Liberty Media completes F1 takeover
Liberty Media has completed its acquisition of Formula One, for a sum of £6.4bn. The move means that Bernie Ecclestone has been immediately replaced by Chase Carey who now takes the position of Chief Executive Officer of F1. Ecclestone will hold the position of Chairman Emeritus of the sport.
The new group is promising a restructure in order to increase the global fan-base. Formula One’s new commercial chief, Sean Bratches, has revealed his four-point plan to make the sport better.
Sean Bratches, #F1's new managing director of commercial operations, tells @AmandaDCNN his four-point plan to take the sport forward pic.twitter.com/QU8XTvTNtm
— CNN Sport (@cnnsport) January 25, 2017
“My focus is going to be re-establishing Formula One in core F1 markets such as Europe, and then looking to growth markets that we collectively believe have the opportunity to expand the reach of the sport like Latin America, the US and Asia.
“There are four real things I am going to focus on,” he said. “We are the custodians of the new brand and we will be respectful of the past but we’re going to be very aggressive about how we take it into the future. “It will allow us to take out of the market place what we should on the commercial side from sponsors, from rights holders, to promoters.
“The second is digital. I think there is a huge opportunity in the digital space to re-imagine the digital products that F1 has today, and to engage fans in very new ways and also to use sponsors to activate it. “One of the things we are looking to do in the digital space is to elevate the personalities of the drivers and some of the conflicts that happen in the race.”
The third is that he wants “to create a little bit more of a democratic process than has been incumbent in Formula One historically,” explains Bratches. “From teams to sponsors, rights holders and promoters.”
The last point is the Grand Prix experience which is another target for change. “My focus is the race experience itself,” explains Bratches. “Recreating the circuit experience on every level, including the paddock, in a way that re-positions the experience to a festival-like environment.
Read more here on what we hope to see in Formula One with Liberty Media’s takeover.
