Dan, in Beta i didn't charge my fans anything, and even as I was less and less successful on track, I still made it to over 1mil fans, because I was charging 0, you could then up the subscription fee and actually make money from them for the following season. It's still possible to make money with less on track success.
The extra money from fans can keep you going, and require less sponsorship income, but relying on fan money alone is a dangerous game. Also, I found in Beta (after using a sponsor bug) that you can't buy quick success in this game, because you are now limited to the number of staff, and projects you can do. You have to play it smarter, and find good staff (I've found a bunch of good staff that were still on the free market), and work smartly on your car development.