F1, Georgia-Texas make Austin the sports capital of the world

If live sports are your thing, there’s no better place to be this weekend than Austin.

Formula 1 is back in the Texas capital for it’s annual U.S. Grand Prix, with practice beginning Friday and the race getting underway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, stream live on ABC/ESPN+). On Saturday, Texas hosts Georgia at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in one of the biggest college football games of the season (7:30 p.m. ET, stream live on ABC/ESPN+).

Austin’s Circuit of the Americas is circled on the calendars of F1 drivers from the moment each season’s schedule is confirmed, and the Longhorns are 6-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country. As a result, there is a definitive buzz on Sixth Street ahead of this weekend’s festivities.

ESPN’s Dave Wilson and Nate Saunders dive into why Bat City is so fired up for the showpiece events of Saturday and Sunday.

An emerging sporting powerhouse

Austin is proud of its roots as the “Live Music Capital of the World,” a $1.8 billion industry in a town that draws massive crowds for events such as SXSW and the Austin City Limits Music Festival, but it’s becoming a sports powerhouse as the city continues to grow.

The first year Austin hosted the F1 race at COTA, attendance was estimated to be about 117,000. Last year’s race attracted more than 432,000 fans. COTA says in its first decade, it accounted for $7 billion in economic impact to Austin and Texas, providing Texans more than 64,000 jobs every year, with the Austin Business Journal equating it to hosting a Super Bowl annually.

But the combination of the race with a massive SEC football game is a new twist.

Texas traditionally has played its biggest game of the season out of town, against Oklahoma in Dallas during the State Fair of Texas. Since 1936, the Longhorns have hosted a matchup of two top-five teams in Austin only twice: No. 1 Texas lost to No. 2 Ohio State in 2006 and the top-ranked Horns beat No. 4 Arkansas in 1970.

The Longhorns’ move to the SEC has significantly raised the stakes for home games, along with the accompanying excitement levels. Texas and Georgia, two of the marquee programs in college football history, are meeting during the regular season for the first time since 1958, and just the fifth time ever. Tickets are in demand, ranging from just under $400 to $7,000 on the secondary market.

As a result, Visit Austin, the city’s tourism arm, estimates hotel rooms for the F1/Texas-Georgia weekend to average about $477 a night. The Austin airport says it was expecting 40,000 departing visitors Monday, and was encouraging travelers to get to the events as much as three hours early.

College GameDay will be in attendance, kicking off a day in Austin where the atmosphere will be at a fever pitch for the night game. Texas has improved its game-day experience over the past few years (Spoon, an Austin band that gained national acclaim, is playing a free show outside the stadium Saturday), with burnt orange smoke rising from the student section at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and burnt orange LED lights bathing the stadium. The scene at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium will be one of the most raucous in its history. — Wilson

The bedrock of F1’s American boom

Even before Netflix’s smash hit “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” helped spark an American boom of interest in Formula 1, the U.S. Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas was one of the staple events on the schedule. A circuit loved by drivers and a venue adored by fans, COTA has continually raised its maximum attendance in recent seasons and has hosted sellout after sellout.

Drivers relish this race like few others. The racing is always good at COTA, a circuit featuring a perfect mix of low- and high-speed corners, ideal for good racing and overtaking opportunities. The pull of Austin’s race is bigger than the outline of the tarmac track, though. The stuffy, European attitudes that underpin so many F1 races are well and truly gone in Austin, where drivers rock cowboy hats and boots, and embrace the energetic vibe of the city.

Austin is now one of a healthy three races in the States, but its debut event in 2012 was crucial in ensuring the sport had a presence in the country at all. F1’s relationship with America was dealt a significant blow at the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), when all but six of the cars pulled out of the race at the end of the formation lap due to a feud over tires. F1 continued to the end of the contract with IMS until the end of 2007, but some doubted whether the sport would ever recover stateside from the debacle.

Recover it did, at Austin’s purpose-built circuit on the outskirts of the city, giving it a foothold back in the country it had desired to break for so long.

The 2021 race, held with Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s legendary title fight as the backdrop, felt like the coming-out party for F1 in America under Liberty Media. A raucous crowd greeted every driver, from the most famous to the most inexperienced, like gladiators entering the Coliseum, and were treated to a great race. That event was tangible validation of all the work F1 had put into cracking America.

The work continues, though, as Austin fights off competition from the U.S.’s two other grand-prix host cities. The Miami Grand Prix, held in May, has become increasingly popular since its inception in 2022, while the first Las Vegas Grand Prix last year was an incredible sporting and commercial success. The challenge of constantly raising the bar is one circuit boss Bobby Epstein has relished; this year, those with tickets are able to attend an Eminem concert during the week, while the circuit will also be bussing fans to Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in case they want to attend both events. — Saunders