "Crown Jewels" and put them in a special category to be cherished and nurtured. Clearly Ferrari and Monaco would be in there. Would venues like Monza and Silverstone earn a place?