How Liberty Media’s $4.5 billion acquisition of MotoGP could impact the sport

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Liberty Media, MotoGP, F1

Formula One owner Liberty Media has agreed to a $4.5 billion deal with Dorna Sports to purchase the MotoGP competition, essentially merging the world’s premier four-wheel and two-wheel racing competitions under a single organisational umbrella.

The deal, which remains subject to various clearances and approvals, is expected to be finalised by the end of 2024. According to a press release announcing the deal, Liberty Media will obtain 86% of MotoGP, with current management maintaining 14% of their equity in the business.

Liberty Media president and CEO, Greg Maffei, said the company was ‘thrilled to expand our portfolio of leading live sports and entertainment assets.’

Carmelo Ezpeleta, the current CEO of Dorna, will remain in charge of MotoGP once the deal is finalised. In Ezpeleta’s view, the deal is the sport’s ‘perfect next step’ in its evolution, adding the organisation is ‘excited for what this milestone brings to Dorna, the MotoGP paddock and racing fans.’

While few concrete plans have been announced about Liberty Media’s plans for MotoGP, we can still assess whether this deal’s ramifications will be positive or negative for the sport.

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How will Liberty Media’s purchase of MotoGP impact the sport?

In the statement announcing the deal, Maffei celebrated MotoGP as a “global league with a loyal, enthusiastic fan base, captivating racing and a highly cash flow generative financial profile.”

“Carmelo [Ezpeleta] and his management team have built a great sporting spectacle that we can expand to a wider global audience. The business has significant upside, and we intend to grow the sport for the fans, teams, commercial partners and our shareholders.”

It’s clear from Maffei’s comments that Liberty Media’s respect for the sport as a spectacle, and overall business, runs deep. Maffei’s comments would suggest that, as opposed to blowing up MotoGP’s sporting and business operations and manufacturing a fresher competition and corporation, Liberty Media intends to invest in the series’ present set-up and position it for incredible growth in the coming years.

Additional comments from Ezpeleta suggest as much.

“We are proud of the global sport we’ve grown,” he said, adding “this transaction is a testament to the value of the sport today and its growth potential. Liberty has an incredible track record in developing sports assets and we could not wish for a better partner to expand [the sport’s] fanbase around the world.”

Liberty Media, MotoGP, F1

This line of thinking is understandable. In 2023, MotoGP’s global audience grew by 20% culminating in the 2023 German GP setting an all-time attendance record for the sport after nearly 250,000 people attended the race weekend.

The sport’s growth includes a reported 560% increase in Indonesian television audiences throughout the 2023 season, highlighting its increasing global appeal.

Under the guidance of the F1 owners, whose track record of exponentially increasing global audience figures. Since taking over the sport in 2017, Liberty Media has overseen a period of unprecedented growth for Formula One, largely aided by the popularity of Netflix’s Drive to Survive series, which offered a behind-the-scenes look at how the sport operates and opened the door to new waves of fans who remain passionate supporters to this day.

Nowhere has this growth been more obvious than in the American market. One of the largest global sporting markets, and a hotbed for sponsorship money, Drive to Survive, unlocked an American passion for Formula One that previously laid dormant.

In 2023, an average American audience of 1.11 million viewers per race over the season was the sport’s second-highest viewership figures for the US, bettered only by the 2022 season, which attracted 1.21 million eyes per race.

For MotoGP, this deal represents the dawn of an exciting new era, one which has the potential to catapult the sport onto the global stage unlike never before. Based on metrics alone, Formula 1 has never been healthier, even if its competitiveness has flatlined — only two drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, have been F1 World Champions since 2017.

By comparison, four riders have been World Champions in that same period.

On track, there could be regulatory changes, as there has been in F1, as well as the introduction of a cost cap, to increase the sport’s financial sustainability and viability. But all that remains some time away from implementation.

For now, motorsport fans can sit back and prepare for the unlimited potential of this new era. Oh, and wait for the first season of ‘Ride to Survive,’ coming to Netflix sometime in 2025.

Picture of Kyle Robbins
Kyle Robbins
Kyle is a senior sports writer and producer at Only Sports who lives and breathes sport, with a particular burning passion for everything soccer, rugby league, and cricket. You’ll most commonly find him getting overly hopeful about the Bulldogs and Chelsea’s prospects. Find Kyle on LinkedIn.

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