July marked the end of Formula E’s 10th season, 16 races in 10 locations across the world and I didn’t watch a single one. This is not because I do not like Formula E, quite the opposite. Anyone who has engaged me in motorsport-related conversation has found out my enjoyment and advocacy for Formula E. No, the reason I didn’t watch a single race this year was simply because I couldn’t. My restriction wasn’t a busy social calendar or supo work but rather the £30 I would need to fork out to watch it.

The main difference between Season 9 and 10 of Formula E wasn’t the driver changes or the new locations but the fact for UK fans it was no longer free to watch.

In all its previous seasons, Formula E jumped around different free to view channels, in most recent years having settled at Channel 4. All race coverage was streamed on Channel 4’s YouTube channel, from free practices to the E-prix itself.

“I followed the sport… and got to see how truly ridiculous but also very accomplished the series is”

This easy access to the sport is what convinced me to watch in the first place. I had seen online that the Monaco E-Prix was much more exciting than its petrol counterpart, F1, so I decided to tune in. They were not wrong, the cars actually overtook one another - more than once - a site rarely seen at F1 in Monaco.

From there I picked a favourite team (Envision because they’re green and not bad) and a favourite driver (Nick Cassidy because he drove alongside my favourite F1 reserve in DTM and conveniently also raced for Envision).

I followed the sport when I had weekends free for the remainder of the season and got to see how truly ridiculous but also very accomplished the series is. The racing is hard and exciting. Its format has to be different to other single seater racing because of the nature of electric cars. The cars are too dangerous to have pit stops in races (electricity and people don’t mix) and so all-weather tyres are used, and the cars are more hardy because there’s minimal chance of changing a front-wing. The entire calendar consists of street circuits to suit the cars, so no DRS but there are power boosts to force race strategy.

If you couldn’t guess, I think Formula E is a brilliant sport, which is why I’m so sad I can no longer watch it for free. The sport decided not to renew their contract with Channel 4, opting to give the UK TV rights to TNT Sport. Yes, that new sport streaming service, which along with Amazon, has made watching football on TV even more of a pain. For the pleasure of being able to watch a few weekends of the Premier League and 6 months of Formula E, I would need to pay at least 20 quid at a minimum, possibly even £30.

“I will mourn the loss of watching exciting racing on a weekend”

With the growing popularity of Formula E it was inevitable that it would no longer be free, as with all things that have profit potential. But I’d argue this move has happened too soon and not in the smartest way.

Formula E had a cumulative 223 million viewers in Season 9 and became the 4th most popular motorsport, surpassing NASCAR. This may sound like a lot but is miniscule compared to F1’s cumulative 1.55 billion viewers in 2021. But it was enough to spur Formula E execs into a TV rights frenzy. Some countries being luckier than others, with fans in the US able to watch the series for free.

But the worst part is the move to TNT Sport specifically. The majority of Formula E fans watch other motorsport, and where are those other series broadcast? Sky Sports. Standard Formula E fans are already shelling out around 30 quid a month to watch other motorsports. But get F1, F2, F3, W-Series and IndyCar for their money, as well as the other sports Sky has to offer (which is most of it). So why on Earth would anyone pay the same amount for one extra motorsport and all the same sports but not shown as frequently?

The facts would say that people have: the season opener in Mexico saw a 29% increase in viewership compared to the previous year on Channel 4. But if online reaction to the move behind a paywall says anything, the sport has certainly lost fans, myself included. These numbers are also hard to compare due to the nature of Formula E races previously being streamed on YouTube or shown on Eurosport.

And so I’ve not watched a single race of the 10th Season, I couldn’t even tell you who was doing well until I tuned back into the existence of the sport for its final weekend in London. Formula E has lost me completely, even though the last round actually was free to view in the UK, I had no idea until researching for this article. For now, I will mourn the loss of watching exciting racing on a weekend and then I will settle back into hoping Verstappen’s car suddenly stalls.