So for US viewers, ESSPN has renewed their contract with Formula One through the end of 2025 at a reported $75-90 million per year. ESPN's current contract is $5 million per year, so this is around a 1500% annual increase.
Most races will be live on ESPN or ABC, but "a select handful" will be moved to the ESPN+ streaming service (so one will need a subscription to that service to watch). ESPN does re-broadcast the live races at a later time, so I do not know if that means ESPN+ if you want to see it live and then ESPN for tape-delay or it will only be on ESPN+.
Considering the new contract price, I expect this means that Qualifying and the Race will no longer be commercial-free, which is a bummer, but it shows how popular F1 is in the USA compared to five years ago when ESPN first negotiated the rights.
Amazon and Netflix both offered more than ESPN, but to their credit, Formula One realized that most everyone in the US has ESPN whereas this is not the case with Amazon or Netflix so it looks like the goal is to continue to grow that popularity by making it available on linear (cable) television.
I am a Disney+ subscriber under the three-year D23 special deal which ends in November so if the ESPN+ races are only available via ESPN+ I will probably just upgrade to the $19.99 plan that has Disney+, ad-free Hulu and ESPN+. Or I will just do ESPN+ via AppleTV Channels since that is easy to renew and cancel as necessary to have coverage during the races.
