This article is part of our article origin story The series tells the stories behind the clubs, drivers and people who make the sport exciting.
Zac Brown never grew up expecting to be one of the most powerful men in F1.
He doesn't come from a horse racing background and doesn't have a college degree. Motorsports wasn't his “first love,” either. It was baseball. At one point in his career, he was sleeping on an air mattress on the dining room floor of a friend's sister in England and working for £75 a day.
Brown, who was born in Los Angeles, California but considers himself British because he has lived in the UK for so long, got his start in racing on one of the longest-running game shows on American television. Thanks for the win and some advice on the Teen Week episode. From Mario Andretti.
Brawn is now CEO of McLaren Racing, with one of his teams leading the F1 constructors' standings for the first time since 2014.
“I don't come from a racing background. I didn't come from a privileged background. We weren't poor, but we were poor by racing standards,” Brown said. The Athletic. “And I think I've been lucky to get to where I am now, with a lot of help and luck, but also a lot of hard work. And what I've been fortunate enough to have been able to accomplish over time. I believe that if you put in the effort and have the passion, others will be able to imitate your work.”
“Wheel of Fortune,” created by Merv Griffin, who also designed “Jeopardy!,” began as a daytime game show on NBC in 1975. Chuck Wooley and Susan Stafford were the original host duo before Pat Sajak and Vanna White joined in the early 1980s.
Tonight's game show is similar to the paper-and-pencil deduction game “Hangman.” Contestants spin a colorful wheel filled with prizes, including various cash prizes and danger placards such as “Lose” and “Bankrupt.” Next, aim to win by correctly guessing the answer written on the dial, letter by letter.
This iconic American show is where Brown began building his motorsport career.
He attended his first F1 race with his family in 1981 and fell in love with the cars, their sound and their speed. He had no connection to the world of Formula 1, although he was “obsessed with racing”. “It seemed so unattainable,” he said, “and (I) didn't even know how I could get into horse racing. Baseball is so easy because everyone plays baseball.”
His father continued to take him and his younger brother to local races, but baseball still caught Brown's attention until high school, when baseball became more serious. He was unable to continue playing because he did not go to school much. “If I don't get good grades, I won't be able to stay on the baseball team.''
Around this time, Brown finally became connected to racing. A friend's family was involved in motorsports. However, that world still seemed out of reach. He was still obsessed with America's favorite pastime.
In 1984, the Big Game Show came to town. Children can apply and be interviewed to compete on Teen Week's Wheel of Fortune. Brown said around 50 to 75 students from each school took part in “a dummy hangman contest, a little interview to see if they thought they could handle being on TV, etc.” I remember that. From there, we reduced the number of high schools to 15 each. The top 15 finalists from each high school underwent further “tests and mock matches” and a waiting period. “We'll call you. Don't call us, and we might not call you,” Brown recalls.
As a lifelong fan of the show, Brown navigated the process (and the waiting game) with enthusiasm. The call came a week later. He answered the phone. “Wheel of Fortune” had 20 kids come back and record a week’s worth of programming in one day. However, there were some twists and turns. Only 15 teenagers were allowed to appear on the show.
“We need 15 people, but if you talk to the audience or do something you shouldn't do, you can be disqualified,” Brown said. “So even if you know you're in the top 20 and you actually end up recording, you're wondering if you're one of the 15 or one of the sub-five. I don't know if it was a person.”
He was one of 15 contestants and behaved well.e won the first two rounds. “The Smurfs and Wild Bill Hickok, I had no idea who he was.”
If you're familiar with today's “Wheel of Fortune,” you know that contestants can win cash prizes and even vacations. But when Brown played in Teen Week, they picked the prize. A carousel with prizes on it rotated, and contestants were asked to choose their prize on the spot.
“They'll show you this big whiteboard and everything is listed in order of price, and they'll knock off anything that's out of reach,” Brown said. “So, like most 13-year-olds, the first thing you do is look at the board and just go, What's the most expensive thing I can buy? It had to be a watch. ”
The watch had been sitting at his house for a while, and he was thinking of selling it someday. A career in motorsport was the furthest thing from his mind, so when Sajak asked him on the show what he wanted to do, Brown reflected on his favorite sport.
“Baseball player”
A few years passed, and the watch still wasn't selling.
Brown entered the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987. One of the friend's family happened to know Andretti, who won the 1978 Formula One World Championship. He met Andretti that race weekend and asked him questions that would shape the next chapter of his life. “How do I start horse racing?”
Andretti's answer was Kurt. I happened to see an advertisement for a kart racing school in a racing program. Brown continued to sell the watches he won on the Wheel of Fortune at a pawn shop in Van Nuys, California, near Los Angeles. He used the money to pay for kart racing school, and he loved it.
Brown began to progress and win in karting and continued to compete in California for almost five years before jetting off to Europe in 1991, but it wasn't a permanent move. In 1984 he competed in both the British F3 and Formula Opel Lotus Benelux series, as well as the North American Toyota Atlantic series. The following year, he debuted with Indy Lights and established his own company, Just Marketing Co., Ltd.
“TWA Airlines was a big sponsor of mine when I raced in Europe from 1991-94. I was getting homesick and signed a deal to come back to race in America. went to TWA and said, “Hey, I'm getting out of here.'' I'm going to go back to America and race. ”And at that point, the sponsorship was a huge success for them. So they said, “We're sorry to see you leave.'' But you have to know all the men and women in the pit lane. Can someone sponsor me? ”
Brown agreed and received a commission after signing a sponsorship deal. He “realized that not only did I have to pursue sponsorships for myself, but it was actually much easier to pitch the more famous people out there.” Brown networked. We have spent years building and building relationships and have asked our contacts about expanding sponsorships to various motorsports series such as IndyCar, NASCAR, and F1.
“They trusted me and they had trust that I knew what I was doing from a racing side, so people actually said, oh, we don't want to sponsor you. 'Cause Zack, you're not famous enough.' But if you could get us in front of Jeff Gordon or Nigel Mansell, we'd be interested. That's how the business started. ”
His business grew along with his reputation as he secured sponsorship deals. But he needed help. Brown hired his first employees and named the company Just Marketing. Brown said he chose not to include motorsports because he didn't want his name on the company and wanted “a little bit of intrigue.” He still calls Just Marketing “a bit of a crazy name.”
Zak Brown drove in the Legends Parade during the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix weekend. (Johan Groder/APA/AFP via Getty Images)
Although Brown was unable to continue pursuing a full-time racing career, he still occasionally drives cars and co-founded United Autosports with racing driver Richard Dean in 2009. However, Brown continued to find success in the business world. I developed my skills and knowledge of the commercial and business world of motorsport. JMI became one of the world's largest motorsport marketing agencies after Braun sold most of it in 2008. Seventy percent of the company was sold to Spire Capital and Credit Suisse.
Chime Communications acquired JMI in 2013 and brought on Brown as group CEO for three years, which Brown said was “about two years and 11 months longer than I had hoped.” . Although this role focused on a variety of sports, he loves baseball, hockey, and racing.
“I was participating in a sport that had no passion for me, but I have always been driven by it,” Brown continued. “My work ethic has always been driven by fun and passion, so when I was participating in other sports that didn't fit that criteria, I felt like I had a job.”
At the end of 2016, he had a choice between working in F1 or McLaren. He eventually decided to follow the Papaya family and joined them as CEO in 2017, when McLaren was mid-tier (finishing 6th in 2016). Not only did he help transform the F1 team's brand, he also took it to a world level. The latest chapter is this year's World Endurance Championship.
“It's always been my favorite racing team. I wanted to be involved not only in the commercial side of the business, which I love, but also in the competitive side of the business,” Brown said. “So that was something McLaren could offer me that F1, as a sanctioning body, could not.”
The same characteristics that today's F1 fans see are evident throughout each of Brown's chapters. Passion is at the core of his work ethic and he doesn't hesitate to show his excitement like he did when he was 13 years old while on stage at “Wheel of Fortune.”
But if you think about it, the story of the famous F1 leader began with a colorful wheel, a Hangman-style game, and a watch that he sold to a pawn shop.
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Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images
