Greg Maffei: “Now no F1 team is worth less than $1 billion”

Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei was in Monaco this weekend with members of the Las Vegas GP team to take part in the F1 in Depth panel, held on one of those imposing, luxurious yachts in the port of Monte Carlo. There, he explained the good health that F1 finds itself in and spoke about his prospects and expectations for Las Vegas before a small group of journalists.

F1 growth. “We have enormous growth in all metrics. Attendance at races, television audiences, engagement on social media, sponsorships... F1 has grown dramatically in all of them. I want to think that it is the result of what the F1 team has done, but it is also the result of the great sport that it is, and that we have been able to show the world.”

F1 thriving since the pandemic

Boom since 2020. “We started from a very low base. Bernie [Ecclestone] thought that social media should be renounced and drivers prevented from using it because it would harm television networks with rights. But for us, that’s a very outdated vision. Drive to Survive (the Netflix documentary series) is part of the cultural work that we’ve seen and it did very well. In addition to having fan zones or exhibitions around the world, we want the world to see what they want and experience the glamour, technology and excitement that is F1.”

The Netflix series. “It was a success, in that we were very lucky. It was inspired by Sean Bratches, he is the first father to bring the idea to Netflix. A previous CEO said that the car is the star, but it was proven that this is not the case. The car is incredibly important, but the drivers, their stories behind it, the teams and the main team, everything that surrounds the sport are the stories that have to be told and that people want to hear. That’s the difference.”

The teams, united. “We take a motto from the NFL, we compete on Sunday but on Monday we want to grow together with the sport. The teams have embraced that motto and have benefited. Income has grown, the growth in sponsorships is tremendous and the value of the teams has increased. When we arrived at the end of 2016 and made our first investment, the value of the equipment was much lower. Manor sold for a pound the previous summer. Now none of them are worth less than $1 billion, or even more.”

Las Vegas GP. “We invested 650 million dollars (the only race on the calendar in which Liberty Media is a direct promoter). We did it because we saw an opportunity. Las Vegas is a glamorous place where people go to have a good time, and F1 fits that. In addition, there would be new sponsors and fans in the United States and abroad. Fortunately, the race met expectations with a record of overtaking in 2023 in dry conditions. The track is fast and exciting. Although there was initial skepticism, we ended with enthusiasm. The perspective is long-term (a 10-year contract), of course we would like to earn more money there, but over time I think we will, we will learn to do things better. We want F1 to be tremendous, and there is no better place for that than Las Vegas.”