McLaren CEO Zak Brown emphasizes the financial strength of F1 teams, attributing success to Liberty Media’s influence and equitable revenue sharing.
Brown states that all 10 teams on the Formula 1 grid in 2024 are “well above” a valuation of one billion euros each.
Zak highlighted how Formula 1’s owners, Liberty Media, have played a crucial role in securing the sport’s financial sustainability.
This has enabled a more equitable revenue distribution among the 10 teams and, alongside cost cap regulations, has placed the entire grid on solid financial footing.
“Half of the grid is already profitable,” Brown asserts.
“This wasn’t the case five years ago. Today, each team is worth well over a billion euros. Some three times that or more. I don’t even know if you can put a price on the Ferrari team, probably the only one that would never be for sale.”
However, the 10 current teams on the grid, having weathered the storm of financial challenges brought on by the Covid pandemic to emerge with unprecedented sport popularity, are hesitant to share the spoils with an 11th team.
Liberty Protects F1 Teams
Formula One Management (FOM) and by extension Liberty share a similar viewpoint, and Andretti’s attempt to join F1 has failed, with FOM citing among other reasons that the team did not bring sufficient value to the series.
“What Liberty wants to do is protect the value of the ten existing teams,” Brown continues.
“We are no longer in a position where, before Liberty, teams would regularly disappear.”
“Today, in the post-Liberty era, there are teams wanting to enter the sport.”
“Liberty can thus judge how, when, and if they want new teams to enter.”
Another facet of Liberty era F1 is the expansion of the calendar both in volume and into new territories. The 2024 calendar boasts a record 24 races following recent additions in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Miami, and Las Vegas, the latter two following a recent boom in F1 popularity in the United States.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has suggested 24 is the limit and even hinted at rotating European races on the calendar to accommodate races in new markets, a notion Brown had previously suggested.
“If we were to have a few more races, I’d say Asia is an important territory,” says Brown.
“If we had more markets to conquer, I’d say a race in Asia, India, South Africa. That would truly give us a global footprint.”
F1 Teams Financial Strength. F1 Teams Financial Strength
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