LEWIS DUNCAN
MOTOGP
Formula 1 owner Liberty Media has expanded its motorsport horizons with a blockbuster deal to take over majority ownership of motorcycle racing’s MotoGP World Championship.
The US media giant has owned F1 since buying it from CVC Capital in 2016-17. CVC also owned MotoGP until 2006, when it was forced to sell its shares in commercial rights holder Dorna Sports by the European Commission’s antitrust regulatory board. Since 2006, Dorna has been 40% owned by Bridgepoint Capital, 38% by the Canadian pension fund (CPPIB), and 22% spread among members of Dorna management.
The €4.2billion buyout by Liberty means that the company will control 86% of shares in Madrid-based Dorna, with the remainder still in control of management.
The deal has been in the works for some time and was set to be announced prior to the start of the 2024 MotoGP season. But uncertainty over the possible reaction of antitrust regulatory bodies put a freeze on that plan. The fact that Liberty has gone ahead with the deal and now made it public suggests that the various antitrust bodies will put up no hurdles.
Liberty CEO Greg Maffei told investors, in a call open to Autosport, that there are several factors at play in its joint ownership of F1 and MotoGP being given the green light by regulators.
Maffei said that the media and sporting landscape has changed to such a degree since 2006 that this deal cannot be looked at in the same way as CVC’s simultaneous ownership of F1 and MotoGP. “They [CVC] were under a tight timeframe to get a deal done to buy F1,” he noted. “So, they did not have the time to go and work through the regulatory process. And they were a PE [private equity] firm which had a big gain in one product and were moving to buy the other when they had a contract to execute on. We are in a very different position.
“We are absolutely aligned as a group into a changed market. We’re not under the same sort of time pressures. We believe the regulatory process will move quickly and smoothly but will take the time they need, and this deal will get done.”
Liberty will run the deal through the European Union’s antitrust boards, as well as the UK’s, Brazil’s and Australia’s. It will also be making FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) filings in Spain and Italy. It is confident that the latter will be greenlit quickly, and is expecting a smooth process with the antitrust regulators
