After Formula 1, can the American Liberty Media also make MotoGP, the most important competition in motorcycle racing, more popular?
‘Why is everyone so preoccupied with “the young generation”? Most of those children have no money at all. I prefer to focus on the seventy-year-old man with a lot of money.’ The statement of Bernie Ecclestone, the former owner of the formula 1says everything about how the queen class of motorsport was marketed at the time.
That changed when Liberty Media became the new owner in 2017. The American company made F1 more popular again by working together with Netflix the series Drive to Survive to produce and profile themselves on social media. The goal: to reach a larger, younger audience.
Billion dollar growth
Liberty Media succeeded in its aim with flying colors. Marketers are even calling it one of the best sports business deals ever. The figures speak volumes: the average age of the F1 fan fell from 36 years to 30 years, F1 turnover increased from 1.7 billion euros in 2017 to 3 billion in 2023, the average value of the ten F1 teams tripled according to the business magazine Forbes to €1.8 billion, and the total value of F1 doubled in six years to €15 billion.
The breakthrough of Formula 1 in the United States is no stranger to this. Liberty Media brought the F1 circus to Miami and last year to Las Vegas for the first time. Liberty Media organized that grand prix itself, after an investment of half a billion euros. The sporting course was a sod and there were many practical problems, but the GP was a financial success.
A Super GP is being considered, with an F1 and a MotoGP race in the same weekend, at the same location.
Liberty Media’s hyper-commercial approach offended F1 diehard fans. The drivers did not always appreciate him either. They particularly objected to the expansion of the number of races per season to a record 24, with even more lucrative rounds in the Middle East. The competition, with an all-conquering Red Bull Racing Team, has not been exciting in the past two years.
To America
It will be worst for Liverty Media, because the strategy makes a lot of money. And so the American company recently expanded its portfolio by paying 4 billion euros for 86 percent of the shares in Dorna. That Spanish company owns the commercial and broadcast rights of, among others, the MotoGP, the queen class in motorsport.
Creating the same growth, in terms of total figures, as in Formula 1 may become impossible. The foundations of MotoGP are smaller in all areas, but the growth potential is there. Liberty’s goal is the same: to create a younger and more diverse fan base, while also retaining core fans. They have already expressed criticism on internet forums about the ‘commercial rape’ of Liberty Media.
Sports marketers mainly see profit for everyone. MotoGP is even more attractive as a competition than F1. In 2023 there were nine different winners out of twenty GPs. In addition, there are many parallels with F1 six years ago. The calendar is strongly focused on Asia and Europe, where MotoGP is particularly popular in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. These four countries account for 60 percent of media rights.
Outside of that, there is still a lot of room for growth, especially in the US, where there is only one race on the calendar: in Austin (Texas). Liberty Media sees great potential in this. Trackhouse Racing has had an American team since this year, there is already talk of a second GP in Tennessee, and the media group Warner Bros Discovery would like to buy the new media rights for America.
Super Grand Prix
A far-reaching symbiosis cannot be ruled out in the future, in the form of a ‘Super Grand Prix’, with an F1 race and a MotoGP race in the same weekend, at the same location. Both competitions share five circuits on their calendar (Silverstone, Red Bull Ring, Austin, Qatar and Barcelona), but the operational and practical obstacles for such a Super GP are significant. That is why people are already looking at Las Vegas, where Liberty Media has built a gigantic paddock and pulls all the strings itself. Then a lot is possible.
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