New F1 owners outline plans for growth

F1's new owners - Liberty Media - have outlined the key areas it will focus on growing in the sport in the future.

It was confirmed late on Wednesday evening that a deal valuing F1 at $8bn (£6bn) has been agreed for Liberty Media to acquire 100% of F1's parent company Delta Topco. Liberty Media is owned by US businessman John Malone and the new owners have appointed former 21st Century Fox Vice-Chairman Chase Carey as Chairman alongside Bernie Ecclestone as CEO.

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In material published alongside a conference call with Carey and Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei, Liberty Media outlined five key areas it sees the potential for further development of F1. The select opportunities include:

Increase promotion and marketing of F1 as a sport and brand
Enhance distribution of content, especially in digital
Establish broader range of commercial partners, including sponsorship
Evolve race calendar
Leverage Liberty’s expertise in live events and digital monetisation

Carey has expertise in the distribution of content having plaid a "key role in building global sports businesses at Fox and affiliates", while he has also been Director of leading sports broadcaster Sky Plc.

Liberty Media also highlights its reasons for purchasing F1, saying it did so due to the sport's diverse revenue drivers, with the core revenue coming from race promotion, broadcasting and advertising/sponsorship. The new owners see F1 as having a "low-risk business model with long-term contracts", estimating $9.3bn (£7bn) of revenue under long-term contracts through to 2026.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.