{"id":101701,"date":"2025-05-14T20:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T20:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/101701\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T20:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T20:30:09","slug":"liberty-media-chief-makes-surprising-us-admission-with-audience-questioned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/101701\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty Media chief makes surprising US admission with audience questioned"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liberty Media\u00a0<\/strong>seems to be cooling off on the prospect of continued Formula 1 growth in the United States, with the company pointing to new, potentially lucrative audiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s the latest from Liberty Media\u2019s new CEO David Chang, who pointed at the Las Vegas Grand Prix as an example of the disconnect between Liberty Media\u2019s beliefs in its American audience, and its reality.<\/p>\n

Liberty Media CEO targets new Formula 1 audiences<\/p>\n

When Liberty Media \u2014 and American mass media company owned by billionaire John Carl Malone \u2014 bought the rights to Formula 1 for $8 billion in 2017, few people had any idea how drastically the sport was about to change.<\/p>\n

Under previous owner Bernie Ecclestone, F1 retained an insular attitude, tightly protecting its image by restricting social media usage and television filming within the paddock. But with Liberty Media came a new mindset that centered around flaunting the inner workings of the sport to draw in new fans.<\/p>\n

That mindset is epitomized by Netflix docuseries\u00a0Drive to Survive, which was well poised to become a global hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans in particular seemed entranced by this elite, European universe, and when the world emerged from pandemic restrictions, there was enough interest to justify scheduling three US races per year on the F1 calendar.<\/p>\n

Now, though, Liberty Media seems to recognize that the excitement is waning.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper into Liberty Media:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Who owns F1? All you need to know about Liberty Media and how F1 has changed since<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0New president and CEO announced by F1 owner Liberty Media<\/a><\/p>\n

New Liberty Media CEO Derek Chang \u2014 who recently attended the Miami Grand Prix after assuming the Liberty role in February of this year \u2014 recently spoke at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media, and Communications Conference to discuss F1\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the US, we [F1] are not a major player, but globally, we are,\u201d Chang explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I look at it, it\u2019s sort of, \u2018Where does the US fit into that landscape?’\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial question came as a result of concerns about F1\u2019s expiring media deal in the United States. Sources have reported that Formula 1 is hoping for $180 million per year from its next US rights deal, but ESPN is prepared to let go of those rights, while other broadcasters like NBC have clearly stated they will not be making a bid.<\/p>\n

After citing the growth of F1 in America due to\u00a0DTS and the projected growth as a result of Brad Pitt\u2019s\u00a0F1 film this summer, Chang said, \u201cWhat we\u2019re looking for [is] a partner that can continue to grow the fanbase.<\/p>\n

He did note that there\u2019s still \u201cheadroom\u201d for the sport to keep growing \u2014 but some concerning signs of slowdown have emerged.<\/p>\n

One of Chang\u2019s biggest surprises was the Las Vegas Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fall-off from the first year to the second year was a bit more dramatic than anticipated, but we see the path going forward now,\u201d Chang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see the tickets moving better this year than we did [at this time] last year, so we\u2019re cautiously optimistic that the game plan is playing out as we anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Las Vegas Grand Prix represents Formula 1\u2019s first foray into Grand Prix event management and promotion \u2014 a task usually undertaken by the host venue or a local consortium dedicated to promoting motorsport in their region.<\/p>\n

Despite putting on some impressive racing, the LVGP has come under fire for its uncomfortable schedule (particularly for fellow American viewers) as well as its sky-high ticket prices.<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s still plenty of hope that F1 will continue to grow in the United States, Chang also pointed out that the sport is trying to find inroads elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some pretty big markets out there that we\u2019re only really sort of scratch the surface on,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at a market like China where we\u2019ve actually had a race, and we probably haven\u2019t probably not invested what we should in terms of trying to build that market for ourselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll get a market like India, for instance, where the combination of sports, entertainment \u2014\u00a0 those are big businesses in India, it\u2019s just not F1. So can we break through in a way?<\/p>\n

\u201cF1 brings a lot of what you see in a market like that, which is that juxtaposition of sports and entertainment and the Bollywood and sort of an IPL is a big sport there, clearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut can you even scratch the surface of that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are markets out there that we still haven\u2019t fully even penetrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: FIA announce significant swearing ban update with crucial new rule made<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liberty Media\u00a0seems to be cooling off on the prospect of continued Formula 1 growth in the United States,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,225,12,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-101701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114508085672244243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}