Hard Rock Stadium is largely known as the home of the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami Hurricanes. But with football season in the rear view mirror, the stadium will soon be flooded with fans of a different sport.
During the first weekend in May, Miami will welcome Formula 1 fans to the Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix, the sixth of 24 F1 races in the 2025 season. It’s one of the newer additions to the Grand Prix lineup after being introduced in 2022, and one of three F1 races that take place in the US.
Over the past few years, the race has built up some awareness in Miami and beyond, but it’s still relatively new on the Grand Prix scene compared to races like Monza and Monaco, which have been around since the 1950s. This year, the team at Hard Rock Stadium is focused on building the identity of the event, solidifying it in the Miami community, and getting it on the calendars of a growing US F1 fanbase.
“We do want people to think about this race differently,” Pri Shumate, SVP and CMO of the Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium, and the Miami Grand Prix, told Marketing Brew. “That's about the people that come here…it’s about the experience itself that we’re offering, from food, to entertainment, to the ‘see and be seen’ opportunities, to access. I think that all of those things will help the long term health of this [event].”
Bucket list item
Like golf and tennis, there’s a certain element of luxury to all the F1 races on the calendar, and Miami is no exception; with a luxury pass, for instance, fans have access to amenities like gourmet meals in various lounges around the track.
In other ways, though, the Miami Grand Prix is unique, Shumate said: The diversity of the city’s population (about 69% of Miami-Dade County residents identified as Hispanic or Latino, as of census data from July 2023) is evident in the event’s attendees, and unlike some other races, the race course at Miami is fairly accessible to the audience, with general admission ticket holders able to see the course from the helix of the stadium and the team village from the stands, she said.
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“Every year we see more people go, ‘Oh yeah, that's the place where we’re gonna go see the drivers,’” Shumate said. “In terms of access, I think we’ve really become a one-of-one race.”
Shumate and her team are leaning into that element in the marketing and product development around the race. This year, they added a new “club pass” that lets attendees travel between lounges around the course instead of staying in one area for the weekend, and for product promotion around ticket options and sale dates, the marketing team has “elevated that creative a little bit” to stretch the messaging beyond selling tickets in the short term, Shumate said.
“You're creating an emotional connection,” she said. “You're putting this on someone's bucket list.”
Content capture
Marketing for this year’s Miami Grand Prix includes a mix of digital and social ads, like a video spot showing the overall race experience, digital posters highlighting ticket options like its grandstand and luxury tiers, and partnerships with influencers and figures like former Haas principal Guenther Steiner.
The content is supposed to be representative of the city of Miami via visual cues like aqua hues and palm trees, Shumate said, and it’s aimed at tying back to the tagline of the Grand Prix: “the race that’s an experience.” F1’s content has also “gotten a little bit younger and fresher” this year, she said. Case in point: The Miami Grand Prix Instagram account tapped into the celebrity look-alike contest trend last year and has been using some internet slang in recent posts.
Shumate’s team is keeping racing fans in mind “first and foremost” but is also targeting the broader travel market and women F1 fans more specifically this year, she said. She declined to share ticket sales figures, but said she’s so far happy with the numbers compared to previous years.
“This is not just a spray-and-pray marketing approach,” she said. “It actually is about finding the right segments, and delivering the right message and the right product to the right segment.”